Yesterday England shocked the whole world with an astonishing win against hosts South Africa. Three half centuries by batsmen 3, 4 and five got them to a huge score of 329, the second highest in the history of the ICC Champions Trophy! Shah and Collingwood led the way with 98 and 82 respectively, each with very good strike rates, and got England through the tough and usually boring middle stages. Eoin Morgan then produced a magical knock of 67 off only 34 balls, which incidentally is a massive strike rate of 197. That brought England to a monstrous score and South Africa were always under pressure from then on.
When they came out to bat, they looked pretty shaken when talisman Gibbs went early. If it wasn't for the brilliance of captain Graeme Smith, South Africa surely wouldn't have even reached 50 overs. The rest of their batting line-up failed to perform , the second highest score after Smith was a mere 36 by AB De Villiers.
I must also mention the England bowlers. Yesterday they looked as dangerous as lions amongst helpless sheep. Oh, ok maybe not that good. But a special performance from Jimmy Anderson must be worth a mention. He went for only 4.2 an over and took 3 valuable wickets, one opener, one of the middle order and one of the desperate tail. He was the go-to bowler and when Strauss needed him, he didn't dissapoint. His figures were 3-42, and add that to brilliant figures of 3-20 off 9.3 overs against Sri Lanka, he's been the stand-out bowler for England and probably of the tournament so far. But he and the other bowlers need to take these good performances with them into the semis and perform even better against one of Pakistan, India and Australia, who will most likely fancy their chances that South Africa and almost Sri Lanka are packing their bags! Sri Lanka relying on England to beat New Zealand to get through.
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