South Africa v West Indies at Sydney

The Proteas are over their mauling at the hands of India and are looking forward to their next Cricket World Cup match against the West Indies, star batsman Hashim Amla said.

"We are obviously disappointed, we didn't play good cricket," Amla said in a Sport24 report. "The format of this tournament is such that you have to move on, that’s how we look at it. We made a few mistakes but the game is done and dusted and we certainly want to look ahead to the important match on Friday."

Amla said that t side had learned their lessons from the India defeat and he expected his side to give an improved performance against the West Indies on Friday.

"They posted a good score and batted quite well, we have to give credit to India," he said. "With the bat we didn’t manage to string big partnerships to get us close and lost wickets at key times. It hasn’t happened often in the last few years; getting bowled out for 160, so we have to brush it off, take the knock on our chin and move on to the next game."

Amla though was wary of underestimating the West Indies, particularly after thumping them 4-1 during their recent tour of South Africa.

"They are a dangerous team and you can never take them for granted. They are an explosive team, we had them in South Africa not long ago and showed that they can produce games where they fire, they have a lot of match-winners in their team. We are going to be treating them with the respect that we treat all teams," Amla said.

ST JOHN’S, Antigua – (CMC) – The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) has congratulated Chris Gayle, following his amazing double-hundred that propelled West Indies to their second victory in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015.

Gayle was in record-breaking mood, smashing an incredible 215 off just 147 balls with 14 fours and 16 sixes as Windies beat Zimbabwe by 73 runs under the Duckworth/Lewis Method yesterday.
He was out at the last ball of the West Indies’ innings of 372 for two from their allocation of 50 overs in the Pool B match at Manuka Oval in Canberra.
“On behalf of the directors, management and staff of the WICB and the people of the region, I want to extend our heartfelt congratulations to the team for their emphatic win and Chris for his brilliant innings today,” said Chief Executive Officer of the WICB Michael Muirhead.
“It must be a great feeling for him to have achieved the highest score in the history of the Cricket World Cup. His performance, we are sure, helped to make the day of every West Indian, whether at home or abroad, fans of the game or not.”
During the innings, Gayle reached the 9 000-run landmark in ODIs and is now second behind Brian Lara’s 10 405 in the West Indies all-time list. He also broke several West Indies records.
He surpassed Sir Vivian Richards’ 189 not out against England as the highest all-time score by a West Indies batsman, and his 181 against Sri Lanka as the highest score by a West Indian in the 40-year history of the World Cup.
“He deserves every accolade that he receives following such an incredible innings. We know such an achievement does not come easily and we want to thank him for the tremendous effort he displayed,” said Muirhead.
“Now that he has accomplished such a feat, he has now set a high standard for himself and other members of the team to follow, and we are sure they’ll meet it or beat it in the coming weeks of the tournament! We urge fans to ‘rally hard’ around the team, as they set their sights firmly on winning the title.”
Gayle, who also took two wickets to complete a memorable Man-of-the-Match performance, added a world record 372 for the second wicket with Marlon Samuels, who made a career-best 133 not out.
“We must also recognise the valuable effort from Marlon and the support he gave Chris from the other end in their World record partnership which contributed to putting us in a strong position in the match,” said Muirhead.
“Again, they showed the value of teamwork and another fine example to the people of our region about how success can be achieved.”
West Indies travel to Sydney today, as they prepare to face South Africa at the famous Sydney Cricket Ground on Friday (23:30hrs. on Thursday Eastern Caribbean Time/22:30hrs. on Thursday Jamaica Time).