Player of the Match
Player of the Match

The last time AB de Villiers and South Africa were at Eden Park in an ODI, it ended with them in tears and at pains to come to terms with what had happened. Tonight, they lift the trophy with a smile. Certainly, this does not compare to a win in a World Cup semifinal, but beating New Zealand in New Zealand is a big deal. Not only do South Africa leave Eden Park with fonder memories, they leave it with the No. 1 ranking in their possession too. It was a somewhat antithetical, one-sided finish to an otherwise well-fought series. Plenty to still look forward to as the teams switch to whites with the first Test beginning on Wednesday. Hope to see you then and thank you for joining us.

AB de Villiers - We won quite a few tosses in the series and it made it a little bit easier. It is not often that a series goes to 2-2, credit to New Zealand for making this a tough series. Great effort overall. I don't think it was quick as it is normally here. It was quite slow and moved around a bit. They came back well, they are always a team that squeezes really well. They put the pressure back on us and it is always easy to go into a negative mindset in such a situation. But fantastic knocks from both Faf and David Miller. I'll be up watching the Test series in the morning. I'll miss the guys, but I look forward to spending some time with family before I go back to playing more cricket.

Kane Williamson - Credit to AB and the Proteas for outplaying us in the match. I think there were a lot of positives with the ball. I think what you need to do is put a score on the board that forces the opposition to take a few more risks. They bowled pretty well, they deserve everything they achieved tonight, but from our perspective, we will look to improve and come back hard. We need to put in those complete performances and show the signs of improvement. This summer at home, particularly, we have played a number of series against some of the top oppositions in the world and it has shown us where we need to improve. It has been a great summer, we are a little tough on ourselves, I guess, after today, but generally, there were some good parts both today and in the summer.

Kagiso Rabada - The day before the game was actually trying to get some rest to make sure I had the edge coming into the game. But we have seen how this wicket plays and the management gave us some pointers about what to do, and we also got a few pointers from the T20 from a few days ago and tonight we were able to execute our plans well. We are looking forward to the Tests, we have a few new guys coming in. looking forward to taking out skills from One-Day cricket to Tests and doing well there.

Kagiso Rabada is the Man of the Match for his 3 for 35.

Presentation time.

8.22pm And that's the series, folks. South Africa huffed and puffed to get there, but you'll have to classify this as a comfortable win in the end. That's usually how things go if you put on 149 in a 50 over game.

32.2
4
Boult to du Plessis, FOUR, a classy shot to bring up the series win and retain No.1 on the rankings. Short ball at off stump from around the wicket, he hangs back with all the composure he's shown today and pulls it in front of square with disdain. That was a leader's innings, and it will show as his 26th half-century
32.1
1
Boult to Miller, 1 run, dropped! Short at middle stump, tries to finish this game with a pull shot. Goes with hard hands, gets a top edge to fine leg. Patel runs in, but slows down towards the end and he has to therefore go low to try and catch it - too low, no catch

END OF OVER:
32 | 2 Runs | SA: 145/4 (5 runs required from 18 overs, RR: 4.53, RRR: 0.27)

  • Faf du Plessis47 (89b)
  • David Miller44 (34b)
  • Mitchell Santner2-0-9-0
  • Trent Boult9-0-39-0
31.6
0
Santner to du Plessis, no run, good length at middle, it's an arm ball and it slides back to catch him on the pads, bowler appeals, going down leg

Hot Streak

7

Consecutive bilateral series wins for SA in ODIs since July 2015. They have won two of those away from home and five of them at home.

Tough Ask

1

Number of times NZ have defended a score of less than 150 in ODIs. It was against Australia way back in 1983 when they defended 139.