Jacques does it !
Posted by karram on December 21, 2005
Oz-RSA games always put me in a spot of bother. I support both teams, and Oz have a habit of thrashing RSA which I find a bit painful.
Anyway, I had predicted a scoreline of 3-0 favouring Oz for this test series. One cannot criticize a line of thought which concludes that Oz would dominate and decimate SA. And, till the final day of the first test, this thought would have been correct.
The first test in WACA, not unlike a sailor with a broken compass, changed course a number of times. Periods of domination were interspersed with periods of submission. Teams took control of the game, only to relinquish it in a matter of overs.. that is, till Hodge took control of the game, with a brilliant unbeaten 203. This enabled Ponting to declare, and set SA a target of 491. The expected result ? An SA collapse.
For a while it looked on the cards. 2 down for not much, with a day left to bat out, one would have thought SA’s chances of survival slim. The question would have been “How long would they last”, not whether they would last the day. Probably someone forgot to tell Rudolph that..
He almost did not play in this test. A last minute replacement for his namesake, Rudolph did not do much in the first innings, did his stuff in the Aussie innings’ with those dropped catches, and was on line to be dropped for the next test. That is, till the last day.
In what must be one of the greatest knocks in recent times, he defied Warne and Co on a wearing 5th day pitch all day, and was still at the crease unbeaten, when the last ball was bowled in the test. A magnificient knock, appreaciated even by the Aussies, as demonstrated by the congratulations from Warne and Ponting to Rudolph when he got his hundred.
And, Kemp, who was sledged by Warne in the first innings, and given the nickname “Daryll”, gave good support to Rudolph. Kemp had the last laugh though… :). His partnership with Rudolph saved the game for SA.
On to test 2.. hope it is another close one :).
