South Africa asserted their position as the best Test team in the world with an emphatic 309-run victory over Australia in the third Test to clinch the hard-fought series 1-0 and ruin Ricky Ponting’s farewell yesterday.
Ponting had been hoping to sign off in his 168th Test with a victory that would have allowed Australia to leapfrog the Proteas and return to the summit of the game they dominated for so much of his career.
However, they never looked like getting anywhere near the winning target of 632 they had been set as they were bowled out for 322 in their second innings shortly before the scheduled close of play.
Photo: Reuters
Appropriately, it was South Africa’s bowling unit which sealed the victory after finally firing in Perth to turn the series around with a devastating spell on the morning of day two at the WACA.
“Day two for me has got to go down as one of the highlights of South African cricket,” skipper Graeme Smith, whose team are unbeaten in their past nine Tests on the road and in away series since 2006, told reporters. “Then today, to take 10 wickets and put our marker firmly down in Australia was special.”
The hosts had had the better of day one, as well as the drawn Tests in Brisbane and Adelaide, but the tourists struck back with a vengeance to become the first team since the West Indies in the 1980s and 1990s to win consecutive series in Australia.
“It’s been outstanding what we’ve been able to achieve,” Smith added. “I think for us to win back-to-back series in England and Australia ... is the proudest achievement of my career.”
Australia captain Michael Clarke was named Man of the Series for his double-centuries in Brisbane and Adelaide, and he praised his team for taking the Proteas so close.
“I don’t want to take anything away from South Africa,” he said. “They showed why they are the No. 1 team in the world. When they had momentum they went with it and when they didn’t, they worked their backsides off to get it back.”
South Africa got the best possible start yesterday with two early wickets which brought 37-year-old Ponting to the crease for his 287th and final Test innings 45 minutes before lunch.
Welcomed onto the field by a guard of honor of applauding South Africa players, he lasted just 40 minutes and 23 balls before the same players were shaking his hand as he headed back to the pavilion with 8 to his name.
Two fours, the first a vintage pull, closed his Test tally at 13,378 runs for an average of 51.85 from 168 matches — the second-highest run count in the long history of the game.
Spinner Robin Peterson (3-127) will go down in the record books as the last bowler to dismiss the Tasmanian, tempting Ponting into an attempted cut which ended up as an edge into the hands of Jacques Kallis in the slips.
The former Australia captain took off his helmet and raised his arms to accept the applause of the crowd, before taking his leave from the field where he made his Test debut 17 years ago.
“I probably had in mind a bit more of a fairytale ending than I’ve had here,” he said at an emotional press conference. “Graeme’s gesture, that sort of thing will live with me forever.”
Opener Warner (29) had lasted just two deliveries in the bright morning sunshine before edging the ball to Smith in the slips off the bowling of Vernon Philander.
Watson (25) was the next to depart, with Smith again taking the catch after Morne Morkel had softened the all-rounder up with some short bowling.
Ed Cowan outlasted Ponting and had just reached his half-century when he fell for 53, leaving Michael Clarke and Mike Hussey to try and build the sort of partnership they enjoyed when Australia were in the ascendancy in the first two Tests.
It was not to be, though, as Clarke (44) was stumped charging down the wicket to Peterson, with Hussey (26) and Matthew Wade (10) soon following him back to the dressing room.
The tea break only delayed the departure of Mitchell Johnson (3) and John Hastings (20), but Mitchell Starc (68 not out) and Nathan Lyon wagged the tail with some vigor in a 10th-wicket partnership of 87.
Starc showed his top order how it should have been done and claimed his maiden half-century in 32 balls, scoring nine fours and two sixes in a fluent innings, before Lyon was caught by Smith off the bowling of Dale Steyn (3-72).
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but