Sydney, Mar 18 (AP/UNB) The choker tag no longer burdens AB de Villiers and South Africa after they ended a winless streak in Cricket World Cup knockout matches with a nine-wicket quarterfinal victory over 1996 champion Sri Lanka on Wednesday. The tag became a source of frustration for South Africa, which regularly fielded teams capable of winning the World Cup after rejoining the international arena at the 1992 tournament, but failed in five straight playoffs. The win was set up by Imran Tahir’s 4-26 and JP Duminy’s hat trick – the pair combined to take four wickets for two runs in nine balls as Sri Lanka crumbled all out for 133. Quinton de Kock led the chase with an unbeaten 78, lifting South Africa to 134-1 in 18 overs. Faf du Plessis was unbeaten on 21 at the end. For Sri Lanka, runner-up at the last two World Cups, it was a disappointing end to the glittering limited-overs careers of veterans Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene. Slow bowlers Duminy and Tahir combined to ruin Sri Lanka’s innings after the pacemen dismissed the openers cheaply. Sri Lanka, after winning the toss and electing to bat, was out in 37.2 overs, having spiralled from 114-4 in the 33rd over to 118-8. After watching a procession of batsmen come in and go out, Sangakkara (45) was forced onto the attack late, and his run of consecutive centuries ended at four when he was caught near the boundary by David Miller off Morne Morkel’s bowling, bringing to a close his watchful 96-ball innings. His dismissal made the total 127-9, not long after play was disrupted by a spectator running onto the field, and immediately before a brief shower interrupted play. Tahir returned to take the last wicket, Lasith Malinga (3), to finish off an innings that started with great expectation and ended badly. Duminy became the first South African and just the eighth bowler to take a hat trick at the World Cup. His hat trick started on the last ball of the 33rd over when he had skipper Angelo Mathews (19) caught by du Plessis to a poor shot, and continued with wickets on the first two balls of the 35th. He had Nuwan Kulasekara (1) caught behind to a faint edge, and Tharindu Kaushal, making his one-day international debut, trapped lbw for a first-ball duck. Tahir chimed in with the wicket of Thisara Perera (0) in the over in between. It was a calamitous period for Sri Lanka, which has relied heavily on its strong top order to post decent totals.
