“I had time and we were in a bit of trouble.” – the stirred, not shaken, David Miller.
Telford Vice | Cape Town
SOUTH Africa will thank David Miller’s lucky stars. He was 19 when he edged Josh Little only for Lorcan Tucker to drop a chance he should have held. But, for the most part in the second T20I at Stormont on Thursday, there was no taming the lusty left-hander. The luck of the Irish didn’t stand a chance against Miller in this mood.
The visitors were 38/4 when he took guard in the seventh over. Midway through the innings, when he had scored 15 off as many balls and hit only one four, they had shambled to 58/5. What happened next, and kept happening, was difficult to believe.
The second half of South Africa’s innings yielded 101 runs. Miller made 60 of them. The last five overs sailed for 68. Miller owned 45 of those. And to think he faced only 29 balls in the last 10 overs — or one delivery less than half the bowling. Little bowled a fateful last over, which went for 24: all of them from sixes, all four of them hit by Miller.
Little bowled with aggression, decent pace and appreciable seam movement, and he deserved better. He had been immaculate in his first two overs, which cost only 14 runs. True to that form, he kept the damage down to four in his third over — which ended with the chance offered by Miller.
How differently matters would have unfolded had Tucker claimed the catch. Instead, Miller hammered an undefeated 75, 54 of them in fours and sixes, off 44 balls. “I had time and we were in a bit of trouble,” was how Miller, who talks in terms inversely proportionate to how he plays, summed up his innings.
Miller’s performance — and only Miller’s performance — took South Africa to a defendable total of 159/7. Much of the rest of their batting was wretched, as epitomised by Temba Bavuma and Janneman Malan, who fell in the first over to Paul Stirling’s innocuous off-spin.
Quinton de Kock looked like restoring sanity before he was trapped in front for 27 by Simi Singh. Wiaan Mulder hung tough for 36 then miscued a booming on-drive and was caught at cover off Craig Young. So in Miller South Africa had to trust.
All the visitors needed in the wake of his blast was to impose themselves early in Ireland’s reply. Bjorn Fortuin, playing his first match of the Ireland leg of a tour that started in the Caribbean last month, obliged by inflicting Kevin O’Brien’s third duck in three innings. Beuran Hendricks, another new face — he last featured for any team in the third T20I against Pakistan in Centurion in April — induced a top-edged bloop to De Kock in the fifth over to remove the important Andy Balbirnie from the equation.
Inevitability was in the sun-splashed air by the time Tabraiz Shamsi, the No. 1-ranked bowler in the format, skipped in to start the eighth over. He removed Stirling and George Dockrell in his first dozen deliveries, in which he conceded seven runs, claimed Shane Getkate with the second ball of his third over, and banked a haul of 3/14.
Fortuin, who also went for seven in his first two overs, dismissed Tucker and Singh in his third, finished with 3/16 and reminding South Africa that their spin depth is better than ever. Hendricks, their only left-arm fast bowler currently in the mix, added Young’s wicket to his quiver to take 2/28 and do his chances of more gametime no harm.
Ireland were knocked over for 117 in their last over, earning South Africa the series and rendering Saturday’s match irrelevant.
None of which would have happened without Miller, who hasn’t always played to his potential. He scored 52 runs in five T20I innings against West Indies and 24 and 28 in the ODI series in Ireland. But he lived up to his billing on Thursday, leaving many to wonder what might have been. Or what might yet be …
First published by Cricbuzz.
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