South Africa team celebrates the fall of the Australian team’s wicket. (AFP file photo)
South Africa were bundled out for 96 runs. But Vernon Philander took 5 wickets at his best and bundled out the Aussies for 47 runs.
On this day, a decade ago, ardent followers of the game witnessed one of the best bowling days in Test cricket in over 100 years during the Cape Town Test between South Africa and Australia. During South Africa’s tour of Australia in 2011, 23 wickets fell on the second day of the first Test match. It was the first time in more than a century that 23 wickets were lost in a single day of a Test match.
In fact, there were only three occasions in the history of red-ball cricket that more batsmen were dismissed in one go, and all those instances preceded 1903. The record for most wickets lost in a single day was recorded during a match between England and England. In 1888, when 27 wickets fell in a single day in Australia.
Batting first, Australia scored a modest total of 284 runs in front of the home team in their first innings. The visitors witnessed a strange pitch in the second innings of the match as Australia bowled out South Africa for 96 in the afternoon of the second day.
Following the incident, several former cricketers criticized the dismal batting of the Proteas team, claiming that there were no such monsters in the pitch. However, the experts were proved wrong after the South African team bundled out Australia for just 47 runs.
Interestingly, Australia lost nine wickets for just 21 runs in that match and were on the verge of being piled up within 30 runs. But, Australia’s last pair shared a 26-run partnership to take Australia to the 47-run mark, with number 11 batsman Nathan Lyon top-scoring for his team with 14 runs.
In the end, South Africa needed 236 runs in the fourth innings to win the Test match. Graeme Smith (101 off 140 balls) and Hashim Amla (112 off 134 balls) both scored centuries as South Africa beat Australia by eight wickets in three days in the Cape Town Test.
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