Day 4 South Africa in Australia Test Series - 3rd Test

Day 4 South Africa in Australia Test Series - 3rd Test



Ricky Ponting Rapid Fire Innings

Doug Bollinger's first Career Wicket on Debut

Cricket highlights: Australia vs South Africa 3rd Sydney (SCG) test, 4th day’s play.

Scoreline: Australia 257/4 declared. South Africa in pursuit of 376: 62/1.

Matthew Hayden played some of his
trademark strokes en route to his highest score in recent times (39).
Australia through useful knocks by Ricky Ponting (53), Michael Clarke
(41) and Mike Hussey (45) pushed the target and then declared - a
declaration based on the dicey pitch, Graeme Smith’s unavailability and
the safe notion that getting 300 runs on Day 5 is tough - even during
the day 5, SA needed only 187 runs on the final day.

Matthew Hayden was given a rousing
sendoff after he fell, by the SCG crowd, considering it’s upto the
selectors to decide if that was indeed his last knock for Australia. If
good sense prevails it shouldn’t be. Especially when you consider the
return of Simon Katich to glorious form today - over the last few days,
everyone (or at least I) have been stunned by his strokeplay. Today,
Katich regained his touch by not scoring a single run for an hour at
one stage. The eventual streaky single that ended his supreme form had
all his fans disappointed and led to a moment of acrimony between Ntini
and Boucher.

Just as day 3 had a bizarre bunch of moments, Day 4 too had a couple:

• An LBW dismissal (Katich) that the bowler (Steyn) didn’t appeal for

• An oil leak from the roller onto the pitch. Interestingly two
  captains who were involved the last time this happened - Ian Chappell
  and Tony Greig - were commentators today. On that occasion (Headingley
  in the ’70s) however, it was a deliberate overnight attempt by
  miscreants to disrupt play and call attention to an allegedly unjust
  police case. The two captains had then agreed to call off the test.
  It’s a good thing on this occasion, it was a roller in the First World
  that sprang a leak, or we’d all have had to put up with Matthew Hayden
  at his talkative best.

Hashim Amla played some stunning drives on his way to 30 not out as
South Africa after the fall of Morkel (sent in as opener) felt their
way around this chase.