Well . . . it's all over, S. Africa all out 133 in their second innings. A record defeat for S.A.
Lessee if we can explain this to readers who don't know how cricket works . . . never got into baseball myself, but picked up a few things from following friends to bball games. If i've understood it somewhat, there's a point to baseball beyond the spectators downing hot dogs and pretending to themselves that they're having a good time . . .
. . . there're nine innings in a (normal?) game, and the teams alternate between fielding and batting during each innings. Same thing in cricket, except cricket has two innings per team.
The batting team in bball gets three outs for their innings . . . ten for cricket.
i don't think there's an analogue in bball for this: in cricket, the team batting second has to make a minimum number of runs to make the other team bat again, otherwise they've got to keep batting on their second innings.
Test cricket, which is what Australia and South Africa are currently playing, could take as many as five days to complete a game. And, horror of horrors, the game might end in a tie after so many boring days, which is totally beyond the pale of the sport-watching hoi polloi in the States. No one wins? What an alien concept—even 'Nam had a winner!
Ooops, sorry, got carried off there . . .
. . . so then, Australia scored 652 in their first innings. That's like a bball team blasting, oh, say 16 runs in their first innings. S. Africa made 159 in their first innings, say about 5, not enough to make Australia bat again. So S. Africa had to bat again, and they couldn't make the 11 runs to make Australia bat . . .
. . . it's a pretty heavy defeat.
Now . . . Adam . . . there were mitigating circumstances: South Africa's captain Shaun Pollock and one of their bowlers (think sorta pitcher in baseball) was out injured even before the test match started, and then Allan Donald pulled up with a hamstring injury during their first innings. Not to mention that they'd returned from a 3-0 test series whitewash in Australia over the winter . . .
. . . but given that they were playing at home, and had most recently soundly threashed Australia in most of their triangular one-day matches, you'd have expected some sterner resistance.
You're right though, good news for Baggy Green supporters, but a bad trend for overall test cricket. i wonder if it's the proliferation of one-day cricket that's leading to so many test matches finishing inside four days these days . . .
Good to see Warnie move up to second in the all time wicket-taker list . . . though if he doesn't watch out, he'll be pipped to the first place eventually by Murali . . .
Hopefully S.A. will be able to regroup and come out firing by the second test.
But that 204 by Adam Gilchrist was something eh?
Linear Mode
