{"id":339380,"date":"2026-03-20T16:09:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T16:09:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/339380\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T16:09:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T16:09:30","slug":"black-caps-crush-south-africa-to-take-series-lead-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/339380\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Caps crush South Africa to take series lead"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"New<\/p>\n

\nNew Zealand bowler Ben Sears sends off South Africa captain Keshav Maharaj.
\nPhoto: Andrew Cornaga\/www.photosport.nz\n<\/p>\n

The Black Caps have cantered to victory in the third T20 against South Africa at Eden Park.<\/p>\n

Openers Devon Conway and Tom Latham put on 96 for the first wicket, setting up the crushing eight-wicket win in Auckland.<\/p>\n

After being asked to bowl, the Black Caps restricted South Africa to just 136, Kyle Jameison, Bean Sears and Mitch Santner all taking two wickets apiece.<\/p>\n

The target would prove not nearly enough.<\/p>\n

A blistering opening stand would all but take the game away from the Proteas, though with the century partnership in sight, Conway fell for 39 with New Zealand still needing 41.<\/p>\n

Tim Robinson got the hosts within one, before he was out LBW for 17.<\/p>\n

Nick Kelly got the required single and with Latham, who finished unbeaten on 63, saw the Kiwis home with 22 balls to spare.<\/p>\n

The Black Caps now lead the five match series 2-1.<\/p>\n

See how the game unfolded in our blog:<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand bowler Ben Sears sends off South Africa captain Keshav Maharaj. Photo: Andrew Cornaga\/www.photosport.nz The Black Caps…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":["post-339380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}