South Africa vs New Zealand ICC Champions Trophy 2009 Live Streaming

South Africa, therefore, will be giving Thursday's match in Centurion must-win status. They gambled in the opening game by picking 20-year-old Wayne Parnell ahead of Makhaya Ntini, and by choosing to field first despite naming two specialist spinners in their XI. Graeme Smith, though, said after the 55-run defeat that he wouldn't have done anything differently. South Africa came into the tournament with no international 50-over match-practice since April and were found wanting. They cannot afford to be found wanting tomorrow.

Their opponents don't possess the unorthodox and unique talents of the Sri Lankans but New Zealand make up for that with discipline, doggedness and sheer hard work. Rarely have they failed to make it past the first round of an ICC competition. Daniel Vettori's team, though, has had a poor run in ODIs this year, losing eight games and winning only five. Their last two defeats were heavy ones to India and Sri Lanka during the Compaq Cup and they've had mixed results in the two warm-up matches in South Africa as well: they lost the first one to the Warriors but bounced back to beat India, one of the tournament favourites, convincingly in the second.

New Zealand are a team without stars and rely on collective contribution from their batsmen to achieve a challenging total. Jesse Ryder, Ross Taylor, Martin Guptill and Neil Broom have all scored half-centuries in the warm-ups but Brendon McCullum has failed. Their chances of beating South Africa will hinge on a few players coming good rather than one batsman making a stellar contribution.