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South Africa
pulls off a 4-wkt win to win the Series 2-0 |
May 7, 2006 (Click to see the
Scorecard)
 South
African batting held well on the 3rd day at
Wanderers to successfully chase the challenging
Target of 217 and eventually take the 3-Tests
Series 2-0. A good start was half the job done
while chasing and that’s what had happened when
Boeta Dippenaar and Skipper Graeme Smith
provided the ideal start by putting on 69 for
the opening wicket. It was a brisk start from
the two batsmen as they got these runs in just
14 overs making things easier for the middle
order. Although New Zealand did manage to pick
up wickets inbetween, South Africa closed the
shutters in this Test Match and won comfortably
in the end by 4 wickets. New Zealand tried a lot
to come back in the game but the opening stand
and then the 2nd wicket partnership took SA to
the comfort zone.
Dippenaar got out after making a
very useful 37 and he played some glorious
drives as the New Zealand bowlers were guilty of
bowling too many over pitched up deliveries.
Chris Martin provided the breakthrough with his
pitched up outswinger that enticed Dippenaar to
drive away from his body and edge it to the
Keeper. In form Hashim Amla then joined Smith
and the two batsmen picked up runs whenever the
opportunity was there to do so. This 2nd wicket
partnership produced 61 runs to make the task of
the New Zealanders difficult. Smith who got to a
strokefilled half century got out after looking
to cut a short delivery that was too close to
his body and Franklin was the bowler who got
this wicket. Kyle Mills then produced two
brilliant deliveries that got Amla and Kallis
out to create a bit of panic in the South
African dressing room. Amla was bowled by a
delivery that drifted in and then seamed away to
hit the stumps and Kallis was done in by a nasty
lifter that took off the pitch.
The match went beyond the Tea Break and James
Franklin provided a small twist in the game by
bowling AB de Villiers and Mark Boucher. AB de
Villiers was looking to drive a ball that was
nipping back sharply on the offside and Boucher
played across the line and played onto his
stumps. The score was 202 when Boucher was out
and another 15 runs to get wasn’t any big task
for Prince and Pollock, who saw South Africa
home. Ashwell Prince played his part in the
chase by remaining unbeaten on an important 43.
For New Zealand to add up 70 more runs this
morning, most of the credit will go to Daniel
Vettori who went onto score a more than valuable
60. James Franklin had supported him well by
scoring 19. Oram, who was expected to play a big
role in scoring some important runs for New
Zealand was the first one to go this morning as
he was looking to drive Steyn’s pitched up
delivery on the backfoot to spoon up a catch to
mid off where Boeta Dippenaar dived full length
forward to take one heck of a catch. Shaun
Pollock then broke the 44-run partnership
between Vettori and Franklin as the latter
didn’t pick up the inswinger from Pollock and
decided to shoulder arms. Andrew Hall then did
the finishing job as he took two wickets in the
next over that of Vettori and Martin in
consecutive deliveries. New Zealand were bowled
out for 283 leaving a target of 217, which could
have been defended on this sort of a track but
South Africa batted well to make the target look
easy than what it was actually.
Graeme Smith for his half centuries in both the
innings rightly got the Man of the Match award
and the hostile Makhaya Ntini, who ended up with
a bagful of wickets got the Man of the Series
award. Interestingly Ntini failed to pick up a
single wicket in New Zealand’s 2nd innings and
this looks to be a rare case for Ntini of not
having any wickets in his bowling figures! South
Africa had a better pace attack than New Zealand
and that might have been their plus point in
this series and also that NZ had lost the
firepower of Shane Bond, who could have made the
difference with his red hot pace.
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