South Africa A cruise to third place
A solid all-round showing from Theunis de Bruyn helped South Africa A clinch third place in the A-team quadrangular series in Australia without much bother
ESPNcricinfo staff
03-Sep-2016
South Africa A 1 for 209 (de Bruyn 90*, Miller 72*) beat National Performance Squad 207 (Short 70, Harper 60, Pretorius 2-20, de Bruyn 2-37) by nine wickets
Scorecard
Scorecard
A solid all-round showing from Theunis de Bruyn helped South Africa A clinch third place in the A-team quadrangular series in Australia without much bother. They bowled out Australia's National Performance Squad (NPS), which had chosen to bat, for 207, before cruising to their target with 11.4 overs and nine wickets to spare. De Bruyn first took career-best figures of 2 for 37 with his part-time medium pace, before batting through the chase for 90 off 119 balls.
David Miller also fired for South Africa A, hitting his third score over fifty in the tournament to power the team home in an unbroken stand of 135 with de Bruyn.
But most of the damage to the NPS was done in the first innings, when only three of their batsmen got into double-digits. Things looked bleak for them when they lost both openers cheaply and also lost Sam Heazlett on 35 to injury, but respectability was added to the total courtesy fifties from middle-order batsmen Sam Harper and Matthew Short. For 19-year-old Harper the knock of 60 was a second successive fifty, while for 20-year-old Short his 70 was his maiden List-A half-century. There was no support offered from the lower order, though, and the team was bowled out in 48.3 overs.
Alongside de Bruyn, fast bowlers Dwaine Pretorius and Andile Phehlukwayo also picked up two wickets apiece, but Pretorius was the most economical of the lot.