Herschelle Gibbs before practice. (AP)

St George’s: After Sri Lanka snapped the streak, New Zealand hoped to return to their winning ways when they face South Africa in a World Cup Super Eight clash on Saturday.

Rattled by their crushing loss to Sri Lanka on Thursday, New Zealand are keen to settle their anxiety on a semi-final spot as quickly as they could. It doesn’t appear an easy task as the conditions here suit the batsmen and South Africa have any number of power-hitters in their ranks.

New Zealand have eight points from five games and need at least one win to absolutely seal a place in the last four. Sri Lanka, Australia appear certainty for the moment and South Africa has made a strong statement after that upset loss to Bangladesh in Guyana. New Zealand’s worry has as much to do with the form of their top batsmen.

The Black Caps have two games remaining in the second round and both appear tricky oppositions — South Africa (the No. 1 ODI team till few days back) and Australia, who are keen to avenge the 0-3 defeat in New Zealand before the World Cup.

As for batting, it appears too heavily reliant on captain Stephen Fleming and Scott Styris.

Fleming has 290 runs from seven games while Styris is on top with 379 runs from as many games. Understandably the two alone have hit centuries in this competition now that Lou Vincent, another centurion, is cooling his heels in New Zealand because of a broken wrist.

Peter Fulton, Ross Taylor, Hamish Marshall and Craig McMillan haven’t hit straps and in conditions which are overtly in favour of batsmen, it can be a serious handicap.

South Africa, in contrast, have a batting line-up which has contributed right through the order. Jacques Kallis (441), Graeme Smith (351), AB de Villiers (315) and Herschelle Gibbs (243) have all come to party.

It’s been to an extent that the failure of Justin Kemp hasn’t even registered with the Proteas.

New Zealand’s best chance appears to be the early strike they could inflict on the opponents and they have the right man for the job, Shane Bond. As Sri Lanka showed on Thursday, early strikes could derail the opposition and limit the score even on flat pitches.

Teams

South Africa (from): Graeme Smith (captain), AB De Villiers, Jacques Kallis, Herschelle Gibbs, Loots Bosman, Ashwell Prince, Mark Boucher (wicketkeeper), Justin Kemp, Shaun Pollock, Makhaya Ntini, Andrew Hall, Charl Langeveldt.

New Zealand (from): Stephen Fleming (captain), Shane Bond, James Franklin, Peter Fulton, Mark Gillespie, Brendon McCullum (wicketkeeper), Craig McMillan, Michael Mason, Jacob Oram, Scott Styris, Daniel Vettori, Ross Taylor.

Umpires: Mark Benson and Darryl Harper; TV: Billy Doctrove.

Match Referee: Chris Broad.

Match starts: 7 pm (IST).


Highs and Lows

South Africa and New Zealand have played 46 ODIs, of which the former have won 27 while the latter have 15 wins. Four matches did not yield any result. In the World Cup, they have met four times with an even 2-2 record. In the last 10 ODIs, South Africa have four, while New Zealand have five wins. There was no result in one.

HIGHEST TEAM SCORES
For SA: 324/4 (50 ovs) in Centurion, October 25, 2000
For NZ: 298/9 (50 ovs) in Brisbane, January 9, 1998

LOWEST TEAM SCORES
For SA: 108 (34.1 ovs) in Mumbai, October 16, 2006
For NZ: 134 (39.5 ovs) in Cape Town, December 6, 1994

HIGHEST INDIVIDUAL SCORE
For SA: 169 n.o. — DJ Callaghan in Centurion, December 11, 1994
For NZ: 134 n.o. — SP Fleming in Johannesburg February 16, 2003

BEST BOWLING
For SA: 5/31 — M Ntini in Melbourne, February 6, 2002
For NZ: 4/35 — GI Allott (Dunedin) February 14, 1999

COMPILED BY MOHANDAS MENO