South Africa Vs Australia 5Th Odi

A total nobody had seen before

Australia and South Africa met at the New Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg on 12 March 2006 for the fifth match of a bilateral one-day series, with Australia one up. Ricky Ponting won the toss and chose to bat on a ground famous for its short square boundaries and thin, high-altitude air, conditions that had already made it one of the highest-scoring venues in the world. What followed was a total that redefined what a one-day innings was thought capable of producing.

Ponting's 164

Adam Gilchrist made a rapid 55 at the top before he was caught off Roger Telemachus, and Simon Katich added 79, the pair putting on 97 for the first wicket. From there Ricky Ponting took over. He and Katich added 119 for the second wicket before Katich fell, and Ponting kept going, striking 13 fours and 9 sixes on his way to 164 from just 105 balls, an innings played with a controlled violence that set the tone for everything that followed. He and Michael Hussey put on 158 for the third wicket, the biggest stand of the innings, before Hussey was the one dismissed, caught off Andrew Hall for 81 with the score on 374. Ponting kept going with Andrew Symonds for a further 33 before he too was finally caught, for 164, with the score on 407.

434 for 4

Michael Hussey made 81 from just 51 balls, and Andrew Symonds and Brett Lee finished the innings unbeaten on 27 and 9, taking Australia to 434 for 4 from their 50 overs, the highest total in one-day international history at the time. Roger Telemachus, the most successful of South Africa's bowlers, still finished with 2 for 87 from his 10 overs, and every South African bowler who sent down a full quota conceded at least 70 runs. On the dressing room balcony and in the crowd, the assumption was that the match, and the series, were effectively over.

Gibbs answers

South Africa lost Boeta Dippenaar in the second over, bowled by Nathan Bracken for 1, but Graeme Smith and Herschelle Gibbs then played the innings that made the chase possible. Smith made 90 from just 55 balls before he was caught off Michael Clarke, and Gibbs went on alone, striking with such force that the required rate, however absurd it looked at the outset, stopped being the story. He reached his century well within even time and kept going, eventually caught off Andrew Symonds for 175 from 111 balls, with 21 fours and 7 sixes, an innings that at the time was the highest individual score ever made in a winning one-day international run chase.

Every bowler goes for runs

Australia's attack, so effective in patches, could not keep a lid on the scoring for long. Mick Lewis, given his full ten overs, finished with figures of 0 for 113, at the time the most runs ever conceded by a bowler in a completed one-day international spell, a mark that stood for years as the outer edge of what a chase like this could do to an attack. Brett Lee went for 68 from his 7.5 overs, Andrew Symonds conceded 75 while taking 2 wickets, and Michael Clarke's part-time overs cost 49 with one wicket. Only Stuart Clark, with 0 for 54 from his 6 overs, and Nathan Bracken, whose figures improved sharply once he found the right length late on, kept anything like control. It was a measure of how completely both sides had gone after the bowling that night that even the wicket-taking spells still leaked boundaries at a rate that would ordinarily be considered a crisis.

Gibbs and de Villiers keep pace

AB de Villiers made 14 before he was caught off Nathan Bracken, and Gibbs fell shortly after him, at 299, leaving South Africa needing 136 from the last 18 overs or so with the recognised top order gone. Jacques Kallis made 20 before he too was caught, off Andrew Symonds, and by the time he was out South Africa were 327 for 5, still needing more than a hundred, the required rate climbing again as Nathan Bracken, bowling with real hostility at the death, began to take control for Australia.

Boucher and the tail finish it

Mark Boucher, unbeaten at the end on 50, steadied the innings with Justin Kemp before Kemp was caught off Bracken for 13, and the finish became a genuine tail-end scramble. Johan van der Wath struck 35 from just 18 balls with three sixes before he too fell to Bracken, Roger Telemachus made 12 before he was caught off Bracken as well, and Andrew Hall added 7 before he was caught off Brett Lee, leaving South Africa nine down and Makhaya Ntini, the last man, needing to survive with Boucher on strike as often as possible. Nathan Bracken finished with 5 for 67, but it was not enough: Boucher struck the winning runs with a ball to spare, and South Africa won by 1 wicket, reaching 438 for 9.

What the 438 game changed

The match is still known simply as the 438 game, and both totals, Australia's 434 and South Africa's 438, stood as world records for a one-day international at the time, a distinction few results in the format's history have matched. Ponting was named man of the match despite his side's defeat, for an innings that had briefly looked like it would settle the game beyond doubt. The result stood for years afterwards as the standard reference point for the idea that no one-day total, however large, could be considered safe.

The full scorecard, innings by innings, is on this page, and both sides can be followed further on the Australia and South Africa team pages. In The Chase you can set a total of your own at the Wanderers and see whether it holds up any better than Australia's did that night.

Sources

• CricArcade World Cup archive: the full scorecard, fall of wickets and bowling figures on this page
• ESPNcricinfo: Australia in South Africa 2005/06, 5th ODI, New Wanderers Stadium, scorecard and report
• Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 2007: the Australian tour of South Africa