AB de Villiers takes South Africa to victory in the 1st ODI - The World Cup is fast approaching and the teams have started their preparations. South Africa hosted West Indies for the 1st of the 5 ODI matches at the Kingsmead in Durban. After losing the T20 series the home team was looking to make a strong comeback and after winning the toss they decided to bat first.
Batting first the team didn’t get off to a good start as they lost wickets of Rilee Rossouw and Faf du Plessis very early in the match. Both the batsmen failed to open their account in the score books. Despite of losing the two wickets it was the two experienced contenders that were playing for the home side as Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers scored runs at ease. Both these batsmen held together the team. Hashim Amla after scoring 66 runs was run out which bought in David Miller who along with AB de Villiers took the team to a score of 238 in 40th over when Miller after scoring 70 runs lost his wicket. The stage was set for the players to explode in the last 10 overs but the team failed to make full use of it as West Indies tighten their screws while bowling and allowed the home side to post a total of 279 in 48.2 overs as rain spoiled the rest of the innings.
The match restarted with a revised score of 226 to chase in 32 overs. Chris Gayle and Dwayne Smith gave the team a good started scoring 51 runs in 5.4 overs. Gayle after scoring 41 off 24 balls lost his wicket. The team after getting a good start lost wicket pretty easily. The South African bowlers took charge and bowled the whole team for a mere score of 164 runs. Vernon Philander, Dale Steyn and Imran Tahir took 3 wickets each in the match to give the home side the lead of 1-0 in the 5 match series. AB de Villiers was named as the man of the match for his score of 81 runs.