Recent Match Report – Australia vs South Africa, ICC Cricket World Cup 2023, 2nd Semi-Final

Australia 215 for 7 (Head 62, Shamsi 2-42, Coetzee 2-47) beaten South Africa 212 (Miller 101, Klaasen 47, Starc 3-34, Hazlewood 2-12) by three wickets

Yawn. Australia is in another World Cup final.

Except it wasn’t Steve Waugh’s Mental Monsters or Ricky Ponting’s Invincibles. These men were fallible. They almost didn’t make it. South Africa refused to let them.

Interestingly, the victory target was also the score that these two extremely watchable teams had achieved in what was for a very long time the greatest ODI ever played. 213.

This classic, like that of 1999, owes a lot to the spinners. Keshav Maharaj and Tabraiz Shamsi were not so much spinning the ball as helping him develop his own mind. They operated in tandem for 16 overs, producing a run once every two balls, a false shot once every four balls and almost the same number of wickets as boundaries – 3 for 4.

The men they dismissed were Travis Head, Marnus Labuschagne and, most notably, Glenn Maxwell for a duck.

Australia were 137 for 5.

How did this game come to life?

South Africa had recorded their lowest score of 10 in 15 years of ODI cricket. 18 for 2. They entered this semi-final with a score of several points in one over 14 times. The most formidable batting line-up in the tournament was shut down like a computer that had caught a virus. Only David Miller was safe. He raised 101 to 1 on his side. The others collapsed at 100 to 9 of theirs.

Things didn’t get much better in the chase either. South Africa needed 52 balls to score their first boundary. Australia needed two. Marco Jansen leaked 12 runs off a delivery. Reeza Hendricks dropped Head on 40 and saw him take a hat-trick of fours – one of which was also a drop – to reach his half-century. More than half of the score they had to defend was gone in the 15th.

The ghosts of past knockouts had all arrived at Eden Gardens with popcorn and everything.

Shasmi, however, told them to beep completely. It was he who made Labuschagne look very, very foolish in the 16th over, a heavyweight shout denied even though his leg was literally in front of the wicket. It was he who pushed Maxwell’s leg stump back, a long hop that suddenly turned into perhaps the most important delivery of this match, sneaking under the bat that had last week summoned a double -cent to recover a lost cause and in the leg. strain.

Shamsi walked around the entire square in celebration. Temba Bavuma kept better control of his feet but his eyes flashed.

The ghosts of knockouts past had begun to flee when Josh Inglis entered.

More soon