After taking an immense amount of flack following the disastrous first test which was lost by 281 runs, the Proteas hit back in the most sublime way possible, finishing off the Aussies in four days and winning by 231 runs.
By Michael Marnewick
The rainy weather predicted for the final day (Monday) proved to be moot as they managed to wrap up the game before the weather had any say in the outcome.
With the visitors on 126 without loss in the fourth innings, it appeared that the mammoth total set for them either wouldn’t be enough, or there would be enough doggedness in the Aussie batting to save the match.
The top ranked test team– the Proteas – showed just why they should be dominating work cricket with this dominant display of cricket with both bat and ball. They were better in every department, and even though there were slip-ups, they were still good enough to annihilate the Australians.
What was even more impressive was the way they bounced back from the Centurion test, and how the confident (over-confident?) Aussies were dismantled and how their momentum was halted when everyone expected another big game from them.
Fortunately, the men in suits didn’t have to take the trophy out of the display case after bringing it to the ground in anticipation of having to present it to the tourists early.
But back to choking.
Accused many times of failing to win games they were expected to, the Proteas have been an enigma over the years. The recent loss of Jacques Kallis to retirement has scratched at the scab, seeing if the sore was healed or would continue to fester away.
While the team is in a state of flux and Dean Elgar responded in magnificent fashion to losing his contract after a bizarre (and quite frankly questionable timing) of national contracts a couple of days before the match, there is a sense that this isn’t the finished product. The Proteas don’t appear to have appointed a successor to Kallis (de Kock or AB de Villiers should be identified and supported as such) and there are concerns about the frailty of Smith’s captaincy and batting form despite a quite outstanding test record.
Smith has not scored a lot of runs of late. Scoring 10, 4, 9 and 14 in the current test series for an average of just over 9 runs per innings is nowhere near his capability. Australian captain Michael Clarke is similarly feeling the pressure not having scored more than 25 runs in an innings over the last 11 visits to the crease.
The third and final test in Cape Town starting on Saturday will go a long way to giving an indication of just where this team is psychologically. They should win the test match (and series) as their number one test ranking suggests.
But that dreaded “C” word is in the back of some minds.
