Graeme Smith century leads South Africa to easy victory over Australia
The Proteas have continued building momentum and reaping their home ground advantage as South Africa thrashed Australia in a rain affected One Day International at Centurion. It doesn't help that Australians are dropping like flies with Andrew Symonds, Stuart Clark and Ricky Ponting all out injured after only one Twenty20 game. It's going to be a long series!
Perhaps Ponting's absence threw the batting out of whack as Australia started disastrously, losing 3 early wickets in Katich, Martyn (who surely isn't gonna reach the World Cup) and Gilchrist. Australia's two in-form batsmen Michael Clarke and Mike Hussey steadied the ship with a steady (perhaps too much steady and not enough fireworks) partnership. Unfortunately both fell in the 50's when we really needed them to both go on. Hussey's ODI average going into this match was 100.22 so he really was below par in scratching out a mere 56.
It was good to see Watson back in the side but Brett Lee is strongly pushing his case for the role of all-rounder, smashing 38 off 41. He has a real knack of hitting big sixes, taking 21 runs off one Andre Nel over. Watson's innings in contrast was a plodding 22 runs off 38 balls but I guess we should give the guy a chance to get his bearings after a few months layoff. Even Nathan Bracken came to the party, hitting two sixes off Ntini's last over. The big hitting at the death eked our score up to 229 off 47 overs which was always going to be a big ask to defend.
South Africa's innings started similarly to Australia's, losing two quick wickets. However, Brett Lee got positively pasted. Graeme Smith continued his transformation as he actually seemed to target Australia's spearhead and the world's #1 ranked bowler. Meanwhile, Nathan Bracken seems to have slipped into the role of miserly wicket taker in Glenn McGrath's absence, having figures of 1 for 3 off his first 3 overs.
However, the partnership of AB de Villiers and Graeme Smith took Australia out of the game, scoring 83 runs of just 62 balls. It came at a brisk rate as they punished relative newcomers Mitchell Johnson and Mick Lewis who went for 8 and 9 runs an over respectively. It was smart batting - targeting the newbies undermined our whole inexperienced bowling attack.
South Africa ended up cruising to the adjusted score of 207 (adjusted due to rain interruptions) with 6 wickets and a handful of overs to spare. Hasn't Graeme Smith grown in stature since landing back on home soil? A quick fire 90 in the Twenty20 match and an even more effective innings tonight, anchoring the innings and yet still scoring a run-a-ball century (119 off 124 balls to be precise). In fact, by carrying his bat through tonight's innings, Smith hasn't been dismissed by Australia yet in the home series and boasts an average of infinity - even Mike Hussey would be proud of that!
Lastly, I was disappointed to find out ABC Radio didn't cover the match. Watching the action live or on TV is ideal but just listening to commentator's reactions on radio is illuminating. Monitoring live updates on the web is a last resort. Does anyone know if ABC Radio will be covering the Tests? And just as importantly, is there anywhere online where one can access live audio coverage of the Australia/South Africa series? Any info would be greatly appreciated! :-)
| Posted by JC on Mon 27 Feb |  1 comments |
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