Captains Wary Of Batting Powerplay; Call Series Tight As SA Lose By Five

While the batting power play has attracted a fair share of attention in the attempt to revive the one day internationals, captains of both, South Africa and Australia, are looking more and more circumspect about employing it well. They though are not in doubt about how the tour is shaping.
South Africa had made forty-three runs in their final power play in the second one day international but failed to win the match by a margin of five runs. Though perhaps their loss had to be blamed to the period when they slowed down in the middle overs rather than the power play itself, Johan Botha is contemplating leaving the batting powerplay for the final five overs as they have done so far. But so is Ricky Ponting.
The Australian skipper saw the fallacy in employing a tactic not unlike South Africa and found that they lost two key wickets, of Michael Hussey and Cameron White, while the five overs yielded only twenty-three runs. The skipper’s logic cannot be faulted because he now realizes that leaving the batting power play to the end can work both ways. It could leave the team with plenty of batsmen to slog it out or it could end up in a fiasco where too many batsmen are forced to throw their bat in a bid to accelerate the scoring rate and end up losing too many wickets for not so many runs.
That apart, both captains also agree that this five one day international series is likely to end in a close fought game in the fifth. Ponting declared after the second one day international, “There hasn’t been a bad game against South Africa from the start of the first Test right through until now. No team has ever been beaten right until the end of the game and that’s great for the game of cricket. If the last two games are any indication, we are going to be in for some great cricket in the rest of the series. There’s going to be a decider in there somewhere.”
Johan Botha, South Africa’s one day skipper after injury to Graeme Smith, could not agree more, It could have been 2-0 to either team after the first two matches. The whole summer has been like that.”
Once again Shaun Marsh sparkled for Australia and yet South Africa did a good job pulling back the reins on the Australia for a competitive chase of 250. While South Africa would have backed themselves to get it, it was perhaps the middle overs where their run rate began to slip, and the situation slowly developing into one like the first match when the Herculean effort was required of Albie Morkel to hit forty off eighteen balls to see South Africa home.
Jacques Kallis led the way with seventy-two and a near century stand with AB de Villiers who made forty-four himself before he was run out to set the cat amongst the pigeons. JP Duminy continued his rich vein of runs, making thirty-five and looking good for more before he was run out just when South Africa needed to press the accelerator.
Morkel was at the crease with Mark Boucher and despite the latter’s heroics to hit a six in the final over, it was not going to be enough to stop the Australians from getting away after South Africa.