The Proteas won the toss and elected to bat first, scoring 279/8 in the allotted 50 overs, with the captain AB de Villiers scoring 72*, Faf du Plessis scoring 67 and Hashim Amla contributing 40.

The Black Caps' opening batsman, Martin Guptill, took a shine to the Proteas bowling with a knock of 180 not out.

On his return to the side from injury, the destructive batsman found the boundary on 26 occasions with 15 fours and 11 sixes.

Ross Taylor needed 97 balls for his 66 runs before being dismissed by Imran Tahir. 

The home side needed exactly 45 overs to reach the target set by the South Africans.

Tahir was the pick of the South African bowlers with figures of 56/2 in his 10 overs.

The South African skipper, De Villiers, lauded Guptill for his knock which sunk the visitors.

“Fantastic innings by Martin, but there are areas we definitely need to improve. I was confident of the total we got.

“We needed to get Martin out, but we just could not create enough opportunities to get him out.

“We were just outplayed. It's 2-2, so not all is done and dusted. Big final coming up at Eden Park, hopefully, we can do well there”.

Guptill’s innings was the highest second-innings score by a New Zealand batsman and the fourth overall, behind Shane Watson (185 not out), MS Dhoni (183 not out) and Virat Kohli (183).

The series goes down to the wire with Black Caps and Proteas facing each other on Saturday in the fifth and final ODI which will be played at Eden Park in Auckland.

Morgan Piek/OFM Sport