New Delhi:
South Africa inflicted a crushing 88 run defeat over the Lankans in the 5 th and final match of the ODI series played at Centurion on Friday. The Proteas thereby won the ODI series 5-0. The series whitewash also helped South Africa topple Australia as the Number 1 ODI team in international cricket.
South Africa have now registered an impressive 11 ODI wins on the trot, both home and away. They have also been unbeaten at home over a course of 14 games.
Quinton De Cock and Hashim Amla scored scintillating tons to power the home side to a mammoth 384-run total in front of a jam packed crowd at Super Sport Park.
Chasing a herculean target, Sri Lanka were provided the early impetus by inform Niroshan Dickwella but Kagiso Rabada and Chris Morris kept on pegging the Lankans back with wickets at regular intervals. The Sri Lankans made a brave recovery of sorts with Alesa Gunaratne and Suranga Lakmal stitching together a fighting 9 th wicket partnership.
Gunaratne then stepped up the momentum and unleashed a flurry of boundaries to bring up his maiden ODI ton. His valiant effort eventually went in vain as run-rate climbed on the Lankans and it was too late by any means for the Islanders to prevent a series whitewash.
Meanwhile, Quinton de Cock became the fastest wicketkeeper batsman to score 3000 ODI runs. The attacking left-handed batsman took only 74 innings to get to the landmark. He eclipsed former Indian skipper MS Dhoni’s record of taking 90 innings to get to the milestone. South African batting lynchpin Hashim Amla forged a 187 opening partnership with De Cock and scored his 24 th ODI ton.
Ever since the inception of the ICC ODI rankings, South Africa have been one of the dominant nations in limited overs cricket and have annexed the Number One ODI rankings multiple times. This is the fifth time South Africa has surged to the top since the current rankings system was introduced in 2002. It scaled the number one ranking in February 2007, March-May 2008, January-August 2009 and October-November 2014.
