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Van Wyk blasts SA to double triumph
Morne Van Wyk hit his second century of the tournament -- a blistering unbeaten effort -- to lead South Africa A to a seven-wicket victory over their Sri Lanka counterparts in the final of the triangular A team tournament at the Sinhalese Sports Club, Colombo, on Monday.
It completed a magnificent double for the A side who earlier this year won a similar tournament in Bangladesh. It means that they have now beaten their counterparts from Bangladesh, the West Indies, Sri Lanka and Pakistan and have, more importantly, done it under Asian sub-continent conditions.
This follows the SA Emerging Squad winning their tournament in Australia when they had to contend with powerful squads from India and New Zealand in addition to their hosts.
With Van Wyk leading the way the South African win was never in doubt. He smashed 136 runs off 108 balls with 16 fours and two sixes to make sure that the run rate was always above six to the over in pursuit of a target of 252.
Bad weather interfered with the match with Sri Lanka, who won the toss, being restricted to 47 overs and South Africa to 44.
In the end South Africa reached their target in 40.5 overs to win with 19 balls to spare.
Van Wyk was well supported by his partners. He and Stiaan van Zyl put on 96 for the first wicket in 13 overs; then Colin Ingram helped add 75 for the second wicket in another 13 overs; and David Miller an unbroken 64 for the fourth wicket in nine overs.
Ironically the only batsman to fail was Dean Elgar -- his only failure of the entire tour -- and it cost him the honour of being the leading runs scorer in the tournament. That went to Van Wyk who finished the series with an average in excess of 130.
The bowlers also played their part in restricting the Sri Lankan total although they could not stop test opener Tharanga Paranavitana from scoring his second successive century (108 off 126 balls with 10 fours and a six).
The key moment came when Vernon Philander took two wickets in four balls.
Philander took eight wickets in the tournament while Rusty Theron finished the leading wicket-taker with nine.
The team returns to South Africa on Tuesday evening and several of the players such as Theron and Ingram will go straight into action in the Airtel Champions League T20.
