Miller, Baartman star in South Africa’s win over Netherlands

NEW YORK: David Miller came up with a splendid match-winning under mounting pressure to guide South Africa to a thrilling four-wicket win over Netherlands in a World T20 match here. Set to chase a tricky 104, SA found itself tottering at 12 for 4 in the 5th over. That was when Miller 59 not out (51b, 3x4, 4x6) found an able ally in Tristan Stubbs who scored 33 (37b, 1x4, 1x6) as the duo added 65 runs for the fifth wicket.

Earlier, pacer Ottneil Baartman registered his best bowling figures of 4 for 11 as South Africa produced a fine bowling effort to restrict Netherlands to 103 for nine.

Baartman returned with impressive figures, while Marco Jansen (2/20) and Anrich Nortje (2/19) picked up two wickets apiece.

South Africa made a bright start after opting to bowl, getting the first breakthrough in the third ball of the innings.

Jansen induced an inside edge from Michael Levitt, which wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock picked up even as the bowler and umpire failed to realise the snick. De Kock instantly went for the review and was successful.

It could have two down for Netherlands in the third over. Vikramjit Singh’s outside edge off a short delivery from Jansen was snaffled by De Kock but the bowler had overstepped by a long way.

The Dutch batters found it difficult to negotiate South African bowlers on the tricky New York pitch as they kept losing wickets.

Baartman registered his name in the wickets tally when he dismissed Max O’Dowd but the credit should go to Jansen who took a one-handed blinder at first slip.

Vikramjit failed to cash in on the reprieve as he soon departed in the next over with Jansen disturbing his timbers.

Bas de Leede too found it difficult to handle the uneven bounce of the pitch as he ballooned one to David Miller at point from a back of a length delivery from Anrich Nortje.

Netherlands skipper Scott Edwards showed some early aggression, scooping Nortje for a six but his SA counterpart Aiden Markram found him short of the crease with a direct hit at the non-striker's end.

It was raining wickets for South Africa as Nortje dismissed Teja Nidamanuru in the same over as the batter spooned one to Henrich Klaasen at deep third man.

Sybrand Engelbrecht (40 off 45) and Logan van Beek then shared 54 runs for the seventh wicket to bring some respectability to Netherlands total.

But once Engelbrecht and Tim Pringle departed in the final over, the writing was on the wall for Netherlands as they could only muster a below-par total.

Brief scores: Netherlands 103/9 in 20 overs (S Engelbrecht 40, O Baartman 4/11) lost to South Africa 106/6 in 18.5 overs (D Miller 59*)