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South Africa vs Sri Lanka ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 quarter-final 1: South Africa’s resilience, Kumar Sangakkara’s unusual innings and other highlights

South Africa become the first team to reach the semi-final of the World Cup.

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Sri Lanka suffered a heavy defeat by nine wickets at the hands of South Africa as they were knocked out of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015, in the first quarter-final match at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG). Devarchit Varma brings the highlights from the match. LIVE SCORECARD: South Africa vs Sri Lanka

South Africa, finally ended their poor run in the knockout matches of the ICC tournament as they thrashed Sri Lanka by a huge margin of nine wickets at Sydney on Wednesday. Despite losing the crucial toss, South Africa bowled their hearts out and restricted Sri Lanka to a paltry total of 133 all out from 37.2 overs. In their reply, South Africa did not look in trouble ever as Quinton de Kock bounced back to form in a splendid manner and lead his side to a huge win. READ:  Video: Quinton de Kock’s amazing catch in South Africa vs Sri Lanka Quarter-Final

South Africa were dominant right from the word go as they never allowed the Sri Lankans to make a comeback in the game. The men lead by AB de Villiers looked like as if they were on a mission to break the unending ignominy of not crossing the finish line ever in the knockout matches of the ICC tournaments. South Africa did not misfield, did not drop any catch, did not give too many easy and extra runs, and also did not make any mistake while batting. Let’s take a look at the highlights of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 quarter-final 1 between Sri Lanka and South Africa: READ: JP Duminy’s hat-trick during South Africa vs Sri Lanka Quarter-Final match Video

Quinton de Kock’s rise: Sri Lanka made an unusual change as they sent in Kusal Perera to open the innings. The left-handed batsman threw his bat at almost every ball and in the second over, he got an outside edge. The ball was going in the direction of the first slip but Quinton de Kock dived to his left and collected the ball which ricocheted off his gloves as he fell on the ground. De Kock might have spilled it as well — but the intent was visible in the effort as he did not want to let the opportunity to away from him. With the bat, de Kock has had a poor run but today he turned out to end the dry run. De Kock played his trademark strokes all over the field and did not give any chance for Sri Lanka to capitalise. READ: Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene retire from ODIs: Twitter reactions

Kumar Sangakkara’s freeze: If you would say that a player with such a huge stature and aura got bogged down by pressure of the occasion, you would be very wrong. Kumar Sangakkara walked out to bat when Sri Lanka were in trouble, but the way he went about his inning shocked everyone. Sangakkara took the first run on the 16th ball he faced and the second on the 23rd. He not only struggled to rotate the strike but Sangakkara, the man who was coming off from four centuries on a trot, failed to middle the ball and even find the gaps, which he has been doing with so much ease. Sangakkara’s struggle played in favour of the South Africans, who kept on piling misery on the Sri Lankans.In Photos:  SL vs SA, ICC Cricket World Cup 2015: 1st quarter-final at Sydney

South Africa’s spinners come to party: There are days when the best bowlers are slammed all over the park and then there are days when the part times make merry. Today was the day when it belonged to the bowlers from the second category. Imran Tahir has been excellent for South Africa, but no one in their dream would have thought that it will be JP Duminy who would spoil Sri Lanka’s party. Duminy became the first South African to take a World Cup hat-trick and overall the second player in their history to do so in One-Day International Cricket. Tahir, who has been really doing well in this World Cup, was named Man of the Match for his four-wicket haul. READ: JP Duminy, Imran Tahir create South African record

Heavens cry as Sangakkara gets out: The collapse from the lower-order forced Sangakkara to wake up from the nightmare that we was having and score some much-needed runs. Sangakkara indeed responded with a couple of boundaries when the batting powerplay was taken in the 36th over, but he fell in the next over itself. The moment Sangakkara was dismissed, out of nowhere, it started raining and it looked like as if the gods were not happy seeing the Sri Lankan legend walk back after his final innings in ODI cricket.

(Devarchit Varma is a reporter with CricketCountry. He can be followed on Twitter @Devarchit)

 

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