South Africa have defeated Australia in the first twenty20 match of 2016 series played at Kingsmead in Dubran. Proteas won by 3 wickets in an exciting thriller. David Miller’s half-century in 35 balls led African team in the series by 1-0. Miller was awarded player of the match for his match winning innings.
Winning the toss, visitors chose to bat first on this batting friendly wicket. It was such a fabulous start for Australian team as they top 3 batsmen were scoring runs at 11 runs per over run rate till 6-7 overs. Then in all sudden, Aussies started to lose wickets and till 16th over they were 7 wickets down for just 114 runs. Some good hard hitting from Mitchell Marsh led Aussies to put 157 runs on the board for the loss of 9 wickets.
Imran Tahir took 3 wickets in this Australia innings. Rabada and Wiese shared 2-2 wickets each.
It was not so difficult target for Proteas’ strong batting line up. But Australia gave them big shock on the very first ball of the innings as 360 degree player AB De Villiers got out on golden duck for the first time in T20Is. Captain Faf du Plessis and David Miller were the backbone for team in this match and both played valuable innings for Africa. David Miler scored sensational 53 in just 35 balls to lead South Africa towards 3 wickets victory.
Match Summary
Toss: Australia won toss, chose bat first.
Australia innings: Aus – 157/9 in 20 overs (Finch – 40, Mitchell Marsh – 35) (Tahir – 3 wickets)
South Africa innings: SA – 158/7 in 19.2 overs (Miller – 53*, De Plessis – 40) (Coulter Nile – 3 wickets)
Result: South Africa won by 3 wickets with 4 balls remaining.
Man of the Match: David Miller
Second T20 of series will be played on 6 March.