Cricketers of the Week: Feb 26th - March 4th
Three ODIs and the first day of a tough Test give us the five top cricketers of the week. Like all good cricket matches, these games have given us both batsmen and bowlers who performed out of their skins to get their country a timely advantage.
There were centuries and five-wicket hauls, for what is the fun in keeping stats without these milestones. Without much ado, let us look at the top performances of the week.
#5 Kagiso Rabada and Imran Tahir (South Africa)
It was hard to leave one of them out for the other, so good has been their bowling in the fifth ODI between South Africa and New Zealand at Eden Park, Auckland. In the series-deciding game, New Zealand capitulated to 149 all out in just 41.1 overs thanks to great spells from Imran Tahir and Kagiso Rabada.
Rabada, who won the Player of the Match, registered match figures of 7.1-1-25-3, picking up the big wicket of Martin Guptill, along with those of James Neesham and Colin Grandhomme.
Tahir was particularly brilliant with match figures of 10-0-14-2. He didn’t concede even a single boundary and bowled 46 dot balls, cleaning up the New Zealand tail. He picked up the wickets of lower-order batsmen Tim Southee and JS Patel in consecutive overs.
South Africa didn’t have the best of starts at 6 for 1, dropping later to 48 for 3 but Faf du Plessis’ unbeaten half-century made short work of the target allowing them to pick the series trophy and climb to the No.1 position in ODIs.