Their poor showing in the warm-up games was perhaps just the scare they needed to guard against lethargy and South Africa has now proved why they are one of the biggest contenders for the title this year. There was a point when Scotland looked like they would make a match of it but once the wickets started to fall, there was no stopping South Africa.

Scotland scored a somewhat respectable 186 in their 50 overs as medium-pacers Charl Langeveldt and Andrew Hall suffered but the damage caused by Pollock, Ntini and Kallis was far too much for the Scots to come out of. Former England international Dougie Brown was the top scorer with 45 but he needed more support to have a better score.

The real power of South Africa came through in their batting as AB de Villiers and Graeme Smith set about decimating the Scottish attack. Their opening partnership of 134 in just 16 overs was also testimony to the rain threat that almost wrecked South Africa yet again! The rain did come down after 19 overs in the South African innings and for a while it looked like the reserve day would have to be used, but once it cleared, South Africa wasted no time in completing the task at hand.