Prince and Kallis deflate Ireland's dreams

    

Guyana, World Cup, Super Eights: South Africa 165/3 (31.3 overs) beat Ireland 152/8 (35 overs) by 7 wickets (D/L method)

The Proteas produced a professional display to defeat Ireland today and remain on course for the semi-finals.

Ashwell Prince (47* off 44 balls), Jacques Kallis (66* off 86) and captain Graeme Smith (41 off 45) made light work of the Duckworth-Lewis revised target, coasting to victory with 21 balls to spare.

Big hitting from Prince, majestic strokeplay from Kallis and a typically combative innings from Smith enabled the world number one's to recover from the early loss of AB De Villiers for a duck and ensure no slip-ups against the lowliest ranked side left in the competition.

Good bowling by Shaun Pollock (7-2-17-2), Charl Langeveldt (7-0-41-3) and Andrew Hall (7-0-37-2) earlier had restricted Ireland to 152 for 8, Andrew White top-scoring with a run-a-ball 30.



However, it was in the field that the Proteas really stamped their class - Kallis's spectacular catch to dismiss William Porterfield just one example - in contrast to the many misfields suffered by the Irish.

And with South Africa facing the other remaining minnows Bangladesh in their next match, on Saturday, Smith's men will be confident of making it three Super Eight wins out of three.