The 11th hour victory not only helped the hosts to save their face but  also enabled them to stick on to the top spot in test ranking, a place which they would have to hand over otherwise after this match to the visitors. The efforts of Amla (56) and de Villiers (59) went in vein at the end of the day with South Africa getting all out at a score of 272 runs surrendering for a margin of 103 runs.

Irrespective of the result of the final day of the 3 Mobile Test Series, the applauds goes to a brave Proteas’ skipper, who dared to come for batting when there was no other go as the last man to save his team from a defeat. The great sports man has been suffering from a sore right elbow and on the 2nd day of the last test he had broken his left little finger also. The brave effort lasted for 29 minutes and it seemed as if he along with Ntini were about to achieve the goal of dragging the match to a draw. But in the penultimate over of the day, Johnson who had been the main spear head of Aussies, turned the match upright down. On the second delivery when the score was 272/9, he aimed precisely at a crack on the pitch to get Smith’s sticks uprooted and the home side was celebrating their consolation victory for a margin of 103 runs after they had been humiliated in the previous two tests of the series.

The final day of the last test was expected to be dramatic as reported by Cricket360 and the drama started to unfold in the 5th over itself in the morning. South Africa were placed on to the back seat with debutant Bollinger nabbing his 2nd wicket getting rid off McKenzie by the time the visitors could add 6 runs to the overnight cricket score of 62/1. Though Amla kept on surging ahead, his companion Kallis could not survive for long. McDonald, who snatched him for 4 by a returning catch, was not sure of the authenticity of the catch and he mentioned it to the umpire who in turn referred it to the third umpire. To make things worse for Kallis, the last decision even after a confusing 3rd umpire went against him from the field umpires after a short span of suspense. The Hosts went for lunch with much confidence as they could eradicate the well settled Amla too at a score of 110 runs when he gave a catch to short leg fielder Katich off Hauritz . He was anchoring the innings well with a half century and his 56 runs featured 9 fours.

Then the last test’s heroes, de Villiers and Duminy showed more determination and they stood for a 56 runs stand together. Duminy was dropped at 15 and before he could make heave a sigh of relief, Johnson trapped him LBW for 16 with the score falling dangerously to 166/5. Boucher could not continue with his form in the 1st innings and was little bit unlucky too to get out LBW off a Siddle delivery which would have gone without hitting the stumps and with the loss of 6 wickets Australia started to smell the blood.

The result was almost confirmed when de Villiers too could not withstand the pressure and after making a sporty 59 he could not realize his dream of saving his side when he dragged the ball on to his sticks to find the live score shivering at 7/190 and the danger bowler was none other than Siddle. Australia would have spent the tea brake discussing the strategies to pick up the last 3 wickets of Proteas to pocket a consolation win at the end of a tiring series.

But after the Tea break, they had to face a real challenge from Steyn and Ntini who together build a 55 runs partnership for the 9th wicket. Things were looking like out of control of Aussies till Mc Donald got rid off Steyn (28) with 9 overs to the close of play. Then came the brave attempt from a great skipper. Smith keeping his pain aside came to the rescue of his side and he along with Ntini (28*) stood for 7 overs and 15 runs but at last in the last but one over he was bowled out off a delivery that came out of a crack to finish an eventful test series.

www.cricket360.com finds the Australian Team retaining the top spot in test with this win and anyhow Smith’s devils can cheer a lot, for they could shake the much prolonged dominance of Australia and can snatch the top spot back home with a win in the return series.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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