South African opener Lhuan-dre Pretorius powered his side to a comfortable 43-run victory over Zimbabwe on Tuesday in \u200cthe fourth match of the Twenty20 tri-series also involving hosts Namibia.<\/p>\n
Pretorius came close to a maiden T20 international century, scoring 94 as South Africa elected to bat first and \u2060scored 185-7 at the Namibia Cricket Ground.<\/p>\n
It was a welcome return to form for Pretorius – who had managed just scores of 9 and 22 through the opening two matches of the tri-series – with the 20-year-=old confirming he had spoken with recently retired Proteas batter Heinrich Klaasen in a bid to change his fortunes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“I spoke to Heinrich Klaasen,” Pretorius said.<\/p>\n
“Coming off a couple of low scores in The Hundred and the first two games here, I just feel like I had to speak to him. He’s obviously played a lot of T20 cricket around the world, and he’s experienced most things – all the ups and all the downs, lows and highs. And I felt like he’s a good person to speak to.<\/p>\n
“We obviously play different roles. He (Klaasen) bats in the middle, but he’s experienced it.<\/p>\n
“It’s more about mindset. I feel like we can speak, and we have some similarities around it. And he really helped me in terms of my mindset going into today.”<\/p>\n
While disappointed not to score his maiden international century, Pretorius was thrilled he could contribute to the win.<\/p>\n
“I wasn’t too fussed about it. I believe that milestones will come and go.” he said.<\/p>\n
“It’s a team sport. If I was worried about my milestone, I should rather play tennis or golf. So I wasn’t too upset about it.”<\/p>\n
Zimbabwe were bowled out for 142 in reply with captain Sikandar Raza top-scoring with 45 and pace bowler Duan Jansen taking 3-21.<\/p>\n
Pretorius hit 15 boundaries in his 51-ball innings before being bowled in the penultimate over. He and Dewald Brevis, who \u200cscored \u206041, added 86 runs for the second-wicket partnership.<\/p>\n
Zimbabwe quickly had their backs to the wall, teetering on 66-8 in the 10th over before the last \u2060two partnerships gave their scorecard respectability. They were dismissed after 17.4 overs.<\/p>\n
Zimbabwe take on Namibia on Thursday, followed \u2060by Namibia against South Africa in the last of the round-robin matches. The two \u2060teams with the most points after four matches each will contest Sunday\u2019s final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South African opener Lhuan-dre Pretorius powered his side to a comfortable 43-run victory over Zimbabwe on Tuesday in \u200cthe fourth match of the Twenty20 tri-series also involving hosts Namibia. Pretorius came close to a maiden T20 international century, scoring 94 as South Africa elected to bat first and \u2060scored 185-7 at the Namibia Cricket Ground. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5625"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5631,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5625\/revisions\/5631"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}