I commented over on Will’s site during the first devastating and match winning 10 overs of the Aus v SA semi-final, that I haven’t enjoyed watching a one day match this much since 1999 – yep, that other semi-final.

Contrasting means, to the same end though. Many people say “we want good close, exciting matches”. They must be supporters of other sides! When it’s your side playing, I don’t care how much they win by, and just quietly when it’s South Africa you’re thumping – I say bring it on! I’d rather that than a tie any day.

I sat down to take in this game thinking I wouldn’t be able to stay up late enough into the night (with work the next day) to see anything too decisive. Especially when South Africa won what everyone thought would be potentially a match winning toss – I figured they’d post some sort of reasonable total and Australia would struggle. I honestly thought, based on what Botham and other commentators were saying, that 250 odd would be too much for the Aussie’s to chase down, under pressure, late on a dieing wicket.

Well the wicket never got a chance to die, and by the time I was forced to retire to bed, the matched seemed fairly safe. Thanks mainly to a mind melt down by captain Graeme Smith, who seemed to think he was Matty Hayden, walking down the track – twice – missing both, the first nearly an edge and second taking off stump, then disintergration by Kallis, who was completely sucked in by the Aussie’s talk. Kallis fell hook, line and sinker for the talk about “letting him occupy the crease and take up valulable deliveries”, managing to strike one nice four then being cleaned up by a regulation, full pitched McGrath ball, while Kallis was stretching across from somewhere over on the leg side? Mind boggling! Even Andre Nell was seen to be shaking his head – no doubt because bowling to the looming low total was never going to leave him much room for sledging.

McGrath, who many believed shouldn’t go on this tour, moved to front runner for taking out the player of the series. No-one will write him of now, even when he’s been out of the game for 10 years! He cleaned up Kallis, was lucky when Prince chased what, had it not been for his thick outside edge would’ve been a side, then, possibly the most important one of all – Boucher – so often a lower order thorn in the side of the opposition, was dismissed by a ripper, moving away, taking the edged and finished off by big Matty Hayden. At 5 for 27, SA got another let off with Gibbs given not out, from what seemd like a fairly obvious inside edge. 6 for 27 would’ve seen a total around 50 I believe, as it was they only managed to limp to 149.

Australia cruised passed, the one concern – Gilchrist again failing. Surely now, he’ll make up for everything with a classic Gilly ton in Glenn McGrath’s fair well performance, a World Cup Final which could be a “three-peat” for the Aussies.

It is way too early to say, after one good performance against a severely under prepared, under manned West Indies side, that England have turned the corner, but, what a performance they put in. I always say, (when defending some of Australia’s big performances against under manned opposition) that you can only play against who turns up, so “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander…”.
England have made their return to the Test arena after a demoralising 5 – nil drubbing out here in Australia earlier this year. They have done so, in emphatic style – 5 for 553 and still going. Four centuries, one from debutant Matt Prior.
The English side is not as bad as the 5 nil scoreline from the Ashes series would indicate. They had their share of injuries to key players and they ran into an unforgiving Australian side, full of guys up for their last hurah, desperate to exact revenge from “that Ashes loss in England”, where, lets not forget, England showed their real talent.
So my conclusion from this latest outing (5 for 553 with 4 centuries) is that England are showing the signs of a side that is every bit as good as many suspected when they beat the Aussies a couple of years ago.
Cook, although he struggled out here in Australia a litte, continued to show awesome form, Bell, continuing to get runs after getting start and now Prior – a century on debut. So they’ve done what good sides do – they’ve put the disasters behind them and go back to doing what they should – smashing sides.
What now remains to be seen is whether they can finish this off. They need to go on an win this match by over an innings. I remember saying something similar about a year ago – and it all went very badly. Let’s see if they’ve learnt from their mistakes. They have a solid 2 years to prepare their revenge for the Ashes loss and most of the key protanganists will be missing (Warne, McGrath, Langer, maybe Gilchrist and others). It will be a very different series then, and England should be trying to enusre, the Aussies come to their shores to face a formiddable opposition, making stacks of runs, with the horrors of the ‘06/’07 Ashes debacle ancient history.