There are not several examples where a player was declared man of the match for his fielding efforts on the field. But the first T20 International match between South Africa and Pakistan was surely one. Proteas batsman David Miller was named the man of the match for his magnificent fielding, which helped his team to win the match by a narrow margin of 6 runs.
The first game of the three-match series was played at PPC Newlands Cape Town. South Africa hanged a target of 193 for Pakistan to chase after sparkling half-centuries from skipper Faf du Plessis and Reeza Hendricks. Pakistan had a tremendous record in T20Is in 2018, where they won 17 out of 19 games they played. Thus, they were expected to put a fight in the chase and they tried their best.
Watch – David Miller finds it tough when De Villiers doesn’t deliver
However, it was David Miller who always came in front of them whenever their batsmen tried to up the ante. First, he dismissed well set Babar Azam with a bull-eye throw and then was seen everywhere in the field to grab catches. Miller ended after involving in six dismissals, where he took four catches and caught two batsmen short of their crease.
— Baahubali (@bahubalikabadla) February 1, 2019
During the post-match press conference, South African skipper Du Plessis said “David is obviously a very good athlete. With all good fielders you want to go to where the hot-spots are, you want to go to where the ball is going to go, and that’s the most important thing. And those two run-outs were brilliant and changed the game for us.”
Pakistan skipper Shoaib Malik was fighting a lone battle and scored 49 runs off 31 balls. Tabraiz Shamsi bowled an economical spell, where he conceded only 33 runs and snared two wickets. The second T20I will be played on Sunday in Johannesburg.
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SOUTH AFRICA: Reeza Hendricks, Gihahn Cloete (wk), Faf du Plessis (capt), Rassie van der Dussen, David Miller, Heinrich Klaasen, Andile Phehlukwayo, Chris Morris, Beuran Hendricks, Junior Dala, Tabraiz Shamsi
PAKISTAN: Fakhar Zaman, Babar Azam, Hussain Talat, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Shoaib Malik (capt), Asif Ali, Imad Wasim, Shadab Khan, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Ali, Usman Shinwari
