Australia vs South Africa 1st ODI: The Liebke ratings

It was a game of several halves in the first of five one-day internationals between Australia and South Africa.

Both teams struggled to capitalise on whatever advantage they stumbled into.

Here are the ratings for the match.

Michael Clarke’s hamstring
Grade: D

After a quick start, David Warner and Aaron Finch showed Hayden-Langerian levels of solidarity by losing their wickets almost simultaneously. Their joint dismissal brought Michael Clarke to the crease.

The big talking point out of Clarke’s innings was not his battle with Dale Steyn, despite the Channel Nine commentators simultaneously talking incessantly about the ‘feud’ between the two of them and also bemoaning the fact that the ‘feud’ was such a talking point.

Nor was it his unconvincing 11 from 20 balls as he tried and failed to rebuild the Australian innings.

No, the big talking point was the recurrence of his hamstring injury. Or, perhaps more accurately at this stage, his hamstring injury’s recurrence of Michael Clarke.

The immediate impact of the injury was to force George Bailey into his now-traditional role as full-time stand-in ODI captain. But it also raised the question of who would captain Australia in the first Test should both Clarke and Brad Haddin be unfit to play.

The obvious candidate is, of course, Mitch Marsh, who despite only having played two Tests, has already been endorsed by Clarke as his most obvious successor whose name isn’t Steve Smith.

The alternative candidate would seem to be the obvious successor whose name is Steve Smith. Namely, Steve Smith.

Smith was twelfth man for this ODI, fulfilling to perfection the Phil Hughes role of being incomprehensibly omitted from the team and vastly improving his reputation as an immediate result. There seems to be little doubt Smith would be equally adept at the role of Test captaincy.

Of course, my personal preference for Test captain would still be Glenn Maxwell. If only to have him call “land on the edge” at the toss, like the one-of-a-kind, out-of-the-box superstar he is.

Alas, it won’t happen. The world’s not ready for Test captain Glenn Maxwell.

Not yet.

Dropping George Bailey
Grade: B-

A perhaps slightly longer shot for the Test captaincy would be George Bailey, who nevertheless seized the opportunity to prove his longer form credentials by consolidating when the Australians looked in trouble at 5/144 in the 30th over. He slowly, sensibly rebuilt the innings with the assistance of Matthew Wade.

(Wade was promoted in the order solely to make Maxwell’s inevitable attempt to break Rohit Sharma’s new ODI record score of 264 marginally more challenging. Maxwell ended up making 29 from 19 balls, unluckily falling a mere 235 runs short of the new record.)

However, Bailey’s attempt to prove his Test credentials was not completely orthodox, with him being dropped five times on the way to his 70 off 75 balls. In typical, smiling George Bailey fashion, he found a way to turn a negative into a positive, with one of his later dropped catches a sneak attempt to injure the South African fielder who dropped the catch. Lateral thinking from George.

And, of course, full credit to the Australian Test selectors for dropping Bailey way back in March and starting this exciting new cricketing trend.

One day international cricket
Grade: A-

Having set South Africa 301 for victory, newly crowned ICC Cricketer of the Year Mitchell Johnson took his inevitable early wickets. (I assume he was crowned. He wasn’t wearing it, but I suspect that, like the Test Championship Mace, its on-field wielding is optional.)

The early wickets had Australia on top, but then Nathan Coulter-Nile and Aaron Finch carelessly combined to take the wicket of Farhaan Behardien, which brought AB de Villiers to the crease.

David Miller and de Villiers then combined for a century partnership that brought South Africa back into the game. One of the reasons why ODIs are better than T20s is because teams can have mini-collapses (as both Australia and South Africa did) and still have time to recover and rebuild an innings.

Reason number two why ODIs are better than T20s is that they’re 150 per cent longer and more cricket is better than less cricket.

Reason number three is the lack of dancers, jugglers, street magicians, lion tamers and whatever else is usually taking place at a cricket ground whenever a T20 game threatens to break out.

Reason number four: See reason number two.

Nathan Coulter-Nile
Grade: B

I’ve never quite warmed to Nathan Coulter-Nile. I don’t really understand why. He has many qualities that I look for in a cricketer. He takes wickets. He has more names than would seem strictly necessary. He’s been known to take catches on the boundary and then hurl the ball into the crowd for six as he loses his balance.

These are all qualities that should endear him to me.

And yet, despite him taking four wickets and breaking the back of the South African recovery, I know for a fact that by the time Sunday comes around, I’ll be slightly surprised to see him in the team for Game 2 of this series.

Sorry, Nathan. It’s not you. It’s me.

AB de Villiers
Grade: D

I’ve run out of jokes about how stupidly good AB de Villiers is. While he was in, a South African win appeared inevitable, as the Australian bowlers looked to have no idea how to dismiss him.

Luckily, there is one bowler in world cricket good enough to take de Villiers’ wicket. That bowler is Dale Steyn, who upon arriving at the crease almost immediately pushed the ball to Steve Smith in the covers and sent back a single-seeking AB.

The new Australian Test captain, on the field in place of the previous Test captain, seized the opportunity to immediately run AB out and that was enough to give Australia a 1-0 lead in the series.