T20 World Cup: Anrich Nortje returns in style as South Africa blast out Sri Lanka to start campaign in style

If the IPL was about teams trying to break the 300-run barrier, cricket at the Big Apple threatens to make 150 seem like a dream. On a drop-in pitch in New York that had its birth in Adelaide and growth in Florida, and played like a combination of Centurion and Colombo tracks – the ball often kicked up with seam movement and occasionally died down, bouncing in front of the wicketkeeper or stopping on the batsmen – the South African seamers bared their fangs. And Sri Lanka were shot out for 77.

The islanders adapted to the conditions in the second innings by using medium pacers Angelo Mathews and Dasun Shanaka in the Powerplay as South Africa’s batsmen too struggled to get going, but the target unsurprisingly proved difficult to defend.

In hindsight, Sri Lanka will rue their decision to bat first after winning the toss. Near the end of the chase, after 10 overs, the Sri Lankan spinners had the ball stopping a touch as well, rendering shotmaking even more difficult.

This was a complete contrast to the relentless run-fests in the nearly two-month-long IPL, though it remains to be seen if it’s a sign of things to come or the drop-in pitches settle down subsequently.

The only slip-up any South African had on the field came from Kagiso Rabada when he slipped while releasing his first ball and went down tumbling. For the rest of the game, the bowlers would often stand mid-pitch and wince at a ball that had just beaten the bat, or stare imperiously at the batsmen. Or even smile at their struggles, as seamer Ottneil Baartman did a couple of times.

Among the usual South African names that starred – like Marco Jansen who bowled a hellish first over where the ball kicked past the bat a few times, Anrich Nortje who hassled with pace and bounce allying them with his yorkers, and a steady Rabada who didn’t have to extend himself much but hit varied lengths – it was Baartman who sparkled in his first two overs.

They came inside the Powerplay, as he nipped the ball in both directions to really test Kusal Mendis’s technique. Baartman picked up a wicket, off his first delivery in fact and hence his first ball in a World Cup, the first South African to achieve that feat. But it was probably his least threatening ball of the game, as Nissanka slogged a length ball outside off into the hands of Heinrich Klassen at third man.

But perhaps it would be Nortje’s return from injury that South Africa would relish. In the 8th over, he had Kamindu Mendis wristing a pick-up shot to deep square-leg. In the 10th over, he bounced at Kusal Mendis whose attempted pull only dragged the ball into the palms of deep square-leg. Asalanka then gifted him a wicket, flicking a half-volley straight to deep backward square-leg in the 12th over. The bouncer did the job in the 15th over as Mathews miscued a pull and Nortje ended up with figures of 4 for 7 from his four overs.

The turgid chase

When Tristan Stubbs takes 28 balls to eke out 13 runs, it says something about the state of the pitch. Quinton de Kock too made just 20 from 27 balls as Sri Lanka put in a spirited performance trying to defend the paltry total. They had Mathews and Shanaka bowling in the Powerplay and the two got the ball to grip and move around a touch. They held back their spinners until the half-way mark, and South Africa found the going pretty tough. Not necessarily in terms of survival, but in trying to score. Somehow amidst this drudgery, Aiden Markram unfurled a stunning six over extra cover, creaming Nuwan Thushara’s length delivery up and over in some style. But that was a rarity and South Africa crawled past the line.

In the 1920s, African-American stablehands at horse racing tracks in New York would use the term ‘Big Apple’ to refer to where a winning horse would be sent, and it meant “the big reward, the big time, the place for big money”. It would eventually become a moniker for the city and if Monday’s game is anything to go by, the Big Apple in the T20 World Cup in the US lies in the hands of the seamers, both fast and medium variety, and the spinners who have the guile to use the sluggish pace to choke batsmen.

Brief scores: Sri Lanka 77 all out in 19.1 overs (Nortje 4/7) lost to South Africa 80/4 in 16.2 overs by 6 wickets