South Africa had ended their Australia tour with a win in their last mast match of the series. Proteas, who already won the ODI series by 2-1 on this tour has beaten Australia by a margin of 21 runs in their only T-20 match of the Australia tour. Though Australia lost the match, the current number 1 all-rounder Glenn Maxwell showed brilliant all-around performance but couldn’t succeed to get the result on Australia’s favor. Due to the continuous heavy rain, the game started 2 hours later as per schedule time and was reduced to 10 overs to each side with max 2 overs bowling limit for bowlers. The powerplay was also reduced to just 3 overs. Australia won the toss and Captain Aaron Finch choose to bowl first.
South Africa Inning
De Kock and Hendricks partnership of 42 from 17 ball
South Africa started the inning with the same opening pair of Reeza Hendricks and Quinton de Kock as in the ODI series, this pair started exactly in the same way what South Africa wanted. These two started to swing their bats from the very first ball of the innings and continue hitting the big shots in the powerplay. In a first over of the inning they scored the 15 runs in Behrendorff over, Hendricks played the explosive inning of 19 runs from 8 balls before he lost his wicket in second last ball of the powerplay. SA scored 43 runs losing 1 wicket after the end of the powerplay. South Africa were 60 for 1 after the end of 5 overs and it looked like South Africa will set the target of 130 to 140 very easily.
Maxwell brought back Aussie in the First Inning
Maxwell who conceded only six runs in his first over was again brought by captain Finch to ball his last over. In the very first ball of his second over, he took the wicket of opener Quinton De Kock. The South African opener comes down the pitch but missed the shot and wicketkeeper Carey did no mistake behind the wicket and remove de Kock with an easy stumping. In the last ball of same over, South African captain Faf du Plessis survived luckily. In Maxwell quicker ball, du Plessis came at front foot and his miss time shot luckily got outside edge which passed from between the legs of wicketkeeper Carey and results in 4 runs. Maxwell ended his two-over spell with giving only 14 runs with 5 dots in two over and took the important wicket of De Kock.
<grammarly-btn>In the last ball of the seventh over, Maxwell took one of the best catch of the series and sent captain du Plessis to the Pavilion. Duplessis well-timed pull shot which surely looked to be a six in deep mid-wicket area was caught brilliantly by Glen Maxwell. Maxwell showed brilliant awareness at the boundary rope and take the absolutely amazing catch like a superman. We’ve seen a lot of time Maxwell taking the similar catches like this before. The South African captain added 27 runs in just 15 balls with 4 fours and opener de Kock added 22 runs from 16 balls with 2 sixes. In a final 2 over Australia gave only nine runs taking 3 wickets which restricted visitor team inning to 108 runs. For Australia, both Coulter-Nile and Andrew Tye picked up 2 wickets each conceding 19 and 18 runs in their two overs.
Australia Inning
Australian top order still struggling
Just like South Africa, Australia started the same opening pairs, Chirs Lynn and Captain Finch. Australian captain failed to perform with the bat on his birthday and lost his wicket early on the last ball of the second over. Finch tried to hit the ball coming out of the crease and missed the perfectly bowled delivery in Ngidi's over which stuck on the middle and leg stump. In the next over Aussie lost their two wickets, D’archy was got out on the first ball he faced in the Morris Over and then in the last ball he bowled opener Chris Lynn who scored 14 runs from 10 balls. After the end of the powerplay, Australian score was just 27 runs losing their top 3 batsmen. Glen Maxwell start to fought for Australia from one end of the crease and started to play sensibly but from other ends, he got no support from his teammates. Stoinis, Dermott, and Carey lost their wicket very cheaply while Maxwell was still hitting some wonderful shots from other ends to bring Australia closer to the target.
After the end of 8th over, Australia needed 43 runs from 12 balls but has already lost the 6 wickets and looked impossible to reach the target. They scored only 10 runs and 9 runs in 9th and 10th over and they lost the match by 21 runs. Maxwell lost his wicket in the final ball of the inning and scored the 38 runs from 23 balls before he was caught out in Ngidi’s over. Maxwell’s solo effort couldn’t drive the victory for Australia. The South African bowler Tabraiz Shamsi was awarded man of the match for his economical bowling performance.
Both teams will be right in action from the next week, The Australian team will start the first T20 of India tour of Australia from 21st November, While South Africa will play their first test match of Pakistan tour of South Africa from 26th November.
Bonus Cricket News
The second test match between England vs Sri Lanka is won by England in the 5th day by 57 runs. With a win, England now leads the series by 2-0 and won the 3 match test series without playing their last match.
Comments