Safs gamble, Punter gains

Ricky Ponting scored a century in each innings of his 100th Test to steer Australia to an extraordinary eight-wicket win over South Africa o...

Ricky Ponting scored a century in each innings of his 100th Test to steer Australia to an extraordinary eight-wicket win over South Africa on Friday.

The Australian skipper smashed an unbeaten 143 to add to his brilliant 120 two days earlier as the world champions stole an unlikely victory to complete a 2-0 series win.

The South Africans, needing to win the third and final match to square the series, gambled everything on a calculated last-day declaration that backfired horribly on them.

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Graeme Smith aborted his team’s second innings at 194-6 an hour before lunch, setting Australia a record run-chase of 287 off 76 overs to win, a required run-rate of 3.8 per over.

Smith had been left with a little bit of egg on his face. He was just trying to stand up for his team and show that they weren’t scared or had no fear of playing Australia
—Ricky Ponting

The odds were stacked in South Africa’s favour. No team had scored more runs in the fourth innings to win a Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground. The previous record, set more than a century ago, was Australia’s 276/4 to beat England in 1898. But the Australians, playing the game like a one-day match, tore up the history books with a ferocious display of batting, racing to their target with almost 16 overs to spare and averting the threat of a late thunderstorm.

South Africa had made an encouraging start when Charl Langeveldt clean bowled Justin Langer for 20 in the last over before lunch Ponting and Matthew Hayden dashed all their hopes.

To set a declaration and try to go for a win was in our minds the only way to play. The negative option never came in
—Graeme Smith

Ponting meanwhile became the first player to score centuries in each innings of his 100th Test, taking his career tally to 28 Test hundreds and moving into sixth place overall, just one behind Don Bradman. He lifted his career aggregate to 8,253 runs at an average of 57.71, overtaking Rahul Dravid, Mark Waugh, Garry Sobers, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Geoff Boycott and David Gower to move into the all-time top 10 of Test run-scorers.

Brief scores

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South Africa 451/9 decl and 194/6 decl (Gibbs 67, Kallis no 58; MacGill 3/33) lost to Australia 359 and 288/2 (Hayden 90, Ponting 143 no).

Ponting pulls up McGrath, Lee

Sydney: Ricky Ponting has admonished his two fast bowlers Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee for being reported on misconduct charges during the feisty final Test against South Africa at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Ponting, who has worked hard to improve Australia’s on-field behaviour during his time as captain, said it was “not acceptable” to have the players appearing before a disciplinary hearing to defend their conduct. “It’s obviously not ideal. It’s not anything any of those guys or I as captain are proud of that’s for sure.”