South Africa finally saw daylight – even if it came a bit late – with a dominant nine-wicket victory over Sri Lanka in match no 35 of ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 (CWC 2019). The victory, South Africa’s second in the tournament, came with 12 overs and four balls to spare. It lifted South Africa to seventh in the team standings. But for Sri Lanka, the defeat means they are now virtually knocked out of the contention for the semi-finals. Dwaine Pretorius, making his return to the Proteas team, was the star performer with the ball taking three wickets for just 25 runs in his 10 over spell. Sri Lanka vs South Africa Highlights.

Kagiso Rabada gave South Africa a perfect start with a first-ball wicket of Dimuth Karunaratne before Pretorius ran through the Lankan top-order with three successive wickets. Chris Morris also chipped in with another three-wicket claim, while JP Duminy struck with his opening delivery to bundle Sri Lanka for 203 runs. CWC 2019: Bee Attack Force Players and Umpires to Lie Flat on Ground During SL vs SA Game; Twitterati Comes Up With Funny Reactions.

In reply, Lasith Malinga gave Sri Lanka a fitting start with a terrific delivery to remove Quinton de Kock but Hashim Amla (80 runs) and Faf du Plessis (96 runs) ensured no more hiccups. The experienced duo engaged in a 175-run partnership to take South Africa home and knock Sri Lanka out of the semi-final race.

Check out some stat highlights from SL vs SA CWC 2019

# The 175 runs partnership between Amla and Du Plessis was South Africa’s second highest stand for the second wicket in World Cup history.

# Dwaine Pretorius (46) joined Jason Holder in bowling the most-number of dot balls in an ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 innings.

# Hashim Amla completed 1000 ODI runs in England during the SL vs SA match. He took just 24 innings to reach the feat.

# Lasith Malinga has now bowled 100 ODI maidens overs.

# Sri Lanka opening batsman and captain Dimuth Karunaratne joined Martin Guptill in becoming the second batsmen to be dismissed for a first-ball duck in the very first delivery of an ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 match.

# Dimuth Karunaratne is also the fifth batsmen to be out in the very first delivery of a match in World Cups history.

The nine-wicket defeat left Sri Lanka stranded in the seventh position in the points table. They have six points from seven games with two victories. South Africa also have the same number of points from a game more but are in the eighth position due to a poor run-rate.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 28, 2019 11:31 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).