Australia have secured a 3-0 T20 clear sweep over South Africa after a Travis Head onslaught impressed them to a five-wicket win within the collection finale in Durban.
In reply to South Africa’s 8-190 on Sunday at Kingsmead, Head thumped a career-high 91 off 48 balls to assist elevate Australia to victory with 13 balls to spare.
Josh Inglis (42 off 22 balls) and Marcus Stoinis (37no off 21) joined in on the enjoyable, but it surely was Head who was the unstoppable power for many of the innings.
Head, whose earlier highest rating in a T20I was 48no, cracked six sixes and eight fours in his blistering knock.
He was given a life on 55 when Temba Bavuma dropped a tricky diving try.
Bavuma ultimately bought his man with a catch within the deep, however Australia solely wanted 5 extra runs for victory by that stage.
Head had posted scores of simply 18 and 6 within the first two matches, and his show on Sunday is an ominous warning for South Africa forward of the upcoming five-match ODI collection, beginning on September 7.
“It’s nice to be back and contributing,” Head informed Fox Cricket.
“There’s been limited opportunities in this format for a while.
“I’d been struggling a bit bit to seek out my tempo and the way I needed to go about it on the high.
“I spoke to a few boys, and it was nice to contribute tonight.”
Mitch Marsh was named man-of-the-series after plundering 186 runs from 100 balls throughout his three innings in a shocking begin to his reign as captain.
“I’m really proud of a pretty young group coming over here and winning the series 3-0,” Marsh stated.
“We had a great team effort. We prepared really well, and we took the game on.
“We had a little bit of luck at instances, however as a crew we had the mentality of being actually constructive.”
Australia paceman Sean Abbott was the hero with the ball in game three after snaring career-best figures of 4-31 to restrict South Africa to a total under 200.
South Africa slumped to 2-12 in the third over, but handy knocks from captain Aiden Markram (41 off 23 balls), Reeza Hendricks (42 off 30) and Tristan Stubbs (25 off 16) helped steady the ship.
Donovan Ferreira (48 off 21 balls) then provided the late fireworks after South Africa had slumped to 6-122 on the back of a middle-order slump of 3-6.
Abbott claimed a double-wicket maiden to inspire the middle-order rot, while Stoinis (2-39) did the early damage before being pummelled late.
Spinner Tanveer Sangha, who snared 4-31 on debut in the series opener before being squeezed out for game two, should have had a wicket in his first over on Sunday.
Hendricks was on 18 when he was struck on the midriff by a Sangha delivery.
The ball bounced down and hit the base of leg stump with some force – but the bail didn’t budge one bit.
Sangha ended the match with figures of 1-39, whereas Nathan Ellis (0-50) copped the brunt of South Africa’s onslaught, particularly when Ferreira was at full power.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
