David Miller's ton helps South Africa beat a spirited Zimbabwe

David Miller's 98-ball 138-run onslaught helped South Africa beat a resolute Zimbabwe by 62 runs in their opening World Cup encounter which was played at Seddon Park, Hamilton on Sunday.

South Africa, touted by many as strong contenders for a place in the next round, were off to a shaky start, as Zimbabwe's new-ball attack of Tinashe Panyangara and Tendai Chatara made good use of the new ball.

The disciplined bowling accounted for South Africa's openers, Quinton de Kock and Hashim Amla, who perished, in the first nine overs, with just 21 runs on the board.

Captain AB de Villiers and Faf du Plesis got off to starts but were dismissed just five-overs apart. South Africa were at one stage struggling at 83 for four.

That's when Miller and JP Duminy came to the fore. The duo dropped anchor and began to rebuild the innings. The normally aggressive Miller adopted a cautious approach and looked to turn over the strike as often as possible.

There were 69 balls without a boundary in the middle overs before the duo stepped on the gas. Miller led the charge and clobbered nine sixes and seven fours in his innings and his partner Duminy too scored faster than a run-a-ball. He remained not out on 115 from 100 balls.

A partnership, that began amidst a flurry of wickets, ended up as a world record fifth-wicket partnership of 256 off 178 balls. The onslaught gave South Africa a sizeable 339-run total to defend.

Zimbabwe's batsmen required to score at a rate of 6.78 through their innings to match their opponents. They lost their opener, Sikandar Raza, in just the seventh over. Chamu Chibhabha and Hamilton Masakadza put on a solid 105-run stand for the second wicket but once they departed, the middle order found it difficult to cope with South Africa's attack. Zimbabwe managed a commendable 277 in their innings.

"The first hundred will also be memorable, but this one was really nice as well. I just needed to construct a partnership with someone, and JP was the man today. It was a bit slow initially, but it definitely eased up towards the end. We just kept encouraging each other along the way and we knew how important this partnership was to the team. Can take a lot of positives in how I constructed this innings, especially when rotating the strike with the spinners on," Miller said.