Proteas ease past Scots
Graeme Smith led by example in the Proteas' win
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Tuesday, 20, Mar 2007 11:56
South Africa made short work of their Group A encounter with Scotland, romping home to victory by seven wickets and ending their opponents' slim hopes of making it through to the next stage.
While some of the teams touted as potential winners of the competition have slipped up against the minnows, Graeme Smith's men looked good value for their position at the top of the ICC's one-day rankings.
The Scots padded up first and after a slow start and a rapid series of wickets it appeared that they may not make use of the allotted fifty overs.
After stuttering to 35 without loss the introduction of Andrew Hall and Charl Langeveldt into the South African attack prodded the Scottish openers into surrendering their wickets in quick succession.
With Gavin Hamilton (4) and Neil McCallum (1) offering only the briefest resistance, it appeared that the underdogs' innings was in freefall at 84-5.
But gutsy innings' from John Blain and Paul Hoffman, who hit 23 and 18 respectively, supplemented a bruising 45 not out from number six Dougie Brown to push the score on to a respectable 186-8 at the close.
Although this set a new landmark as the highest score by the Scots in the competition's history, the unforgiving Smith and fellow opener AB de Villiers ensured it was quickly brought into view with knocks of 91 and 62.
When the skipper departed the crease after offering up a simple catch to McCallum off the bowling of Majid Haq, there were only another nine runs need to surpass the Scots mark and his team-mates duly cleaned up with 26 overs to spare.