Quinton de Kock and Rassie van der Dussen centuries help impressive South Africa hammer New Zealand

Centuries from Rassie van der Dussen and Quinton De Kock helped South Africa take a huge step towards the World Cup semi-finals with a 190-run victory over New Zealand on Wednesday.

New Zealand won the toss and interestingly, despite their opponents’ long-fabled issues chasing, decided to put South Africa into bat first.

De Kock and Temba Bavuma started in their typical slow and cautious fashion before Trent Boult removed the South Africa captain with a fabulous ball that was taken well by Daryl Mitchell in the slips.

That brought Van der Dussen to the crease and he combined with De Kock to expertly contain the New Zealand bowling attack that was hampered by yet another injury, this time to Matt Henry, as they put on a 200-run partnership.

De Kock notched his fourth ton of the World Cup before being removed by Tim Southee and caught by Glenn Philipps. Van der Dussen reached 133 before Southee bowled him.

That left David Miller (53) and Henrich Klaasen (15) to help power South Africa to 357-4 in the end with Aiden Markram coming in to hit a six off the final ball of the innings.

"Quinny was brilliant in reminding me to keep my shape, really play the ball where it wants to be hit, don't go looking for it, be relentless when it's in your area but when it's not respect it, it was one of those wickets," Van Der Dussen said.

"It was tough to come in and hit through the line, Miller and the guys at the back did brilliantly - it wasn't an easy wicket and they made it look easy.

"We were speaking about 300-320 in the middle, but we've seen in the last 12-18 months what the guys coming in the middle can do, I'm grateful for them, the sky's the limit. We got to 360, we're pretty chuffed."

In reply, New Zealand were constantly behind the rate and Marco Jansen’s stellar powerplay form continued as his short ball removed both Devon Conway and the in-form Rachin Ravindra.

Rising fast bowling star Gerald Coetzee took the wicket of Will Young with a beautiful outswinger that the opener could only feather behind to De Kock.

Kagiso Rabada then got into the act as allowing just eight runs off his first three overs. A mis-hit shot from Kiwi captain Tom Latham went straight to Keshav Maharaj to reduce New Zealand to 67-4.

It was then Maharaj's turn to bowl and with just his third ball caught Mitchell out as he tried to hit the spinner out of the attack but didn't get enough on it and Miller took an excellent catch under the lights with the ball spiralling this way and that.

Mitchell Santner was next to go as he lost the battle of the left-arm spinners to Maharaj who clean bowled him. Southee was caught LBW by a returning Jansen as the Black Caps plummeted to 109-7.

Jimmy Neesham, so nearly the hero in an epic comeback against Australia, was then removed for a duck after eight balls.

Boult fared little better, scoring nine before becoming Maharaj's fourth and final victim, and it was all over when Phillips' resistance was ended on 60.

It was a crushing defeat but it still leaves the Kiwis in position to qualify for the semi-finals.

"Obviously not our best performance," New Zealand captain Latham said. "We were put under pressure from that massive partnership from Rassie and Quinton up top.

"I even thought at the halfway mark it was a big score but a decent surface from a batting point of view.

"You need to build partnerships, and to be three or four down early, we weren't able to build them. It was disappointing how it played out."

New Zealand face Pakistan, who eliminated Bangladesh, in their penultimate group-stage match, while South Africa take on hosts India.

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