The biggest match of the first round lived up to all the hype and hoopla surrounding it as Australia and South Africa gave the world a taste of what is to follow. Ricky Ponting's team came out on top, but not before the South Africans gave them a small scare.
The Australian strength is the batting and that they would need to rely on their explosive line-up to win matches has been well documented. They delivered yet again with Adam Gilchrist scoring a run-a-ball 42 along with Matthew Hayden who scored the fastest 100 in World Cups (in 66 balls)! Ricky Ponting came in next and blitzed a 91 while Michael Clarke added 92 to take Australia to a seemingly unassailable 377. But this was the same opposition that had successfully chased down 434!
And for a while, it looked like they would do it again. Graeme Smith (74) and AB de Villiers (92 in 70b) raced to 160 in just 20 overs and the questions were starting to be raised about the Aussie bowling once again. But as is often the case in such high-pressure games, one wicket often changes the complexion. And that's exactly what happened. Jacques Kallis tried but in vain and none of the others could get going. South Africa folded up for 294, short of the Australia target by 83 runs.
Psychologically, this will be a huge boost for Australia. Their bowlers bowled better than South Africa's and the South African bowling was carted around rather badly. More importantly, they made another emphatic statement in the quest for a third consecutive title.
Graeme Smith was gracious in the loss, but insisted that everything was okay with their campaign. "Guyana (venue for the next round match) is an important part of the campaign for us and although we lost today, we are still a very confident bunch of guys. Credit to Australia, I thought they deserved their victory," he said.
With this win, Australia has reasserted themselves as the team to beat. Not South Africa, not Sri Lanka… the defending champions are still the ones to beat.
MATCH QUOTES
Australian captain, Ricky Ponting
On Shane Watson's brilliant run out
"Shane Watson's runout probably had as much to do with the course of the game as anything else."
On Australia's fielding
"I think the way we executed everything after that first breakthrough was terrific. The fielding was good and once we got a bit of a sniff we were all over them. Whenever a side is chasing a total like that, one little slipup, one piece of great fielding from the opposition side, can put you on the back foot pretty quickly. That's what happened today". Ponting said he had fully expected the South Africans to go immediately on to the attack."
On his batsmen
"I have been confident all week that our batters would do a good job today. I knew we'd post a big total and when we did they had only one option and that was to come out and play that way. They did play very well, AB de Villiers today, that's as good as I've ever seen him bat."
Man of the Match - Matthew Hayden
On him receiving honorary citizenship of St Kitts
"It's a tremendous honour," Hayden told. "We have had a great couple of weeks here. The preparations have been pretty good at all the venues and we've enjoyed our stay."
South African captain, Graeme smith
On his team's loss
"A victory would have been terrific, but there's still so much cricket to be played in the tournament. The key is to win enough games to get yourself into the semi-finals and we know what we need to do."
PHOTOS © GETTY IMAGES
Published on Mar 25, 2007
