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Australia and South Africa headed to the MCG, with the hosts a chance to seal the series, while the visitors needed to win to keep the series alive.
Naturally, both sides therefore made four changes each to their teams. Here are the ratings for some of those things that didn’t change.
Quinton de Kock
Grade: D
Hashim Amla opened the batting for South Africa and continued on with his excellent form from Canberra, cruising to 18 off 20 balls.
He even did so with a clicking bat handle that excited the slips cordon on at least two occasions. This was presumably a wily attempt to draw reviews out of the Australians. However, before Amla could succeed with this thrilling new DRS tactic, he surprisingly pulled the ball straight to Pat Cummins at midwicket.
Amla’s fellow opener Quinton de Kock, in contrast, struggled to 17 off 38 balls and looked badly out of form. Now there are a lot of easy jokes made about de Kock, usually as a result of wags noticing that his surname sounds somewhat like a slang term for a penis. Or, more rarely, a rooster.
But, frankly, I’m more concerned about his first name, which gives the impression that Quin-ton is going to score 500, when he has never once got close to even a *double* ton. Why mislead us like that, man? Not cool.
AB de Villiers
Grade: A+
Sigh. Yes. I know. We’re all sick of how good AB de Villiers is.
He batted at four for South Africa this innings, instead of five, as he’d done to some mild criticism in the previous three matches. Not that it made much difference, since the fourth and fifth batsman (David Miller) arrived at the crease within nine balls of one another.
The two put on a partnership of 122, with de Villiers inexplicably earning applause from the smattering of people at the MCG when he passed fifty. These same supporters presumably went on to applaud the sun for setting later on that evening.
While de Villiers was batting, South Africa looked like they could make anything. (Well, not anything. They weren’t going to make 1/900, for example.) But once Cummins tricked de Villiers into an ungainly hoik to Steve Smith for 91 off 88 balls, they instead spluttered to a disappointing total of 8/267 off their fifty overs.
Later, in the field, de Villiers looked as if he cracked a rib while diving to stop a ball. I bet the break is exquisite.
The MCG Crowd
Grade: C
There was some concern from Cricket Australia officials about the paltry attendance for this game, with an official crowd of only 14,177 making their way to the MCG.
Seems a negative outlook. Why not focus on the positives instead and acknowledge that there were, in fact, over 14,200 if you include players and umpires?
Much better, isn’t it?
Dale Steyn
Grade: B-
Dale Steyn, of course, does not care about crowds. His job is to bowl like a demented madman, hellbent on destroying all that humankind holds pure and sacred, regardless of how many people witness the carnage. And this is what he did, tearing into the Australian batting, taking the wickets of George Bailey and Glenn Maxwell, helping to reduce Australia to 5/98 in the 25th over.
Maxwell, in fact, broke his bat with his very first shot. Surprisingly, he chose not to carry on using the broken willow for the rest of his innings, which seemed grossly out of character. I hope he’s not ill.
In between overs of mayhem, Steyn mingled on the boundary, taking selfies with the sparse, gleeful fans.
Which is all well and good, I guess. But I’m not sure I’d actually want a selfie of Dale Steyn in my phone. That sounds dangerously like the premise of a Japanese horror movie to me.
Steve Smith
Grade: A+
Australia’s best batsman was Steve Smith. He and Matthew Wade rebuilt the devastated innings, putting on 121 at a run a ball to get Australia within 49 of victory, before Wade was caught in the deep.
James Faulkner replaced the wicketkeeper with the plan of (in his own post-match words) ‘just staying out there with Smithy’. In Faulkner-speak, this apparently translates to 34 off 19 balls, with six boundaries. But as handy as Faulkner’s steady strike-rotation was, it was Smith who was the hero for Australia, not only making an outstanding 104 from 112 balls, but also respecting the great tradition of ties in the Australia-South African ODI rivalry by being bowled with the scores level.
Alas, despite Cummins’ best efforts to then be caught at mid-on advancing down the pitch and swatting the first ball he faced, the quick just failed to keep the scores tied and instead carelessly hit the match and series-winning run. But he’s young and just making his way back into the team, so we’ll forgive him.