He who laughs last..laughs the loudest
February 12th 2008 09:36
[This is a detailed account of that Johannesburg record breaking match between Australia and SA where SA overhauled Australia's 434 run total]
Mike Hussey was all smiles at the lunch break. The team was jubilant and the dressing room resounded with laughter. They had massacred the Springboks, actually beat the living daylights out of their bowlers - 434 for 4 in 50 overs. Lets see them come on to the field now. Time for some more fun. Ponting had an especially toothy smile on his face. He had earned it after his stunning 164 off 105 balls. And he could aim to add one more feather to his tough-as-nails world-beater cap after taking the series 3-2 after having been 0-2 at one stage.
Enter Smith and Dippenaar to face upto Brett Lee's music. Smith appeared curiously nonchalant. Did he really think he was going to save South Africa from ignominy? The gall that the guy has...
Now that folks, was the Australian view before the beginning of the South African innings in the last and deciding game of the Standard Chartered Bank series at the Wanderers yesterday. It is a credit to Grame Smith and the South African coach to actually think about overhauling the mammoth Australian total. That they did plan to win was evident from Smith's statement later on where he said they were aiming at scoring at least 185 at the 25 over mark. The cricket till then had been exhilarating, if one dimensional. One dimensional, i say, because there was really only the bat in the contest. The ball had been beaten to a pulp and then conveniently changed when it got bent out of shape too! Some people might say that the track was a beauty - a 'belter' in Boycotts words, some more might say that the Aussie and Springbok attacks did not have their usual edge. Yet some more might even accuse the ground to be small. Pray, tell me how many matches have been played on this very ground? Did not the 'best batting lineup in the world' (India psst psst) play here? Did we ever accuse this ground of being kid-sized then? And had not this same Aussie attack overcome the South Africans in the last two matches? Come now...
The Aussies were without Mcgrath and the South Africans did not have Pollock. Arguably, the Springboks were missing the greater player - for Pollock added to his worth in the team as a more than competent wielder of the willow. What happened in the next three hours and odd, did not really change the one-dimensional nature of the game. It actually highlighted the single dimension to such a pinpointed focus that we, the spectators, could rapturously get lost in the colossal rainbow that was the batting talent on display.
Graeme Smith and Boeta Dippenaar looked resolute. Their faces and body language did not convey the pain that the Aussies had administered to them during their tryst with the bat. In came Lee with the white cherry. Strangely, the crowd had not emptied and wonder of wonders, they were still cheering and rooting for their team. Dippenaar though wasnt in the best of nick - whether due to batting form or because of the total that loomed before him, you will never know. Before too many balls had gone, he inside-edged one from Lee onto his stumps. It wasnt an express delivery. Lee wasnt even going full tilt. See, he knew that the game was in the pocket. Herschelle Gibbs walked in with his lazy feline grace. This was a man who had gone through a lot of troubled times. Past allegations and involvements in less than honourable activities had even left the man opting out of tours to India. Here was a good enough batsman, but he had not shone particularly well against the Aussies. The time was ripe and he had nothing to lose. To give a gamesman the license to gamble had to have some noticeable result. He was either going to go broke or go for broke. Gibbs proceeded to do the latter.
To give us some semblance of sanity to the proceedings, he played out his first 15 odd balls scoring singles off them. Then he procceeded to rip the covers off our senses by essaying a carved airy drive to a Nathan Bracken delivery that was on a good length outside off stump. The ball went screaming over cover and into the hoardings. While on the hoardings, i have to tell you that the advertisers got more than their money's worth. No cricket match has managed to show the hoarding signs to the spectators on TV more often than this one - as it turned out. Brett Lee, woken out of his slumber, wanted to thump some sense into Gibbs who seemed to have the temerity to make an attempt at getting near the Aussie total. A short sharp rising ball to the ribs was powerfully dispatched into the crowd over deep square leg. Such was the effect of that stroke that we did not see another Aussie short ball in the match again.
Graeme Smith, at the other end, apparently wasnt just there to watch Gibbs going about his merry way. He wanted a piece of the Aussie bowlers - he probably wanted to avenge his bowlers! He started off with a few shuffling glides onto the onside and graduated to advances down the pitch which resulted in the ball going over the ropes after a few bounces on the ground or straight out. Surprisingly Bracken was the bowler with the best figures - with an economy rate of somewhere around 6.5 per over. It did not make a good sight to see the wicket keeper Gilchrist standing up to the opening bowler of Australia. But precisely because Bracken did not provide the pace, it made the batsmen's job slightly more difficult.
We barely knew how many overs were being bowled. All through the 10, 15 and 20 over marks, South Africa were carroming along at over 8 an over. Fours and sixes during this stage were too many to describe. In the meantime, the Aussie captain rung in the changes with Mick Lewis and Stuart Clarke. Both were honest medium pace bowlers who could have done their county side proud. But today was not the day for the just about-good-enough men. Today was for men who were possessed by the thought of wanting to beat Australia, who wanted to show that they could play shots as well, if not better than Ricky Ponting. I dont think anybody - not even Smith and Gibbs - would have hazarded to think about a victory at that stage.
