Faf slays Zimbabwe

The Proteas did not need to beat Zimbabwe in Harare yesterday to reach tomorrow's final against Australia; all they had to do was avoid losing by a laughably large margin. But they won anyway.

"We will have to perform better in all three departments against the Aussies," AB de Villiers said afterwards, although he also felt "our batting was close to perfect".

Truth be told, any 11 members of the crowd would have had a fair chance against a home side which played more like extras in a zombie movie than an international team.

So, South Africa will not be smug about ending Zimbabwe's reply of 208 in 47.2 overs to their total of 271/6 - to win by 63 runs.

At least Faf du Plessis deserves a sense of self-satisfaction, having scored his third century in four innings. Du Plessis's 121 yesterday was cast from the same mould as those efforts that earned him 126 and 106, both against Australia, in the previous eight days.

JP Duminy will be chuffed to have snapped a streak of 11 innings without a half-century. His 51 was part of a stand of 103 he shared with Du Plessis.

Rilee Rossouw, too, will be happy with his day's work. More like relieved, in fact. Not only did he score 36 to take the edge off his golden ducks in his first two innings at this level, his obviously occasional off-spin claimed a wicket.

Better yet, Rossouw added to the coincidences between his one-day debut and Sachin Tendulkar's.

Not only was the Indian maestro also done for a duck in his first two one-dayers; like Rossouw he scored 36 in his third innings and, also like Rossouw, he did so off 39 balls.

But Rossouw will hope the strange similarities end there: it took Tendulkar 76 innings to score his first century in the format.

Having been run out in Bulawayo on August 19, trying to take a single to the wicketkeeper, De Villiers went one weirder yesterday against the same side, run out when Du Plessis drove uppishly back to bowler John Nyumbu - who dropped the catch but deflected the ball onto the stumps at the non-striker's end where De Villiers was out of his ground.

That was where the fun ended.

After Zimbabwe put SA in to bat, the only thing that mattered in the match was whether the home side would chase down a target in no more than 25.2 overs. That was never really on.