The Netherlands threatened to shock South Africa for the third successive time in an ICC event before David Miller guided the Proteas to a hard-fought victory with a match-winning half-century in match 16 of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2024 in New York. (As It Happened | Scorecard)
Miller's unbeaten 59 from 51 balls helped South Africa defeat the Netherlands by four wickets with seven balls in hand.
Chasing just 104, South Africa were reduced to 3/3 and then to 12/4 as the Dutch new ball bowlers, Vivian Kingma and Logan van Beek, impressed with their discipline. The much famed South African batting line up could muster just 16 runs in the powerplay, lowest in their T20I history.
Miller and Stubbs then combined to stabilise the Proteas innings. The first boundary of the chase came in the ninth over and after that the innings got some momentum.
In a bid to push harder towards the target, Stubbs fell in the 17th over to Bas de Leede for 33. Marco Jansen also departed in the next over to make things interesting.
Withh 16 needed off the last two overs, Miller took the matter in his own hands and smashed de Leede for two sixes and a four to scale in the target with seven balls in hand.
Earlier, after being put into bat by the Proteas captain Aiden Markram, Netherlands also struggled with the bat. Marco Jansen swung the ball in the powerplay and struck twice as the Dutch could only get to 20/3 in the first six overs.
Things kept getting tougher for the Netherlands batters as they soon found themselves struggling at 48/6 in 12 overs. Sybrand Engelbrecht then found an able partner in Logan van Beek and the duo stitched a half-century stand to take Netherlands above 100.
However, the Scott Edwards-led team could not get the desired finish as Ottniel Baartman took three wickets in the final over giving away just a single run. Baartman finished with a four-wicket-haul and Netherlands could only get to 103/9 in their 20 overs.
With the win South Africa go on top of Group D with two wins in two games while Netherlands, with a win and a loss, are tied on points with Bangladesh.
