121/5 (19.4)
CR : 6.15
118/9 (20.0)
CR : 5.90
Australia won by 5 wickets
Player of the Match
Josh Hazlewood
2/19
19.2
4
D Pretorius to M Stoinis
Hammered it downtown! Oh Stoinis, you beauty! That should be it for the Aussies. Length on the stumps and Stoinis was ready for it. He was deep inside his crease and gets ample power behind his slog to clear the ropes with ease. The fielder at long on had no chance to stop that one..
Arjun: That should be the game! Stoinis and Wade have pulled off the jaws of defeat. Almost.
19.3
0
D Pretorius to M Stoinis
Slower and fuller on the off. Stoinis can't beat the man at mid off with his attempted slog..
19.4
4
D Pretorius to M Stoinis
Full toss and Australia have sealed the deal here! What was that Pretorius?He gave a juicy full toss and easy pickings for Stoinis who just whips it towards the vacant deep mid wicket region to end the game in style..
AUS won by 5 wickets
That's the end of this nail-biting game. Phew, what a game we have witnessed. It was a perfect seesaw battle that saw Australia come out on top with 5 wickets in hand. Kudos to South Africa who made a match out of it and ALMOST stole the victory here. But Australia kept their nerves and barely managed to cross the victory line.
Chasing a modest total of 119, everyone expected Australia to win this game with utmost ease. But we should know one thing- Never ever underestimate the Proteas. Their bowlers came out all guns blazing and bowled their hearts out. The trio of Warner, Finch and Marsh departed early and the Aussies were on the back-foot early in their innings.
But the duo of Smith and Maxwell started the repair work and started to resurrect their sinking ship. But as stated before, South Africa always find different ways to get back into the game and they did just that. Spinners tighten the grip during the middle overs and picked up wickets at regular intervals.
At one stage, Australia looked down and out, but Mathew Wade and Marcus Stoinis kept their cool and played a great little cameo to steer their nation past the victory ropes with 2 balls to spare. The duo stitched an unbroken 40 run partnership and it was the difference maker here on this track.
Chasing a modest total of 119, everyone expected Australia to win this game with utmost ease. But we should know one thing- Never ever underestimate the Proteas. Their bowlers came out all guns blazing and bowled their hearts out. The trio of Warner, Finch and Marsh departed early and the Aussies were on the back-foot early in their innings.
But the duo of Smith and Maxwell started the repair work and started to resurrect their sinking ship. But as stated before, South Africa always find different ways to get back into the game and they did just that. Spinners tighten the grip during the middle overs and picked up wickets at regular intervals.
At one stage, Australia looked down and out, but Mathew Wade and Marcus Stoinis kept their cool and played a great little cameo to steer their nation past the victory ropes with 2 balls to spare. The duo stitched an unbroken 40 run partnership and it was the difference maker here on this track.
Josh Hazlewood | Player of the Match: "I think length was the key here, hitting the stumps was crucial. Anything slightly short or fuller seemed easy, so length was key. The wicket seamed reasonably good, but it was a little bit stoppy, a little bit slow. It plays that way during the day and gets easier at night. QDK's pretty good at that ramp shot so we worked out a field for it. Luckily it hit the glove and went straight onto the stumps. Good to see the back of him early. We've got a number of allrounder there and Maxi was the man today to bowl the four. It sort of got close in the end but we've got finishers and we were confident in them."
Temba Bavuma | South Africa Skipper: "We always talk about being resilient and there was always an opportunity to defend the total. The Australian bowlers bowled very well barring the first over. They hit the back of the length throughout the day and the spinners too bowled well, not giving us anything to hit. But credit to Aiden for sticking around and taking us to a competitive total. It wasn't our day but there are a lot of positives to take from this game. We weren't going to give up."
Aaron Finch | Australia Skipper: "The dugout was a bit more relaxed than I was. Every time you are chasing a total and the game goes down to the wire, it is stressful. Stoinis and Wade did well to see us through. Maxwell a good job for us. He had some good matchups for him today that allowed us to squeeze them. The whole bowling unit was outstanding as well. Ideally, I would have loved to push Hazlewood for a third over. He is a world-class bowler. His accuracy and consistency is key and he did a brilliant job again. There's never been an issue from our point of view. We wanted to rest some guys and give others a chance. We've got some world-class back in our side now which is really pleasing in this brutal tournament, The way South Africa fought was outstanding. They fielded and bowled brilliantly. In the end, we needed some luck to go our way and we got it."
That's all for the coverage of this game. Switch tabs to go through the live coverage of the second game of the day between England and West Indies. Till the next time, it's a ta-ta and a goodbye from me, Anurag Dasgupta and my co-commentators, Akshay Bhide and Arjun Bhalla.