6th over: Australia 71-4 (David 18, Owen 1) Mitch Owen in, another destructive player, who mistimes another slower ball but isn’t trying to mash it, so he gets a run down the ground.
Four wickets and 71 runs in the Powerplay.
My word. Green keeps going. Plays the shot that got Marsh out, but connects so cleanly it goes 20 rows back, off the hip over deep backward. Ngidi pitches up next, so Green smacks four over long off. He’s 35 off 10 balls. Ngidi takes a deep breath, quietens Green down with a slower ball before a perfect yorker, and after those two dots he goes the slower ball again at 114 kph. Big drive by Green, miscues it because of the pace, and it goes off the toe of bat that was already through the shot, and therefore straight up, and the keeper runs around into the off side to claim it.
5th over: Australia 60-3 (Green 25, David 18) So the run rate’s up and the wickets are falling. David doesn’t mind the latter, he maintains the former, thrashing Corbin Bosch’s first ball over backward point for four. It was full and wide but David has the reach to fetch what Travis Head couldn’t earlier. Bosch, tall and blond and built, looks annoyed, bowls the next into leg stump, and has David hitting to his outfielder at deep backward. That’s more the plan. No plan is containing Green though, who makes it look so easy slotting another six over long on. He’s 24 off 7 balls! Then races a single. He’s six foot seventy-three but he’s also quick enough. One ball to come, and David drives it over cover for six!
Oh boy. Three down and they’re going at 12 an over. The ground DJ is playing Chappell Roan. Hot to Go.
4th over: Australia 42-3 (Green 18, David 7) Tim David gets going just like Green. Blocks his first ball from Rabada, but skips down and belts his second off a length for six! Ball angled in at leg stump but he made enough room to swing through and middle it. Drags a single to mid on. Rabada bowls a fat full toss but Green misses it down the leg side. Gets another chance with a wide, and he whacks the replacement delivery off the pads for four through midwicket.
Rabada strikes again! Gets the other senior opener too. On the hip, Marsh tries to lift a pull shot up and over deep backward. He gets it up, way up, but not over, and Maphaka does a good job in the deep to hold onto the ball coming down with snow on it.
3rd over: Australia 15-2 (Marsh 13, Green 14) No such worries for Cameron Green! Walks in and and ruins Linde’s over immediately. First ball is cracked to the point fielder, so the second ball he corrects and places a similar shot for four. Picks up the next over long on for four, then cleans out the following one for an even bigger hit in the same direction, six. Easy for Green, he’s 14 off 4!
Golden duck! Early spin for South Africa, if you can call it that, but George Linde gets the slightest bit of purchase with his left-arm ortho dart from around the wicket. Stops in the pitch, perhaps, it’s tight on the line of off stump, Inglis leans away and thrashes an aerial cut, and Muthusamy is jumping and off balance at backward point but holds the catch.
2nd over: Australia 15-1 (Marsh 12) Kagiso Rabada to be the other opening bowler, bowls short on the hip and Marsh belts it aerially behind square leg, but it’s slapped down by Ngidi in the deep after it bounces, saving the boundary. One run, then Rabada uses the angle across Head to hide the ball just out of his range, right on the wide line, and Head leaning back has two huge carves and misses both. Tighter line, cracks the cut, but straight to the fielder in the ring. Then again! Almost carries, that one… oh, it did. Flat low cut shot into his hands at ankle height.
But straight away, the last ball of the over, Rabada gets his man. Full, wide outside off, squeezed out by Head reaching for it, and Maphaka at backward point lets the ball bobble off his hands into his stomach, then holds it.
What a great over.
1st over: Australia 14-0 (Marsh 11, Head 2) Starts with a bang! Not a convincing bang, Marsh gets that straight drive low on the bat, near the toe, but still has enough power in his huge shoulders to get it over long off for six. It hung in the air like wet laundry but plopped down in a pile on the good side of the rope.
Lungi Ngidi follows up with a horrible leg side wide, way down and nearly beats the keeper swinging away, then short width that Marsh crunches over cover for four.
Ngidi eventually gets things right, with an in-ducker to cramp Marsh, then the right line to make Marsh and then Head hit to Ngidi’s boundary rider at deep backward point.
Interesting new configuration for Australia, Marsh and Head at the top of the order. Both have had some big returns opening for Australia in one-day cricket in the past couple of years, especially the T20 World Cup, so after some recent experimenting, Australia are going for the tested senior players in the run-up to the next T20 global tournament early next year.
On a pitch you don’t know, chase. That’s the wisdom.
Australia
Travis Head
Mitchell Marsh *
Josh Inglis +
Cameron Green
Tim David
Mitchell Owen
Glenn Maxwell
Ben Dwarshuis
Nathan Ellis
Adam Zampa
Josh Hazlewood
South Africa
Aiden Markram *
Ryan Rickelton +
Lhuan-dre Pretorius
Dewald Brevis
Tristan Stubbs
George Linde
Senuran Muthusamy
Corbin Bosch
Kagiso Rabada
Kwena Maphaka
Lungi Ngidi
Hello! This is a funny sequel to the World Test Championship final that South Africa won. And it’s a funny time to be playing in Australia, in early August. But that’s what we’re doing: Australia v South Africa winter cricket in Darwin, a T20 series, in the tropical north. Let’s slice a pineapple.
