South Africa's 61-run Duckworth-Lewis win over West Indies in the rain-affected opening match of their five-match ODI series at Kingsmead, in Durban, on Friday, earned the hosts' bowlers praise from their skipper A.B. de Villiers.
Dale Steyn, Imran Tahir and Vernon Philander bagged three wickets each as the tourists were shot out for 164 in 28.2 overs in pursuit of a revised 226 run target in 32 overs giving South Africa a 1-0 lead in the five-match series.
Terming the bowling as mature, De Villiers said that he was chuffed with the way they had secured victory against a dangerous West Indies team that were high on confidence following a 2-1 win in the Twenty20 series, Sport24 reported.
De Villiers said that it was a very mature bowling display towards the end, set up by a really good batting performance, adding that the main thing that makes him proud of the bowling performance was because it was a shortened game.
The skipper claimed that they know how dangerous the West Indies are in the shorter format, as they showed that in the T20s and added that the boys showed a lot of maturity with the ball in hand.
De Villiers was named man-of-the-match after top-scoring for his country with 81 off 94 deliveries. He shared in partnerships of 99 with Hashim Amla (66 off 66), who became the fastest batsman ever to 5,000 ODI runs, and 123 with David Miller (70 off 68) as the hosts posted 279 for eight in 48.2 overs before a heavy rain storm.
The match had to be halted for nearly three hours before it resumed again.
De Villiers said that it was a very long day, nine hours of cricket, so it was long, but also a very good day for them. So, he added that he is pretty chuffed, even though his side is nowhere near perfect.
De Villiers claimed that there's lots to learn still, but all in all, he added that it was a very good start to the series.
