It wasn’t the best of starts for South Africa in the 2022 ICC T20 World Cup because what should’ve been a victory for them ended up being a washed out game and shared points in their first game of the Super 12s stage vs Zimbabwe. They were determined to make a comeback and put up a big win when they headed out to the SCG in their second game of the tournament today.
The game was the first of today’s triple header – South Africa vs Bangladesh. The crowd was quiet in Sydney but whoever was in the stadium got to witness one of the best T20 innings we’ve seen in recent times as South Africa batted first and records started falling like dominoes pins. This was thanks mostly to their in-form middle order batter, Rilee Rossouw.
Rilee Rossouw gets first century of T20 WC 2022
Averaging above 50 and scoring at a strike rate of 150+ in the calendar year 2022, Rossouw kicked off his World Cup campaign on a great note too, stitching up a massive partnership with wicket-keeper Quinton de Kock after they lost their captain Temba Bavuma very early on in the game. They hit, and hit more, and hit to all corners of the ground, taking South Africa to a record total.
De Kock was unfortunate to be caught in the deep in the 15th over when the score was 170/1 but not before the duo put up the highest ever partnership (for any wicket or team) in the history of the T20 World Cup, smashing 168(85) for the second wicket. Rossouw was in his nineties at the time and eventually, he went on to become the first centurion of the 2022 T20 World Cup.
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He entered an elite ICC T20 World Cup centuries list where the likes of Mahela Jayawardene, Chris Gayle, Suresh Raina, Brendon McCullum, and others have been featured. It was also the highest score by a South African in the T20 World Cup history even before he got to the magical 3-figure mark, but he wasn’t satisfied till he got to that personal milestone.
For those who don’t know, this wasn’t even his first T20I century, scoring 100* in a T20I against India in India earlier this month itself. Post that, he got an unbeaten fifty in a warmup game before this tournament began and here on the afternoon of 27th October 2022, he went on to get his second T20I century and also career best T20I score of 109(56), eventually dismissed in the 19th over by Shakib al Hasan.
His last five scoring runs in the build up to the century were all singles and it showed how nervous he was to get to the milestone. He brought up his century in just 52 balls and helped them launch in the last few overs too. He was the only second player to get to two consecutive T20I centuries, after French batsman Gustav McKeon. SA in this important World Cup clash went on to score a total of 205/5.
Rilee Rossouw becomes the first player in history from full member teams to score consecutive centuries in T20is.
— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) October 27, 2022
It was a crucial game for both sides and Bangladesh managed to pull it back towards the end, as SA threatened to get 230+ at one stage, only managing 29/3 in the last 5 overs of the innings. The Bangla captain Shakib went on to end as the top bowler of the innings with 2/33 to his name. For more updates from the 2022 T20 World Cup, remember to always stay tuned to ReadScoops.com…
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