Proteas deny four-star Malinga

South Africa held on a one-wicket victory over Sri Lanka in Guyana despite Lasith Malinga's historic four-wicket haul.

Malinga became the first international bowler to take wickets from successive balls as the world number one team almost floundered to defeat four runs short of their 210 target.

The speedster removed Shaun Pollock and Andrew Hall before returning next over to claim the wickets of South Africa's top scorer Jacques Kallis (86) and Makhaya Ntini.

But Robin Peterson then edged a four off Malinga to earn victory and avoid a repeat of the tie in the 2003 competition.

Charl Langeveldt had taken five for 29 to limit the Sri Lankans, whose score was boosted by a 97-run stand between fifty-makers Tillekaratne DIlshan and Russel Arnold.

South Africa had been cruising at 160 for two, but successive ball wickets by Muttiah Muralidaran slowed the chase before Malinga's historic spell.

Malinga said: “I feel bad having lost the match but I am a little bit happy for taking my first hat-trick. But not too happy because the match is lost.

“I always try to take wickets and with the old ball it reverses. I always try to bowl in-swinging yorkers towards the end of the match but it doesn’t always work for me as well as it did today. Today I took wickets."

South Africa captain Graeme Smith added: “I definitely think I went from 26 to about 40 there very quickly in the last five overs but I think all in all it was a very good day.

"We dominated about 95 overs of the day and just a spell there at the end from Malinga really put us under pressure.