Cricket360 noticed The South African side little bit frustrated after their continuous losses in the last test and T20 series. But this win fighting against all odds even without the service of their great skipper, Smith would definitely boost up their credentials as the top most team in the making. The main rival of Proteas today was their own complacency which allowed Australia to put up a moderate score of 271/8 after 50 overs.  The fielding of the visitor resembled that of minnows of cricketing world and debutant Vaughn van Jaarsveld was the prince of mistakes giving life to Ponting and Hussey. Proteas were kind enough to drop ‘Kangaroos’ several times and were looked reluctant to convert run out chances to their favour.  Had Morkel failed to reach the winning cricket score in the last over with an erratic batting performance, South Africa would definitely have shed tears for their poor fielding.

The start of the chase was not encouraging as RSA lost Amla in the early beginning itself with score remaining just 4 runs. He couldn’t anticipate the speed of a Tait delivery and before he could leave it, the ball kissed his bat to deviate on to the stumps. Kallis and Gibbs too were not able to produce the desired momentum and the visitors were slumped to a live cricket score of 90/3 after the play of just 19 overs. Then Duminy, the new born savior of South Africa together with McKenzie, who joined the ODI squad of Proteas after a gap of 5 years stood firm for a prolonged 123 run stand for the 4th wicket. Duminy’s 71 run stand was the real anchoring one which featured singles and doubles only and not even a single boundary. McKenzie, who had been struggling to play up to the expectations through out the 3 Mobile Test series, proved his credentials by scoring valuable 63 runs after coming out to bat there in the middle as the 5th man.

The match developed in to a nail biting thriller in the last overs when Duminy and McKenzie failed to make it to the end falling within a short span and they eventually lost another 3 wickets inducing Aussies to attack jubilant with the live score meandering at 7/221. The required run rate went above 10 runs in the last five overs and in the 46th over Ponting opted for the last power play. Morkel exploited the advantage of power play and along with Botha he excavated 51 runs off 35 balls for the 8th wicket. The match turned once again towards the visiting side’s favour when they scored 18 runs off the 48th over. In the last over they climbed up on the target of 272 runs with 3 balls to spare and with 3 wickets in hand. Morkel’s jubilant knock of unbeaten 40 included 4 boundaries and a maiden six.

Earlier on the day, after being put to bat Australia found it not so easy to score and had been struggling for almost two third of their innings. Marsh (79) and Ponting (46) and Hussey (52) made it somehow recover and post a moderate score of 271/8 after their allotted overs. Rather it was the charitable fielding on the part of South Africa that enabled Aussies to make it that much comfortable, for they had several times escaped merely because of the poor performance of the opponents on the field. The hosts managed to snatch almost 100 runs from the last 13 overs and a last hour outburst from Hussey accounted for that.

Cricket360.com finds it interesting to see the South Africans back on the track and that would surely make Aussies to sweat out more in the left out ODI matches.

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

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