Pivotal assault on left-arm spinner condemns South Africa to another semi-final exit
Danyal Rasool05-Mar-20251:51
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Keshav Maharaj smiled when he was hit for four. It was the next shot, like the dramatically raised voice from an authority figure which leaves no doubt who is in charge, that wiped the smile from Maharaj’s face.Rachin Ravindra danced down the pitch in the Champions Trophy semi-final with the quiet menace of a leopard, padded feet and silent limbs. He got close enough to pick it up off the pitch flat over long-on and yet well over the boundary. On a pleasant March day, as a cool breeze made for unseasonally hospitable playing conditions, New Zealand began to breathe comfortably again.South Africa’s hand had just begun to close around their opponents’ throats, with Maharaj initiating the squeezing. New Zealand had made an excellent start after opting to bat first, unconcerned by the dew; they handily beat Pakistan a month earlier defending a total in even cooler conditions. Spinners had bowled 26 of those overs, and Mitchell Santner told ESPNcricinfo bowling under lights at the Gaddafi did not perturb his side.South Africa turned to Maharaj, so effective at playing spoiler for any opposition side in full flow. In the previous game against England, he bowled 36 dot balls in an asphyxiating spell, the fourth-most this tournament and the third-highest England have faced in ODI cricket since January 2024. He was carrying on where he left off, leaking just 14 in his first four.Related
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Ravindra and Kane Williamson, both beautifully set on a featherbed and in full flow, had managed just 21 runs in the last six overs. With Marco Jansen struggling and Aiden Markram only passing a fitness test late on the eve of the match, South Africa barely had a sixth bowling option to turn to, and Maharaj needed to deliver. Until now, he had been. “I couldn’t actually rotate the strike as well as I wanted and he was changing his pace really nicely,” Ravindra said later.But, like a signal from a lioness to her pack, New Zealand collectively moved in for the kill, and honed in on Maharaj. If South Africa had expected problems with their sixth bowler, wait till they realised they had issues with number one. With Ravindra leading the way, Williamson, the grandfather clock of this side, rushed on. His innings was, until then, the classically sedate cantata to the punk-rock audacity of his young team-mate’s, having glided to 40 off 57. Here, he raised the tempo, charging down the surface and picking Maharaj up for a midwicket six. Even as Temba Bavuma’s bowling options dwindled, he had little choice but to take Maharaj out of the attack.3:59
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“For me, left-hander, left-arm spinner, it’s always your match-up,” Ravindra said later. “Especially when he was bowling into the wind, so I decided to take a couple of balls down. And Kane just pushed the tempo so beautifully.”Hiding Maharaj away for five overs, though, did not soften New Zealand’s approach towards him. Once that first hit connects, and blood is drawn, the fighter no longer appears as invincible. New Zealand plundered 42 off those five, sitting pretty at 201 with just the solitary loss in 32 overs. Maharaz was brought on again in an attempt to asphyxiate, but the room was no longer claustrophobic.Williamson leapt out of his crease again, lofting Maharaj for another six that sank into the sightscreen, taking with it South African hopes of any leash on this New Zealand side. Since Ravindra’s takedown, this pair – against whom Maharaj bowled all but 10 balls of his spell – scored 45 runs in 26 against him. Maharaj would end with 0 for 65, his most expensive ODI spell since his debut match in 2017.”I think [Ravindra and Williamson] played particularly well against Keshav,” South Africa coach Rob Walter said. “The ball did spin a little bit more in in the second innings which would have contributed to that but, as I said, they played him very well. Kesh is a world-class bowler, we know that, so to put him under pressure and to turn the tide a little bit there changed the flow of the game, so we have to commend the two world-class batters batting together.”Before this game, it was this battle of the left-arm spinners, Maharaj and Santner, which appeared destined to script the fate of the middle overs. A couple of hours later, Santner introduced himself in similar circumstances, with South Africa kicking on after a platform, walking that tightrope between aggression and wicket-preservation. Rassie van der Dussen pumped him for six the ball after Williamson dropped Bavuma, and South Africa’s vengeance for the battering their star man received was on.The following Santner over, Bavuma tried to go over the top again, only to mis-hit it straight into Williamson’s lap. With Santner understanding perfectly the value of bowling second on a deteriorating pitch, he darted one in fast that ripped off middle and clipped van der Dussen’s off stump. Four deliveries later, it was Klaasen he snared as South Africa clung on for dear life. It was not the flashiest part of a game in which 674 runs were scored, but Santner would concede 22 fewer than his South African counterpart, and take three more wickets. Santner had tipped them off that tightrope.When Maharaj bowled his final over, Williamson defended the fourth and fifth balls, then nudged him away for a single to sign off. Just two came off it, but Maharaj was no longer smiling. The direction of the contest, he understood, had turned irreversibly when two talented batters decided they need not hunt for opposition weakness. They had nothing to fear, even against the best.It feels, as New Zealand take that one step closer to glory, like a thought they might try and hold until Sunday.
