South Africa totally demolished the Netherlands today. They were expected to win, yes, but the way they went about it, showed that they do not consider any opponent less serious than the others.

To start with, the game was shortened to 40 overs. South Africa batted first and unfortunately, my browser had the England/NZ game on. After a while, I checked the score for the South Africa game and realized that it was an exciting game too. So I simply had 2 games going on with audio on in both the games. The reason being I was at work and I could not afford to keep a cricket match as my “primary browser window” ;-) So I would just wait for the excitement in the commentary and switch to the appropriate window whenever needed.

Herschelle Gibbs' rampage was worth watching … luckily, I switched to that game just when he had completed the world record of 6 sixes in an over so I was able to see it in replay right after he did it.

And that was not the only exciting batting effort! Boucher came out and hit the fastest fifty in one dayers and I think if it was a 50-over game, many more records could have been made/broken.

It was a fantastic batting effort, where Kallis' century was almost a sidenote.

The result was of course beyond any doubt and South Africa completed the rout. After Sri Lanka’s destruction of Bermuda and this game, questions would surely pop up if there is any meaning in including so many smaller teams in the World Cup.

Meanwhile elsewhere, England top order collapsed and only some small face-saving partnerships made it possible to get England to a decent total. Pietersen seems to be a machine which goes on and on but if the rest of the pieces are rusted, like it is the case with England, his efforts are usually going to be in vain. His fifty was good (I have him in my fantasy team!), but all useless in the end.

New Zealand went about the chase rather casually but in the end Scott Styris steadied the ship and took them home. Damn, how did I overlook Styris for my Fantasy League?? I guess Tikolo wasn’t that bad a choice ;-)

So England have an uphill battle now, and so does Pakistan. Let’s see how the games unfold.