South African spinners spin Sri Lanka out of the World Cup - The 42 pool matches ended for the world cup and it was the time for knock out matches. The 1st Quarter-final of the 2015 world cup was to be played between Sri Lanka and South Africa. This was the most awaited part of the cup as now the top 8 teams will be fighting against each other. In the 1st Quarter-final it was a match of the most consistent team Sri Lanka and the all-time chokers South Africa. Sri Lanka won the toss and decided to bat first in the 1st knockout match.
The Sri Lankan’s had a bad start to their campaign of getting through to the next phase of the world cup. Kusal Perera and Tillakaratne Dilshan failed to score much as they departed in the 5th over of the game. The Sri Lankans were at 4/2 when Kumar Sangakkara and Lahiru Thirimanne took the field. These two batsmen took the team to a score of 69 in 19 overs. The very 1st ball of the 20th over saw Thirimanne lose his wicket after scoring 41 runs. Sangakkara was fighting a lone battle. His teammates failed to score and survive against a charged up bowling line-up of South Africa. Jean Paul Duminy took a hat-trick in this match and this resulted in Sri Lanka getting bowled out for 133 only. Sangakkara scored 45 runs and was the top scorer in the team. Imran Tahir took 4 wickets for the team.
The South Africans were only 134 runs behind the semi-final stage of the world cup. Hashim Amla lost his wicket in the 7th over after scoring only 16 runs and looked that the Sri Lankan bowler had the chance of creating few chances. Quinton de Kock had some different plans as he scored 78 runs of 57 balls as South Africa won the match in 18 overs knocking Sri Lanka out of the world cup. Imran Tahir was named as the man of the match. Now South Africa will be facing the winner of 4th Quarter-final of the world cup.