South Africa vs Australia – The wheel turned!
Wow! Who could have thought victory for Graeme Smith and the rest of the Proteas team would be this emotional and taste so sweet!
This win nearly makes up for the 15 years of emotion of another kind…of almost always being on the losing side to an Australian cricket team that obviously had the mental toughness to beat the South African team into submission on a regular basis.
All that changed this past five days even when everything seemed to go according to the usual script. Great starts by the Proteas, and then letting the Aussies off the hook. For four days it seemed like we would find ourselves lamenting another good start turned into a loss.
On Day 4 though we started to believe while Graeme Smith was batting with Neil Mckenzie and then Hashim Amla. By the end of Day 4, neither Smith nor his other top 3 batsmen were any longer at the crease!
Many people felt that as long as Smith was batting, South Africa would win. They were right – in a way. It turned out that Smith’s attitude and mental toughness had been adopted by his entire team – especially AB De Villiers and JP Duminy today!
We had of course seen this same mental strength portrayed in India and England during the last year when the team posted huge 4th innings totals to win one test and draw another.
So not only did the team win for the first time since 1994, but they also achieved the second highest test run chase in a fourth innings. Good going, Proteas!
South African cricketers and fans have had to endure a lot of ridicule downunder, so we will take this moment and savour this victory for a while!
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