Cricket: South Africa scrape through in last-over nail-biter

By RICHARD BOOCK

South Africa's blossoming international stature showed no sign of abating last night after they persevered in the opening one-dayer - despite some speed wobbles down the stretch.

Following on from all the pre-tour hype, South Africa lived up to their billing as the second-best side in world cricket, overcoming a tenacious New Zealand team and some late innings jitters to take an early lead in the series.

Having restricted New Zealand to 225 for eight, the tourists scrambled to safety at Eden Park with five wickets in hand but only two balls remaining.

It was an emphatic result that underlined South Africa's strength in all facets of the game, not to mention dispelling the theory that they were flattered by last month's triumph against the West Indies.

The main hiccups were a couple of wickets around the 30-over mark that led to the introduction of Boeta Dippenaar, who played so comfortably that South Africa never seemed genuinely in danger.

Skipper Graeme Smith provided a glimpse of his class as he bled the New Zealand attack dry, combining with Herschelle Gibbs in an opening stand of 86 and steering his side to within 77 runs of the winning mark.

Gibbs, who snared a century in his previous ODI against New Zealand, fell in the 20th over for 43, but Smith marched through to 72 before playing on to Cairns, at which point South Africa required four an over to win.

In front of a crowd of 18,300, New Zealand's hopes of building a sizeable total were initially dimmed by the vagaries of the pitch surface and then shattered by the contribution of fast-bowler Makhaya Ntini.

The man from the Eastern cape village of Mdingi was struggling for rhythm at first, but injected himself into the game in the 11th over when he brilliantly ran out New Zealand dangerman Stephen Fleming.

He then ended the debut of Michael Papps in the 15th over; had Hamish Marshall caught at the wicket in the 17th and later in the innings took a fine running catch to extinguish the growing influence of Scott Styris.

Ntini demonstrated his progress last year in England and Pakistan, and before that was one of the few South African players to emerge from their disastrous World Cup campaign with his reputation intact.

That was the tournament in which New Zealand posted just their second win over South Africa in 18 games, fuelled by a marvellous unbeaten century from Fleming and an agonising dropped catch from wicket-keeper Mark Boucher. However, last night Boucher snared one of the finest diving catches seen at the ground. He threw himself full-length to his right to accept a catch off the blade of Papps, his 250th dismissal in ODI cricket and providing Ntini with the 139th of his career.

New Zealand were badly damaged by the loss of Fleming, and only got through to 225 courtesy of a 91-run fifth-wicket partnership between Styris and Chris Cairns.

Cairns partly answered his critics with his third half-century in 18 innings, and Styris, who top-scored for New Zealand with 60 off 81 balls, looked capable of repeating last month's century-making efforts until he holed out to Ntini.