Regular readers will know that I have a soft spot for South Africa and especially their captain and today's play at the WACA showed why. SA need 414 to win and are currently 187 runs away thanks mainly to another brilliant innings from their captain (it was worth waking up at 3am for).
Graeme Smith isn't everyone's favourite person but is definitely the driving force and inspiration for the Saffers. His innings today (108 from 147 balls) was scratchy at the start as Lee and Johnson were superb with the new ball and he struggled with the tennis elbow that has been a problem since the IPL earlier this year. Once McKenzie was dismissed and Amla came to the crease he started to relax a bit and after tea was much more fluent. His partnership with Amla(who made 53 from 112 balls) has set the game up nicely and a good partnership between Kallis and De Villiers could take SA a long way towards what was seemingly an impossible total.
Australia were mostly very good today. Haddin's innings in the morning was a wonderful counter attack and seemed to have taken the game away from SA. He appears to be channelling the spirit of Gilchrist at the moment and has the same skill of playing well with the tail. Australia's tail including Haddin have made over 200 runs in this game whereas the SA tail has struggled. Lee and Johnson bowled well all day with Lee unlucky not to have 4 or 5 wickets in the game so far. His duel with Kallis late in the evening brought back memories of Flintoff vs Kallis at Edgbaston this year.
At the end of day 4 Australia are slightly ahead but anything could happen tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment