Times Media - March 7 2014
TELFORD VICE, Cape Town
“We weren’t afraid to lose,” was Darren Lehmann’s succinct assessment of why his Australian team won the third test against SA at Newlands on Wednesday.
The victory, by 245 runs, sealed SA’s first series defeat since March 2009, which was also inflicted by the Australians. Wednesday’s result ended a run of 14 series in which SA had not been beaten.
SA have not won any of the seven home series they have played against Australia since re-admission. They have lost five of those rubbers and drawn the other two.
The series triumph was Australia’s first away from home since they won in West Indies in April 2012. They lost in India and England last year.
SA they were blown off the park by Mitchell Johnson’s 12/127 in Centurion, where Australia won by 281 runs.
The home side staged a rousing comeback in the calmer conditions of St George’s Park, winning by 231 runs with Dale Steyn’s 4/55 in the second innings the key performance.
At Newlands, which delivered the most balanced pitch of the series, Australia were on top from the moment Michael Clarke won the toss.
Centuries by David Warner and Clarke set up a declaration at 494/7. Johnson’s 4/42 limited SA’s reply to 287, a deficit of 207.
Clarke did not enforce the follow-on, and another century by Warner allowed Australia to lump SA with a towering target of 511. With Vernon Philander scoring a gutsy 51 not out, they stood firm for 134.3 of the 139 overs they needed to face in the second innings to save the match.
None of which was Lehmann’s concern: “We’re happy to lose, but happy to play cricket in the right way that entertains the crowd.”
He also took a swipe at SA’s crowds, which are smaller than Australia’s, and the Newlands pitch.
“It was a pretty disappointing crowd for a couple days here in Cape Town. We want to get people coming through the gates. If other teams want to play on flat wickets and make it dull, then that’s their choice.”
But that small crowd and flat pitch was the setting in which South Africans saw the two leading candidates to replace Graeme Smith as SA’s test captain bat together for more than an hour on Wednesday.
AB de Villiers and Faf du Plessis put on 41 runs for the sixth wicket in the 18.1 overs they were in each other’s company.
It was the 12th time they had shared a stand in tests, but they have done so many times as teammates at Affies and for the Titans. If one of them has been the captain, most often that captain was Du Plessis.
De Villiers is SA’s one-day captain and Du Plessis leads the T20 side. As De Villiers is the more established of the two in the test team, he would seem to have the inside track on the leadership. But, overall, Du Plessis is the more experienced captain.
How selection convenor Andrew Hudson and Cricket SA’s board - which will have to approve the selectors’ choice - weigh those factors will be intriguing.
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