Australian opening batsman David Warner scored a brilliant 43-ball 89 on his Twenty20 International debut to help his team register a 52- run victory in the first of two Twenty20 games to be played between the hosts and South Africa.
Cricket Highlights: Australia vs South Africa, the 1st T20 game played at Melbourne (MCG) on January 11, 2009. The man of the day was David Warner 89 (43): 6×6, 7×4. Belting-the-ball at its harshest. And this from a club cricketer who hasn’t even played a single first class game. His 50 came off 19 balls - Afridi, it’s time to get your act together.
Scores: Aus: 182. South Africa 130 - JP Duminy 78 (48), David Hussey 3 wickets.
Well, prematch it was pretty exciting - the prospect of seeing Herschelle Gibbs and Nathan Bracken back in action. Bracken was good as usual, but the Gibbs was situation was left hanging in what-if air, because of a poor umpiring decision in just the 3rd ball he faced.
Earlier, David Warner took the South African bowlers apart in what eventually turned out to be a match-winning knock, considering most of the Aussie order fell away after his dismissal.
Shaun Tait was searing in his first over knocking de Villiers onto his stumps. The Tait show hoever was premature with Duminy eating into him while producing arguably the Moment of the Game - a six off Tait over wicket-keeper Ronchi.
With no one else doing anything particularly noteworthy it’s 1 up for the Aussies in this two match T20 series.
Prematch: Come on Gibbs, what can you produce tomorrow.
After the spectacular Test series witnessed between these two sides, Australia won the toss and elected to bat first at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in the first Twenty20 match.
Having never played a first-class game, 22-year old Warner was selected to play for Australia based on his impressive domestic performances in Twenty20 games and one day internationals for New South Wales.
The left-handed opener started off his innings with a flurry of boundaries which included 18 runs from the third over bowled by Makhaya Ntini. He put up a series of brief partnerships with the Australian top order before he was dismissed 11 runs short of a debut Twenty20 century.
He put on a 38-run first-wicket partnership with Shaun Marsh (9); 55-run second wicket partnership with skipper Ricky Ponting (21); and 43-run third wicket partnership with David Hussey (19) – all three partnerships came at a scoring rate of more than 10 runs per over. Warner’s knock included 7 boundaries and 6 sixes.
South Africa managed to pull back the match once Warner departed and gave away only 37 runs in the final 5 overs, while picking up 5 wickets during this time.
At the end of its innings, Australia was 182 for 9. Dale Steyn picked up three Australian wickets while Makhaya Ntini and Albie Morkel picked up two wickets a piece.
Chasing 183 for victory, South Africa was put on the back-foot early in the second innings by some fast, disciplined bowling by Australia. Comeback men, Nathan Bracken and Shaun Tait reduced the visitors to 12 for 3 at the end of 3 overs picking up the experienced candidates Herschelle Gibbs (0), AB de Villiers (0) and Jacques Kallis (4).
Debutant Vaughan van Jaarsveld (12) then put up a 53-run partnership with JP Duminy who was the only South African batsman who looked at ease against Australia’s clinical bowling display.
Duminy top-scored with 78 but his efforts were not enough as the visitors succumbed to a 52-run defeat. The Proteas lost its last six wickets for 48 runs.
David Hussey picked up three wickets for Australia while Bracken, Tait and Ben Hilfenhaus picked up two wickets each.
The final Twenty20 game between these two nations will be played on January 13 at Brisbane after which the two sides will go up against each other for a series of 5 ODIs.
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