South Africa’s national cricket team has reaffirmed their status at the reigning World Test Champions. South Africa trounced Australia by an innings and 31 runs in the second Test match at St George’s Park in Gqeberha.
After enforcing the follow-on, the Proteas bundled the Australians out for 295 in their second innings after tea on day five to level the three-match series at one game apiece.
Persistent rain and a wet outfield on the morning of day five, once again resulted in the whole of the first session being lost at St George’s Park. An early lunch was taken, and play eventually resumed around midday.
Australia still trailed South Africa’s first innings by 170 runs, on 156 for the loss of four wickets with Travis Head digging in his heels on 87 and Scott Boland unbeaten on two. Head simply picked up from where he’d left off overnight, notching up his 13th Test century.
Boland, taking his cue from Head, also looked to take the fight to the Proteas bowlers. It was seamer Wiaan Mulder who made the breakthrough for the hosts, finally bowling Head out for a well-compiled 121.
Spearhead of the South African bowling attack Kagiso Rabada accounted for his old foe Steve Smith for three a short while later. But the Australians stood strong, going to tea on 253 for the loss of six wickets, still needing a further 73 runs.
Mulder struck again twice after the break, first ending Boland’s resistance for 40 and then bowling Australia’s captain Pat Cummins out for four to help reduce the visitors to 262 for eight.
Rabada accounted for Mitchell Starc, bowling him out for 11 and Marco Jansen followed up with the final scalp, that of Josh Hazelwood for a duck, sealing a famous victory by an innings and 31 runs.
It’s the first time that the South Africans have defeated the Australians by an innings in a Test match and captain Temba Bavuma says it was all about not getting ahead of themselves.
“It’s just basically to stay in the moment right like I think when we were batting I think for me it was all about how we can extend it how we can go another hour, another hour leads to a session, how we can keep them on their feet because we know how that does have an effect and then once the opportunity is there we have been calling for us to be more ruthless and to take in the second innings that’s exactly what we did. I think that’s how we have been playing our cricket, our team the way we go about it, how we play good old test cricket. We will try wear the opposition down and take the opportunity presents itself,” he says.
The third and final Test is at Newlands in Cape Town, starting next Tuesday.
