Needing 210 to win, the rediff.com expert reckoned that South Africa could get to about 240, given the variety of the Sri Lankan attack. The initial pressure index (PI) for South Africa was 70.
The PI jumped to 88 as Vaas got the dangerous de Villiers for a duck in the first over.
But Smith and Kallis batted with freedom, and circumspection, to start chipping away at the victory target. Even after Smith fell for 59, a South African win was always on at 105/2 after 20 overs (PI 50), 134/2 after 25 (PI 40) and 153/2 after 30 overs (PI 37).
At one point, SA were 206/5, needing just 5 more runs with a PI of just about 10-12.
But then Malinga struck four times in four balls, eventually leaving SA with 2 to get in 11 balls, but with only one wicket remaining.
Peterson's edge for 4 finished it for SA.
Regrettably, the PI performed badly at the end, rising only to 30 even after Malinga got four wickets in a row. We reckon it should have been at least 90 at that stage.
It looks as though our resource table values "balls remaining" far more than "wickets lost" in the PI endgame. We have to correct this error; although the probability of four wickets in successive balls was indeed extremely low.
Sunil T and Sunil Patil of Cranes Software helped create this pressure map based on the details retrieved from the Rediff scorer.
