Stokes show for England

England got off to a flying start as Ben Stokes came up with a remarkable all-round performance to guide the host to a 104-run win against South Africa at The Oval on Thursday,

Chasing 312, SA was well on course when opener Quinton de Kock (68 off 74 balls) was at the crease. Though the away side lost Hashim Amla early, de Kock put England on the backfoot with controlled hitting. Amla retired hurt after being hit on the head by Jofra Archer. He did come on to bat later in the innings, but couldn’t create any impact.

Aiden Markram and Faf du Plessis too did not last long but stumper de Kock kept his team in the hunt until he fell to pacer Liam Plunkett. Stokes then came up with an out-of-the-world catch to dismiss Andile Phehlukwayo.

Earlier, failure of its batsmen to convert starts saw England post 311 for eight after South Africa won the toss and elected to bowl. Riding on fifties from Jason Roy (54), Joe Root (51), Eoin Morgan (57) and Ben Stokes (89), the host ensured that the failures of Jonny Bairstow and Jos Buttler didn’t hurt it too much. The South African bowlers though put on a quality show in the second half of the innings to claw their way back into the game.

SA skipper Faf du Plessis gave the ball to leg-spinner Imran Tahir and he reposed the faith shown in him by sending back Bairstow off the second ball of the opening over. Tahir used the googly to great effect as he took the edge of the bat and de Kock did the rest. The early dismissal of Bairstow (0) brought Root and Roy together.

Not just focusing on the boundaries, both Roy and Root looked to keep the scoreboard ticking as they reached 60 for one in the first 10 overs.

Putting on a quality 100-run partnership, it looked like the duo would run away with the game when Phehlukwayo dismissed Roy against the run of play, caught by skipper du Plessis.

Walking in at number four, Morgan made his intentions very clear as he hit the second ball that he faced from Phehlukwayo for a boundary.

But even before the duo could strike a partnership, Kagiso Rabada sent back Root as a casual sliced drive off his bat found JP Duminy at backward point. While the Proteas players celebrated the fall of the second English wicket in four balls, it was also the start of another quality partnership between Morgan and Stokes. As the pair mostly looked to pick the singles in the middle overs, Morgan took special liking for Lungi Ngidi in the 26th over and hit the pacer for back-to-back sixes to bring up 7,000 runs for himself in ODI cricket for England. Even though Morgan looked his fluent self, it took Stokes some time to open up and the 36th over of the innings saw him get stuck into Dwaine Pretorius. He picked up three boundaries from the pacer’s over to also bring up his own fifty.

With the fast bowlers failing to create an impact, du Plessis turned back to Tahir and the wily old fox struck again as his flighted leg-spinner got Morgan to go for the swing and the English skipper failed to connect well as Markram completed a brilliant catch running in from long-on. Ngidi cleaned Buttler up wand that signalled an English middle-order collapse.

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Q de Kock c J Root b L Plunkett 68

H Amla c J Buttler b L Plunkett 13

A Markram c J Root b J Archer 11

F du Plessis c M Ali b J Archer 5

Van der Dussen c M Ali b J Archer 50

JP Duminy c B Stokes b M Ali 8

D Pretorius run out 1

A Phehlukwayo c B Stokes b A Rashid 24

K Rabada c L Plunkett b B Stokes 11

L Ngidi not out 6

I Tahir c J Root b B Stokes 0

Extras: 10

Total (in 39.5 overs) 207

FoW: 1-36, 2-44, 3-129, 4-142, 5-144, 6-167, 7-180, 8-193, 9-207

Bowling: Chris Woakes 5-0-24-0, Jofra Archer 7-1-27-3, Adil Rashid 8-0-35-1, Moeen Ali 10-0-63-1, Liam Plunkett 7-0-37-2, Ben Stokes 2.5-0-12-2

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Legendary Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar made his on-air expert debut with the World Cup on Thursday. Tendulkar graced the commentary box during the tournament opener between England and South Africa at The Oval, London. The Master Blaster joined the Philips Hue Cricket Live pre-show in Hindi and English at 1.30 p.m. with his very own segment ‘Sachin Opens Again’ at the Star Sports network. Tendulkar holds a number of ICC Cricket World Cup records. He scored 2,278 runs in the six editions of the World Cup he played. He also holds the record for scoring the highest number of runs in a single edition.

J Roy c F du Plessis b A Phehlukwayo 54

J Bairstow c Q de Kock b I Tahir 0

J Root c JP Duminy b K Rabada 51

E Morgan c A Markram b I Tahir 57

B Stokes c H Amla b L Ngidi 89

J Buttler b L Ngidi 18

M Ali c F du Plessis b L Ngidi 3

C Woakes c F du Plessis b K Rabada 13

L Plunkett not out 9

J Archer not out 7

Extras: 10

Total (for 8 wickets in 50 overs) 311

FoW: 1-1, 2-107, 3-111, 4-217, 5-247, 6-260, 7-285, 8-300

Bowling: Imran Tahir 10-0-61-2, Lungi Ngidi 10-0-66-3, Kagiso Rabada 10-0-66-2, Dwaine Pretorius 7-0-42-0, Andile Phehlukwayo 8-0-44-1, Jean-Paul Duminy 2-0-14-0, Aiden Markram 3-0-16-0