South Africa v/s Australia- 1st ODI- 19/10/2011

 








After the exciting finish to the t20s series one would have hoped for a more competitive start to the one day series, but alas that was not to be. For this first one dayer both the teams had reinforcements coming in, in the form of experienced players who had skipped the t20s. South Africa looked to firm up their top order with the inclusion of Jacques Kallis and Mark Boucher and bring back the zing to their attack with Dale Steyn.
Australia welcomed Micheal Clarke, Micheal Hussey and Ricky Ponting back for the ODIs and tests.

Overcast conditions at Supersport Park, Centurion prompted stand in captain Hashim Amla to opt to bowl first after winning the toss. Steyn and Tsotsobe started off proceedings. Steyn looked rusty not sticking to his line and that allowed Australia to get away to a fast start with pocket dynamo Warner blasting the ball to all corners of the park. This though was short lived and Warner was bowled by Steyn for 20.
This was pretty much the only excitement for South African fans following which there was a steady partnership between Ponting (the stand in opener) and captain Micheal Clarke. They were building a steady foundation when rain interrupted proceedings 19 overs into the game.


4 hours hence we got play back on and a revised match of 29 overs. Australia came back having to get as many as they could with 10 overs remaining and boy did they get a move on. Ponting got to his first half century of the series and Hussey came in and played as if he was continuing from where he left off in the Champions league. All this led to Australia getting a total of 183 in their 29 overs. The D/L revised the target to 223. This was always going to be tough with the fresh pitch and the use of 2 new balls.

Smith and Amla opened for South Africa. Smith seemed to still be out of sorts. His feet not moving, the heavy bottom handed grip not helping him either. Finally he was adjudged lbw by a swinging ball from Bollinger. Replays though showed that if reviewed the ball was going over the top.

After that for a brief moment though Kallis and Amla looked like they were building a platform for a launch later on. But the debutant Cummins bagged Kallis and then got rid of Duminy to quash hopes of a Protean win.

Amla too went cheaply after looking good to a sharp chance taken by Haddin. Faff and David Miller looked to rebuild again but with the swing which Bollinger and especially Mitchell Johnson were getting it seemed quite an ask to score at nearly 10 an over.

Miller yet again disappointed with the bat which begs the question whether it should have been Collin Ingram who should have been playing instead.

South Africa in the end finished 93 runs short of the target of 223 which they had to overhaul.

In all fairness the pitch did seem a tad fresher under lights after the downpour and Duckworth and Lewis did not do any favours to South Africa by increasing the target. Nothing though can take away the fact that Australia outplayed South Africa.

The Proteas will just have to shake off the off season rust as quickly as possible and get back to their winning ways. For the next match it would be nice to see maybe Rudolph replacing the out of form Smith at the top and Ingram replacing Miller.

Go Proteas !!!