A South African record haul of 6 for 22 by Makhaya Ntini saw South Africa inflict its biggest victory over Australia in the second Standard Bank One-Day International at Newlands on Friday. South Africa now lead the five-match series 2-0.
”It was fantastic,” said South African captain Graeme Smith. ”We were looking to make 240 or 250, and Justin [Kemp] and Shaun [Pollock] really batted well, and we got up to 290. And then we wanted to start well when we bowled, and Makhaya was superb, and so was Polly.”
Smith said he had always known that South Africa was capable of playing so well. ”We’re a team that won 20 games in a row,” he said. ”We’re the number two team in the world, so we are capable of doing great things. We tried a few different things, like bringing Mark Boucher and Justin Kemp in earlier, and they paid off. ”It’s always good to beat Australia, and we are looking forward to playing in Port Elizabeth — the crowd there is always great and we are looking forward to that. It would be fantastic to go 3-0 up in the series.”
”It just wasn’t our night, and South Africa played very well,” said the stand-in Australian captain, Adam Gilchrist. ”It was one of those days when we just nicked everything.
”I thought the momentum was pretty even going into the 40th over, but then Kemp and Pollock took it away. We let them get too many runs.”
Gilchrist was full of praise for Ntini’s performance. ”He’s a treasure to have in a side,” he said. ”You can see what a difference it makes when he isn’t there. We saw that in Australia. He bowled very well, and got the nicks and things went right for
him, and he was wonderfully supported by Polly.”
Graeme Smith won the toss and chose to bat first, and South Africa set a challenging target of 290, thanks largely to an excellent start by Smith and Dippenaar, and some exhilarating scoring by Justin Kemp and Shaun Pollock.
Herschelle Gibbs and Mark Boucher also contributed, with a fifth wicket partnership of 83 off 81 balls, before Gibbs was caught and bowled by Brad Hogg for 66. After initially battling to get going, Boucher made 42, including three huge sixes.
But it was Kemp and Pollock that set Newlands alight, reaching their half-century partnership off just 38 balls. Their partnership of 62 runs came to an end when Pollock tried to hit his third six, only to be caught by Michael Clarke off Brett Lee for 38.
Kemp reached his seventh limited overs 50 off the last ball of the innings — he ended undefeated on 51, including a boundary and four sixes. South Africa made 289 for seven in their 50 overs.
In reply, Australia just never got going. Ntini took the valuable wickets of Adam Gilchrist (1) and Phil Jaques (0), in his first over. He followed that with the wickets of Damien Martyn (4) and Michael Clarke (1) to have figures of four for four at one
stage. He and Pollock were miserly, bowling four maidens each in the first 14 overs.
Andre Nel also came to the party, with three wickets for 30 runs, and Robin Peterson took the wicket of Brad Hogg to end with figures of one for 16 off five overs.
With Australia eight wickets down for just 71 runs, Smith brought Ntini back into the attack, and he responded magnificently, dismissing Nathan Bracken for 10 and Shane Watson for 27 — the top score in a dismal Australian innings of 93 all out in 34.3 overs.
This gave Ntini final figures of six for 22 off 9,3 overs — a South African record. The previous best bowling was by Allan Donald against Kenya in Nairobi in 1996/97.
It was South Africa’s biggest victory over Australia in limited overs cricket, and one of Australia’s biggest ever defeats. South Africa go into the third match at St George’s Park in Port Elizabeth on Sunday needing just one more victory to secure the series, while the Australians will be licking their wounds as they try to work out how to beat South Africa.
Gilchrist said the Australian team would do some hard talking on Saturday, to find out what had gone wrong. ”We’re not going to get the cane out or anything, but we will discuss the match and see what we can do to put things right. We’ve been here before, but we have been in the dominant position more often than not, and we have to try and get back into that position.
”We know where we stand in the series now, and we’ve got some genuine hard work and hard thinking to do before Sunday,” he added. – Sapa