South Africa convincingly beat Bangladesh by 10 wickets, with 29.4 overs still to be bowled, after an opening stand of 155 between Herschelle Gibbs and Graeme Smith,.

From winning the toss, the South Africans retained control of the match. Makhaya Ntini's pace and length was once again the problem for the Bangladesh top order. The line and length from Shaun Pollock added to the pressure with only 23 runs coming off the first 10 overs.

After the first wicket went down for 26, Bangladesh never recovered and soon found themselves five down with 57 on the board and half the overs gone.

A couple of small partnerships and a bit of a flurry at the end of the innings restored the innings to 154/9.

Tushar Imran, Tapash Baisya and Manjural Islam showed that they were more adept at attacking than defending. Tushar aggressive from his first ball, lofted consecutive boundaries off both Allan Donald and Lance Klusener. With Dale Benkenstein coming on to bowl, Tushar's eyes opened too wide and was caught chasing a very wide ball for 23 off 31.

Manjural swinging down the line from way outside the leg stump, scored 13 off 18 balls including two boundaries before being run out.

Baisya's contribution was a couple of boundaries and a big six over mid wicket from the bowling of Donald. He ended on 35 off 46 balls.

For the rest Bangladesh have to decide if they want to just bat out the 50 overs, or play more attacking cricket. At the top end of the order far too many balls are being left from which runs could be scored off.

Pollock, Donald and Klusener all bowled well but it was Ntini who claimed 3/28 who was the pick of the bowlers.

A target of 155 was never going to cause the South Africans any problems.

Smith and Gibbs started aggressively with Gibbs in chase of his fourth, and record, hundred in as many innings.

Gibbs was ruthless on anything that resembled a bit of width. Although dropped, in the thirties, by Tushar, he went to his 50 in 39 balls including 10 boundaries.

Gibbs had his record bid bungled by a four run wide from Alok Kapali. Instead of needing four runs, out of the six needed for the win, he now had to score a boundary to set the new record and also score South Africa's fastest hundred in a One-Day International.

A powerful drive down the field was cut off by the fielder racing round from wide long on, and the run taken ended the match with Gibbs stranded on 97 off 66 balls including 19 boundaries and Smith on 48 off 58 balls including 5 boundaries.

One shuddrs to think what would have happened had South AFrica batted first.

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