Australia clinch 4th ODI by one wicket
Australia barely crawled over the line to win the 4th ODI against South Africa in a match that was not only a thriller but kept the series alive right to the last match. It's all so exciting and convenient, one would almost think the result was fixed but that kind of thing would never happen in South Africa. What I want to know is why does such a tightly contested series had to happen in South Africa, where it's impossible for Australians to find live coverage (barring Fox) and played in the middle of our night, while the Australian summer consisted of predominantly one sided, dominant wins by Australia. The price of home advantage, I guess.
South Africa lost Graeme Smith early and accordingly, their batting struggled to get going. After 6 overs, they'd only reached 2 for 9. It took a century from Dipenaar and crucially, Pollock hitting 50 off 28 balls at the death to push their innings up to 246.
Australia on the other hand began strongly, with Katich and Gilchrist in particular hitting a flurry of boundaries and getting us to 87 for no loss. But a big top-order collapse where we lost 5 wickets for 50 runs had us in trouble. Andrew Symonds and Mike Hussey (always reliable) build a partnership in the middle of the innings to establish some order but another collapse had us 8 for 218. 29 runs yet to score with only the tailenders left. Surprisingly, it was Stuart Clark that won the match for us. Even more surprisingly, it was with the bat.
Afterwards, Graeme Smith called Australia 'chokers' for the way we finished off the match. I'm starting to see why they're getting Mark Boucher to do all their sledging if this is the best Smith can come up with. Firstly, we won. What kind of logic is it when the losing captain calls the victors chokers? Secondly, isn't South Africa calling anyone "chokers" the pot calling the kettle black. The Proteas are so good at choking, some players have made a good living out of it!
| Posted by JC on Sat 11 Mar |  0 comments |
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