Miracles do happen in cricket. Yes they do and I am referring to the 1st test which was played at Cape Town between Australia and South Africa. Unfortunately Australia's down slide continues in Test cricket. On one had the team reunites with a wish of revival to attain the apex in test rankings again but on the other hand some dismal performances lets the team down.
This is how the match went in brief - South Africa chose to field first after winning the toss. Australian skipper Michael Clarke was happy to bat first and he proved it by smashing a ton (151 runs from just 176 balls with 22 boundaries). Seems like an ODI stats isn't it? His innings was a pure treat to watch whereas other team mates failed to stick on the pitch. The next best contributor was Shaun Marsh with 44 runs. Australia managed a score of 284 which is still not bad and competitive when Australia is supposed to bowl next.
Australia proved that they are still one of the best bowling units in cricket by bowling South Africa out for just 96 runs! Miracle begin from here as I said in the title of this blog post. Apart from 18 runs from Rudolph and 37 from the skipper Smith, every other South African batsman couldn't manage a double figure and the scores of rest of the bastmen looked like a telephone number. 3, 0, 8, 0, 4, 4, ,9, 1, 5! Harris clinched 4 wickets while Watson clinched 5. The whole team was bundled out in 24.3 overs. Just above the T20 quota!
But a bigger miracle was to follow after this. Australians were riding high on their bowling performance and a bigger debacle was to follow. Would you believe? Australia was bowled out for a mere 47 runs! Highest scorer being the 11th number batsman Lyon who scored 14 runs. Steyn took 2, Philander 5 and Morkel managed to clinch 3 wickets. At a time Australians were about to break the record of lowest ever test score which is on the name of New Zealand (26 runs in an innings). Australia were 21 for 9! Thanks to a small partnership involving Siddle and Lyon they escaped the most unwanted record of being bowled out on the lowest total in a test innings. Still Australia had a lead of 230 plus which seemed good enough for them to clinch a win here.
South Africa had some completely different plans in their minds. They were determined to make a mince meat of that target. They never looked uncomfortable while chasing the score. Rudolph left early on 14 but Smith and Amla took the charge and anchored the innings closer to victory. Smith was unbeaten on 101 whereas Amla left when he was on 112. South Africa registered an emphatic win by 8 wickets as they scored 236 for 2 with a good run rate of 4.68!
Please share your views through comments on what did you feel about this hardly fought test cricket which a win for all the departments of cricket viz. batting, bowling and fielding. For more such interesting cricketing facts, stay online with live cricket streaming!
This is how the match went in brief - South Africa chose to field first after winning the toss. Australian skipper Michael Clarke was happy to bat first and he proved it by smashing a ton (151 runs from just 176 balls with 22 boundaries). Seems like an ODI stats isn't it? His innings was a pure treat to watch whereas other team mates failed to stick on the pitch. The next best contributor was Shaun Marsh with 44 runs. Australia managed a score of 284 which is still not bad and competitive when Australia is supposed to bowl next.
Australia proved that they are still one of the best bowling units in cricket by bowling South Africa out for just 96 runs! Miracle begin from here as I said in the title of this blog post. Apart from 18 runs from Rudolph and 37 from the skipper Smith, every other South African batsman couldn't manage a double figure and the scores of rest of the bastmen looked like a telephone number. 3, 0, 8, 0, 4, 4, ,9, 1, 5! Harris clinched 4 wickets while Watson clinched 5. The whole team was bundled out in 24.3 overs. Just above the T20 quota!
But a bigger miracle was to follow after this. Australians were riding high on their bowling performance and a bigger debacle was to follow. Would you believe? Australia was bowled out for a mere 47 runs! Highest scorer being the 11th number batsman Lyon who scored 14 runs. Steyn took 2, Philander 5 and Morkel managed to clinch 3 wickets. At a time Australians were about to break the record of lowest ever test score which is on the name of New Zealand (26 runs in an innings). Australia were 21 for 9! Thanks to a small partnership involving Siddle and Lyon they escaped the most unwanted record of being bowled out on the lowest total in a test innings. Still Australia had a lead of 230 plus which seemed good enough for them to clinch a win here.
South Africa had some completely different plans in their minds. They were determined to make a mince meat of that target. They never looked uncomfortable while chasing the score. Rudolph left early on 14 but Smith and Amla took the charge and anchored the innings closer to victory. Smith was unbeaten on 101 whereas Amla left when he was on 112. South Africa registered an emphatic win by 8 wickets as they scored 236 for 2 with a good run rate of 4.68!
Some interesting fact about this match is that the win was registered on 11th day of the 11th month of the year 2011. It reads as 11.11.11 and something out of our imagination happened when South Africa needed exactly 111 runs to win when the clock ticked 11.11 and I am sure every South African would be standing on one leg as this Nelson was the best amongst the lot of thrilling moments that we observed in this great test match.
purely interesting match and very nicely written here. well done author!
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