With the introduction of spin in the form of Michael Clarke and Andrew Symonds, there was change...change in the arc of the strokes from the batsmen. While the fast medium bowlers were either being streaked along the ground or lifted into the stands with the flattest of angles, the spinners allowed strokes which could touch the rarefied higher echelons above the ground. The ball went up and over and sailed over the ropes in regular intervals. The strategy, if that is the word to be used, being used by the South African pair seemed to be to have at least a couple of hits over or to the boundaries in an over, interspersed with a few singles to relieve the monotony and keep their legs warm.
Smith and then Gibbs proceeded past their half centuries within the twinkle of an eye and the till-now-cautious commentators actually had a word or two to say about the competition left in the game and about an interesting end game play. Well, all good things must come to an end and accordingly Smith lofted one straight to the hands of the waiting Michael Hussey off Michael Clarke, which brought in A.B. De Villiers, surprisingly. People could be forgiven for thinking that Gibbs would slow down because of the fall of his captain's wicket. But Gibbs was in one of those 'zones' that so often used to be the customary abode for the peerless Pete Sampras. Every odd ball was being creamed inside out - in trademark Gibbs fashion - over cover. And a judicious mix was being maintained by a generous dose of smacks and lofted straight drives to the boundary - just to keep the run scoring graphs happy - you see. Young A.B. Devilliers however had not heard about 'zones' and wasnt about to go on a rampage. Australia did see a chance of choking one end down and accordingly brought back Brett Lee. A.B probably surprised himself by playing an exquisite lofted straight drive off a length delivery on the stumps off Lee. But he wasnt going to last long in any case and fell attempting an ugly heave intended towards midwicket, but ending up at long on where Clarke completed the formalities.
Gibbs still powered on - over after over. Just to please those ever-present purists, he conjured an exquisite cover drive off Stuart Clark to reach his century. At one point, about midway through the innings, South Africa's current run rate was well ahead of the required rate. People who had witnessed the earlier carnage even had trouble believing that the Aussies were consistently about 60 to 80 runs behind South Africa at similar stages. See, it was simple - 8 runs per over only meant two boundaries off an over. Anything over that was a bonus. The Gibbs show sizzled and then threatened to sputter when at 130, a chance was offered to Nathan Bracken at mid off, off the bowling of the much maligned Mick Lewis. Bracken didnt even come close to catching the easy chance, the ball hit the heel of his hand and fell harmlessly down to the ground. Bracken's 'Sorry Mate' sure did not cut any ice with the long suffering Mick Lewis. Who knows which way the game could have gone had Bracken caught on. More pertinently to Lewis, he could even have forged some sort of respectability with that wicket. That he went on to become the first bowler in ODI's to score a century (runs given) would not have amused him. And to be fair to him, he did not bowl all that badly - there were enough french cuts to the fine leg boundary off his bowling. Ah, but i get ahead of myself here.
Gibbs, after that reprieve was still himself. He saw a spark of hope in the situation, he also could have seen that none bar him was hitting the white cherry out of the park at will - now that Smith was gone. Lesser mortals would have been cowed down by the dropped chance and got back to playing normal cricket (Is there anything like normal cricket anymore?). In the company of the steady but boring Kallis, Gibbs got past 150 and looked like getting more than a double century with consummate ease. The worst part for the Aussies was that they couldnt even see Gibbs sweat. He was just having them for lunch - at his own pace. That the tempo of the match was never in the hands of the Australian bowlers tells a lot about Ponting's captaincy. Frequent chats with Gilchrist and the frantic discussions with his bowlers notwithstanding, Ponting just did not have a clue to bring the match under control. And this after they had scored a monumental 434 - a world record team score in ODI's till date.
Herschelle Gibbs, though gifted, is still human and showed it in an Andrew Symonds over where he had just belted two sixes of astonishing power - one of which was off a fast low fulltoss. Having scored 13 runs already off the over, instead of rotating the strike, Gibbs wanted to essay another inside out stroke over covers. Symonds though had intelligently taken off all pace from the ball and consequently Gibbs' bat face closed and the ball, instead of soaring over the cover boundary, lobbed to long off where it was caught gleefully. A familiar Australian celebration followed, while Gibbs took the long walk back. He had scored 175 priceless runs off 111 balls and taken the fight to the Aussies. He had shown what was possible and that the game was not out of the reach of the Springboks at all. To that the South Africans owe Gibbs one. The result of this match might just trigger one of those rare sparks of self belief that goes along with domination in world cricket. The team now had the chance to shed its 'choker' tag once and for all.
