The much touted semi-final match between Australia and South Africa turned out to be a tame, flat, one sided affair. There was nothing memorable about the match.
South Africa went out without so much as a whimper as Ricky Ponting’s men won by 7 wickets and 18 overs to spare. South Africa managed to put on a mere 149 runs on the board and folded up their innings by the 43rd over.
Graeme Smith made the right call with the toss and batted first expecting, we were told, the wicket to get slower as the game progressed. If they had a plan to take the game to the Aussies they probably left it behind, as was apparent by the manner in which they went about their task.
In their haste to take the Aussie bowlers on, the South Africans lost too many wickets too soon and got themselves into a hole very early on. By the tenth over they had lost five wickets for a measly 27 runs by which time their innings was in total disarray. Instead of putting the Aussies under pressure they brought it upon themselves by their wayward batting. The scale of their failure is apparent from the fact that only three of their batsmen reached double figures.
In short, the South Africans played miserably. Had it been Bangladesh playing here there would have been talk of a mismatch, even if the Bangla boys had given the South Africans a drubbing. Instead, do not be surprised if the pundits were to say how invincible the Aussies are.
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