14 February 2004	Saturday	22 Zilhaj 1424

AUCKLAND, Feb 13: Boeta Dippenaar's unbeaten 44 steered South Africa to a five-wicket win with two balls to spare in the first one-day international against New Zealand on Friday.

Dippenaar and Jacques Rudolph put on a stand of 60 after South Africa fell to 149-3 in their chase for 226 runs for victory. But captain Graeme Smith, who had led from the front with a fine innings of 72, put his side's win down to their performance in the field as they restricted New Zealand to 225-8.

"Our fielding is something we've been improving on every game," Smith said. "We fielded really well in South Africa (against West Indies) and we did it again today."

Man-of-the-Match Smith shared an opening stand of 86 with Herschelle Gibbs (43) but the introduction of left-arm spinner Daniel Vettori in the 16th over slowed the scoring rate.

Vettori struck first when a well flighted delivery caught the edge of Gibbs's defensive bat and Brendon McCullum snapped up a fine catch behind the stumps.

Smith was bowled by Chris Cairns and Jacques Kallis (26) went in the next over lbw to Vettori bringing Dippenaar and Rudolph together. The duo went through a torrid time against a rejuvenated New Zealand side, scoring just 10 runs in five overs.

But they weathered the storm until Rudolph was caught and bowled by Scott Styris for 24 when South Africa were 17 runs short of their target.

Mark Boucher came and went for his second nought of the tour to bring in Shaun Pollock, who played and missed on numerous occasions before hitting the winning single with two balls to spare.

"We let it get a little bit close," Smith said. "We don't like to get down to the last over. "We'll go back and look at that and hopefully we can improve for the next game. New Zealand are going to come out and improve, I'm sure, so we'll have to improve another 20 per cent."

New Zealand had looked in trouble at 79-4 until a fifth-wicket stand of 91 from Styris (60) and Cairns (58). "There was a feeling we had to pull off something special and it wasn't really the wicket to do it on," captain Stephen Fleming said.

"It wasn't conducive to stroke play. Eden Park is always a chasing ground but we had no choice because we lost the toss. "Having said that we had a good period in the middle of our innings where we had the opportunity to put a 250 on them but they came back and bowled well at the death."

South African fast bowler Makhaya Ntini was involved in four of the first five New Zealand wickets to fall. Ntini produced a fine pick-up and throw to run out skipper Stephen Fleming for 30 before he removed debutant Michael Papps for 14 and Hamish Marshall for seven, both caught behind by Boucher.

Ntini also took an awkward catch on the extra-cover boundary to dismiss Styris off the bowling of Andre Nel.

Scoreboard

New Zealand

M. Papps c Boucher b Ntini 14

S. Fleming runout (Ntini) 30

H. Marshall c Boucher b Ntini 7

S. Styris c Ntini b Nel 60

C. McMillan c Boucher b Klusener 9

C. Cairns b Nel 58

J. Oram c Nel b Klusener 15

B. McCullum not out 16

D. Vettori runout (Rudolph) 6

K. Mills not out 1

Extras (w4, 1b3, nb1, b1) 9

Total (9 wkts, 50 overs) 225

Fall of wkts 1-44, 2-52, 3-55, 4-79, 5-170, 6-191, 7-202, 8-222

Bowling: Pollock 10-0-33-0 (1nb), Ntini 10-1-41-2 (1w), Nel 10-1-42-2 (3w), Klusener 9-0-39-2, Peterson 8-0-42-0, Kallis 3-0-24-0

South Africa

G. Smith b Cairns 72

H. Gibbs c McCullum b Vettori 43

J. Kallis lbw Vettori 26

H. Dippenaar not out 44

J. Rudolph c and b Styris 24

M. Boucher b Tuffey 0

S. Pollock not out 5

Extras (b2, lb4, w6) 12

Total (five wkts, 49.4 overs) 226

Fall of wickets: 1-86, 2-149, 3-149, 4-209, 5-215

Bowling: Tuffey 8.4-0-34-1, Mills 7-0-42-0 (2w), Oram 10-1-44-0, Vettori 10-1-37-2 (1w), Styris 10-1-35-1 (1w), Cairns 4-0-28-1 (1w)

Umpires: Steve Davis (AUS), Doug Cowie (NZL)

Match referee: Gundappa Viswanath (IND). - Agencies