South Africa produced a polished performance as they cruised to a six-wicket victory in the first T20I against New Zealand in Durban on Friday.
This was a comfortable win by the hosts as they never looked like losing this one and it gave them the perfect start to the series.
They finished on 152-4 after restricting the Black Caps to 151-8 in their 20 overs.
Hashim Amla (48 off 41) shared a 5o-run partnership with AB de Villiers (33 from 21) off 35 balls which provided the foundation of the South African chase.
Amla and Rilee Rossouw (38 off 20) then made light work of the rest of the runs needed and looked like they would take South Africa home before Rossouw top-edged a delivery with only 12 runs needed for victory.
Amla followed shortly after as he also top-edged a short ball while advancing down the wicket. It was two minor hiccups in the greater scheme of things as Farhaan Behardien hit the winnings runs with 13 balls to spare.
Regular captain Faf du Plessis missed the game with an injury which meant Morne van Wyk came into the side to open the batting with Amla, while also taking over the wicketkeeping duties from De Villiers.
Du Plessis had spoken before the game of the decision to let De Villiers open the batting going forward, but those plans had to be put on hold for now.
The stand-in skipper still batted well at No 3 and took most of the strike while he batted with Amla. There was some seam movement early on, but not enough to trouble the home team.
New Zealand batted first after they lost the toss and got off to a flying start. Martin Guptill and Kane Williamson both scored 42 as they shared an opening stand of 68 in the first six overs.
The visitors were in full control at 102-1 but they started losing unnecessary wickets at regular intervals to lose their grip on the match.
David Wiese single-handedly took care of the New Zealand middle order as he had both Colin Munro (0) and Grant Elliot (5) caught, before a superb piece of fielding by the tall man resulted in the run-out of Luke Ronchi (5).
Morne Morkel had a poor night with a misfield and dropped catch on the boundary while conceding 37 runs in his four overs. Aaron Phangiso and Kagiso Rabada made up for it though as both took 2-29, the former taking care of the top-order and the latter finishing off the lower order.
The second T20I will be played on Sunday in Centurion.
