The final game of a long summer of cricket was played at the Wanderers on Friday night. South Africa had already secured the series victory with most players looking onwards to the IPL. Australia had only pride to play for.

Captain Graeme Smith won the toss and asked the Australians to bat first, which was a bit strange because the wicket looked a belter. Almost immediately the ball was flying to the boundary, Brad Haddin and Clarke butchered the bowlers scoring 127 runs off 115 balls. The fall of the openers did nothing to the run rate as they pushed on, at one point 340 was on the cards.

The seam bowlers had been smacked all over the Wanderers, so Graeme Smith turned to his spinners. JP Duminy stepped in for Johan Botha, taking the pace off the ball seemed to work. Van der Merwe and Duminy pulled the Aussies back from what was looking like a massive total. Duminy returned figures of 10 overs, 48 runs taking 3 wickets, Roelof van der Merwe picked up 2 wickets for 44 runs. Dale Steyn got plundered for 78, as did Ntini. An impressive 303 was the score set by Australians.

There was only one man that could have taken South Africa to victory, Herschelle Gibbs. When Herschelle scores big South Africa wins, it’s simple. He opened the batting in style scoring freely, but at the other end Smith again failed to score runs, out for 20. Herchelle continued without his opening partner eventually getting trapped LBW top scoring with 82 runs. Kallis and AB de Villiers pushed on and maintained what Gibbs had started, but once they left the crease there was simply no resistance. The ‘new ball’ was introduced and it helped Australia claim 8 wickets for 68 runs, a dramatic collapse. The South Africans need to think about the introduction of this ‘reconditioned ball’, there’s more to the game then simply going out to score runs.

The Australian fielding was superb; Ben Laughlin’s amazing catch on the boundary to dismiss Albie Morkel sealed the game for Australians. Australia won the game by 47 runs, and moved up to number 2 in the ODI rankings, South Africa end the summer ranked number in ODI cricket.