23 Jan 2013

Williamson plays heroic innings in historic ODI series win

11:53 am on 23 January 2013

The New Zealand cricketers have won their first-ever one day series in South Africa by taking out the second match in Kimberley by 27 runs.

Batting first, New Zealand made 279 for eight - the highlight being Kane Williamson's unbeaten 145 from 136 balls, after arriving at the crease with the dismissal of opener Martin Guptil for another duck.

The next highest scorer was Grant Elliott with 48 and there were valuable contributions of 19 and 15 late in the innings from Nathan McCullum and Kyle Mills after four wickets had fallen for 23 runs.

In reply South Africa were trucking along well and were 167 for 1 in the 31st over at one stage but once the Black Caps took the wickets of Graham Smith for 66 and Colin Ingram for 79, the bowlers did a good job of stemming the flow of runs.

What followed was a monumental collapse from South Africa which featured five run outs as the Black Caps applied excellent fielding pressure close in.

The required run-rate blew out and South Africa were dismissed for 252 with five balls remaining.