Kallis pottered along to 20 runs in the company of Boucher - who had just entered. Both seemed intent to restore normalcy to the proceedings and took singles and twos wherever possible. Around the point when Kallis went - spooning a drive to the bucket-palmed Symonds - the asking rate and the current run rate met as equals. Justin Kemp, on whose broad shoulders it seemed, the South African hope was rested, came and went without much happening. Boucher still soldiered on - not many booming strokes emanated from his bat, but he went on with his job with a quiet authority that smacks of confidence - in himself and in his team. In a surprise move, the supposed-to-be allrounder, Van Der Wath was usehered in. After a few customary plonks with the bat, he struck fear in the Aussie ranks when he found the crowd near the covers boundary to his liking and dispatched a couple of balls to them off Mick Lewis's bowling. The asking rate which was climbing above the current rate was again reined in slightly. Just when South Africa hoped for the status quo to continue, the script writers of this match (may they rest in peace - for surely they could not have survived the drama of this ball game) thought it might be interesting to see how South Africa manage without Van Der Wath. The lusty hitting Springbok was caught acrobatically by Ricky Ponting who appeared to have snatched back the momentum in his team's favour. Just when we wait for Andrew Hall's arrival to the crease (that pheonomenal liker of Indian bowling), the South African think tank thought it best to send big and burly Roger Telemachus to the middle. Whatever the move might have meant strategically, Telemachus proved that he was equal to the task and had a strong heart than most, when he swept the canny Bracken to the fine leg boundary. By now, we had seen all sorts of fields set by the Aussie captain - some sensible, some conspicuously not so. It was a sign of the mind set the Aussies were in. Ponting knew that the axe could fall on very many heads if he were to actually lose this match. Maybe the thought did not sit lightly on his mind. Here was an Australian captain who was actually reminded that he could lose the match and that got him unsettled. For what else could explain Ponting's logic of sticking with Mick Lewis as well as the faster bowlers when the part time spin of Andrew Symonds and Michael Clarke could have stifled the likes of Telemachus.
The equation was getting close and we were heading into the end game - that game within the game where the character of each player is critically tested. Telemachus, gaining confidence from his earlier adventurous shot, tried one more which only got him caught by Hussey off Bracken. The last throw of the dice had been thrown and South Africa had to usher in the rotund Andrew Hall. He was a cool customer and a veteran - though he would have been the first to admit that the pressures of this match was something he had never faced before. The inconspicuous and unsung Boucher meantime had built a considerable score and was the lynchpin now for South Africa to pull off this most improbable of victories.
So significant was the weight of the 'choker' tag on South Africa that even when the equation came down to something like 13 runs off 2 overs with 2 wickets in hand, the crowd remained pensive and silent, but ever hopeful and with good cheer. At the end of over number 48 (incidentally bowled by the poor Mick Lewis), which had resulted in Telemachus' dismissal as well as 17 runs, South Africa needed only 13 runs, with Boucher on strike to Bracken - the most economical bowler on display. With intelligent pushes and prods and guides behind the wicket, the pair brought the equation down to 7 runs required off the last over.
Ponting took the safe way out - he called on Brett Lee to bowl the last over. Now, what happened in the next few balls would have just about stilled the heart of old Lance Klusener, bringing back memories of that tied match in the World Cup. Boucher, on strike for the first ball of Lee's over squeezed one into the gully region and raced to the non striker's end. Boucher, who till then had virtually qualified himself to take over the 'ice man' credentials from Lance Klusener, deserved to be on the winning side. But the script writers, yes those very gents who insist on spreading acidity and contributing to rising blood pressure levels among the poor spectators, woke up. Andrew Hall smote one for boundary off the first ball he faced, that being the second ball of the over. It seemed to be all over bar the shouting. Remaining true to their legacy, South Africa lost their ninth wicket off the next ball. Hall, attempting to clear mid on again, ended up getting caught by Clarke. He would not have forgiven himself had the match been lost from then on. Makhaya Ntini, strode quickly in, the bat looking quite out of place in his hands. He would be facing up to none other than Brett Lee and he had to survive and pass the strike onto Boucher. Nobody envied his position at that moment. With eyes which opened all the way up, almost into his forehead, he ventured to prod at a fast length ball just outside off stump and got it behind point. Boucher scampered to the other end in a jiffy. The nerves were still jangling - for the match was tied now and South Africa had but one wicket to lose. Ponting conferred with Lee with pursed lips and jaded eyes - he had seen too much today. Evidently having a plan, Lee steamed in and promptly bowled the ball at the legs of Boucher who chipped it over mid on's head and broke out into celebrations.
There had been a test of team character and the South Africans had shone through. Boucher had played out of his skin - staying put out there in the cauldron, milking runs and not throwing his wicket away. He had eschewed the fancy strokes and restricted himself to the ones he had the best faith in. South Africa had won a cliff hanger, the mother of all matches. They had overhauled 434 runs in 50 overs. To be exact, they had 438 for 9 in 49.5 overs. A veritable feast for statisticians, this match - though it was going to take some time to tabulate all the records that had tumbled.
In retrospect, one can understand the plight of the bowlers. And incredulous fans as well as the retired bowlers of yore will scream foul at the unfairness of it all. Where is the fun - they say - in having these blokes run up and deliver dollies after dollies on a featherbed of a pitch and on a ground which had boundaries just about as big as in a ladies softball game? Accepted. Now lets look at it this way - albeit there wasn't a battle between bat and ball on display, we were privileged to watch a few artists at work. Artists painting wondrous strokes with willowy brushes where the bowlers just so happened to be their canvas. The canvas was clean and it allowed for the art to come through and reach us. Now who in the right mind would talk of the canvas when all we wanted to see was the consummate work of art?
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