New Zealand vs South Africa, 3rd T20I at Auckland, , Feb 22 2012 - Match Result

Well, the feedbacks are flying in and they all seem to have one particular word in them. It begins with a C...

Resident feedbacker Mark Kidger sums up much of the reaction: "Unbelievable. NZ relax and try to push singles to close it out and LOSE from a position where they only needed about 4 and over with plenty of wickets left!! Never give up..."

South Africa move up to 2nd in the Twenty20 rankings while New Zealand drop to fourth.

Amol: "Ryder is the Hero or Villain, bit confused." Many people are, but in the end he probably leans towards the latter for the string of dot balls towards the end of the innings

Presentations:

Brendon McCullum: "South Africa put us under pressure and to their credit, they held their nerve. We just weren't good enough at the end there, we faltered. The bowlers bounced back after an off-game last time out and most of our batting was pretty good. The last four or five overs, we didn't get enough singles and it wasn't our smartest finish to the game. Disappointing to not be able to give the folk of Canterbury the tribute we wanted to. I thought Jesse was outstanding for the majority of the innings, they slowed the pace to him in the last few overs and on his day he would normally finish that off."

AB de Villiers: "Amazing team effort, really proud of the men, we hung on at the end there. Really tough batting first and assessing what was a good total, we lost momentum in the middle overs, unfortunately we had a slow start with ball in hand but I told the guys to hang in there. I truly believe Marchant has got it, he has big match temperament, I think the whole team has that and we managed to get a few wickets to turn things around. We do feel very good about the win, but we want to play a certain standard of cricket and we still need to do that more consistently."

Johan Botha is the Man of the Match: "It was a bit short straight but I thought I was in with a chance, if you can hit a good length you're in with a chance as guys just look to hit straight. These small boundaries are very interesting, good balls do go for six in New Zealand but you just have to hope you can get it right."

Michael Cabral sums up the South African feedbacks flying in (apart from the C word, of course): "Great coverage! Sitting in the office screaming at my computer hasn't left me in good standing with the boss, though! Thought SA had duffed it with the no-ball in the the dying seconds of the game, but can't believe NZ let us come back like that. It seems the pressure is getting to them..."

Warren responds to the battering he's been taking with some words of conciliation: "Eating my words about NZ now! Us South Africans have taken a giant step in outsmarting opposition by infecting them with our most infamous quality!"

Stephen Gelb asks: "What is the rule about the free hit? since franklin faced the no ball, shouldnt he have faced the free hit? or did the single they took mean he couldnt face. if so, a VERY aware batsman (if given an early no ball call) would have refused the single to keep himself on strike for the free hit and give his side a chance to win. not that I blame him. but what a great turnaround & brave captaincy to give de lange the last over...." If the batsmen run through for a single on a no-ball, they do not swap back for the free hit. To be fair to Franklin, he only realised late in the event that it had been called, and had he not run it, he would have needed to hit four just to tie it, whereas Southee could have won New Zealand the game had he hit a boundary

Former Cricinfo man and former New Zealand Under-19 captain Marc Ellison on Twitter: "Trying to explain to the Mrs how bad a choke that was: I've gone for Arsenal getting up over Chelsea having been 3 down with 10 to play."

New Zealand scored 21 runs in the last five overs and lost four wickets. That would have been a poor finish in an ODI, so in a Twenty20 chase it was simply disastrous. South Africa came back from the dead and Johan Botha in particular really applied a stranglehold (pardon the pun!) on the Kiwis. One side will be jubilant tonight, the other will be distraught. Mark Richardson and Dion Nash have begun the New Zealanders' post-mortem on TV. I'll leave you all to our own coverage courtesy of Firdose Moonda on what has been a rather unbelievable night of cricket. I'm taking a break for the ODIs, but will be back for the eagerly anticipated Test series between these two teams, beginning on the 7th of March in Dunedin. Until then, this is Avi Singh thanking you all for the entertaining mails tonight, and signing off on behalf of Binoy George on scoring and Firdose Moonda who is frantically re-writing her match report as we speak. Do join us on Saturday for the 1st ODI in Wellington beginning at 2.00pm local time. Bye for now!

All of a sudden it's a free hit, 4 off 1, 3 to tie but that's unlikely given this ground's dimensions, but the batsmen can keep running even if the fielder takes a catch

Franklin on strike, he needs to hit a six to win the game, a four won't be enough to tie it up

Nathan McCullum to face his first ball

de Lange to bowl the final over, this is a gamble as de Villiers goes with pace