Miserable collapse after an amazing start

Very seldom it happens in test cricket that 23 wickets tumble and most of the batsmen struggle to reach the double figure mark on a single day. 

This happened in the test match between Australia and South Africa,arguably the best test sides ever, at Capetown between 9-13th November in the year 2011. Australia in their first innings scored 284 with Clarke leading his team with a well made 151.

Australian bowlers complemented their batsman’s work by taking all the wickets of South Africans for just 96 runs. Shane Watson took a 5 wicket haul. Everyone expected an easy Australian victory here but as the legends say, Cricket is a funny game due to its unpredictable nature.

Australian batsmen came out with a heavy lead of 188. But this game didn’t have any fairytale ending for the Australians as they were all out for a miserable 47. This display of Australian batting shocked the world. It was the same wicket where Michael Clarke scored 151 in the first innings and in the second innings he only managed 2 runs. This is the unpredictable nature of which the legends of cricket talked and believed in. South Africa with a target of 246 runs won this match by 8 wickets. A very big margin indeed.

South African bowlers were on song during the second innings of Australia. Debutante Vernon Philander picked up 5 wickets. Dale Steyn who was the spearhead of the bowling took only 2 wickets but he wasn’t needed till last as the damage had been done. Only 2 Aussie batsmen managed to enter the double digit mark and they were the tail-enders, Nathan Lyon with 14 and Peter Siddle with 12. They were 21-9 at one stage, becoming the lowest scoring team in the test cricket but Lyon and Siddle added 25 runs.

After the match Michael Clarke was very upset with the Aussie batsman telling that bowlers should now on be stopped blaming for a loss in test cricket. Batsmen also should be blamed for a loss.

But with this match,it became more clear that test cricket is not less interesting than ODI and T-20 games. This match also signaled that there is plenty of life still in the original format of the game and undoubtedly this match also showed its other side to the Australians . The UNPREDICTABLE one. 

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