South Africa Win vs Australia Highlights Day 5 Perth Test | De Villiers Hundred

South Africa now put itself in the record books as the team to chase
down the second-highest fourth innings total when it successfully
chased down 413 set by Australia at the WACA today.

The Proteas won by six wickets as Australia registered its second-consecutive defeat at Perth.

South
African skipper Graeme Smith and AB de Villiers were the architects of
the victory with centuries to their credit, while they were well
supported by Hashim Amla, Jacques Kallis and JP Duminy who scored
half-centuries making the chase a possible one.

However, it
was Australian fast bowler Mitchell Johnson, who was the stand-out
performer in the match with eight wickets in the first innings and
three in the second, thus ending with a total of eleven wickets in the
match.

Resuming on their overnight score of 227 for 3, Kallis
and de Villiers strung up a partnership of 124 runs before Kallis
perished to Johnson after a fighting 57.

Debutant JP Duminy
then partnered de Villiers as the latter notched up his seventh Test
ton remaining not out on 106 when Duminy hit the winning runs.

Duminy
in turn reached his maiden Test fifty after a patient knock. The duo
strung up a 111-run partnership - the third by a South African pair to
go past the 100-run partnership in the second innings.

Brett
Lee was the only other wicket-taker in the second innings ending with
figures of 1/73. Johnson’s second innings figures were 3/98. Debutant
Peter Siddle, Jason Krejza and Michael Clarke went wicket-less in the
second innings as the Proteas resounded a thumping victory.

The
Australians failed to latch onto their home-court advantage as their
good bowling was bettered by some equally gritty, resilient batting by
the Proteas who all played determined knocks at the crease after slow
starts.

South Africa now becomes the second team after West
Indies to chase down record targets in the fourth innings. In May 2003,
West Indies chased down 418 set by Australia at St.John’s to set the
score for the highest total ever chased in the fourth innings.
Ironically, both historical victories have come against Australia.

Only
last week India chased down 387 in the final innings against England at
Chennai to register what will now be the fifth highest record chase in
the history of Test cricket.

This epoch-making win also marks
the highest successful run chase in Test cricket in Australia, breaking
the former of 342 which was chased by Australia against India at the
same venue (Perth) in 1977.

photoes of the day

They came, conquered:

South Africa over the moon

SOUTH Africa's history of choking at big moments is the stuff of
cricketing folklore, but Graeme Smith's ambitious team wrote a new,
scarcely believable chapter in their country's history at the WACA
Ground yesterday with a famous victory over Australia.

Two young South African batsmen who do not bear the scars of the
previous generation — AB de Villiers and JP Duminy —
inflicted a humbling defeat on Australia, which conceded the
second-biggest run chase in the 131-year-history of Test
cricket.

In romping to a six-wicket victory after almost five days of
gripping combat, South Africa secured a 1-0 series lead before the
Boxing Day Test in Melbourne.

It was the Proteas' second Test victory — and its greatest
— on Australian soil since South Africa was re-admitted to
international cricket in 1992. There is, however, more work to be
done, for the South Africans came to Australia with their hearts
set on dethroning Australia as the world's No. 1 Test nation.

Only a 3-0 series victory will deliver the No. 1 ranking to
South Africa, but Australia's decline is unmistakeable. Without the
great Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne, Ricky Ponting's side could not
defend a lead of 413 runs.

It is the first time in two decades that Australia has lost the
first Test in a series at home. The Australians were recently upset
by India, and have now lost four Tests in a year for the first time
since 1997.

"Over the moon is not even the word. It is an incredible
achievement," said Smith, the strong, young leader who allowed his
country to dream of an improbable victory with his first century
against Australia.

"It is hard to describe the way you feel. You have lived through
so many emotions over the past five days that I think you just
enjoy it."

It was an unpalatable end for Mitchell Johnson, who produced a
miraculous spell of 5-5 to reduce the South Africans to ruins in
the first innings but finished with the best figures — 8-61
— by an Australian in a losing team.