South Africa v Australia – 2nd Test – 2nd Day’s Summary
South Africa 266 & 0/0 v Australia 296 -
South Africa trail by 30 runs with 10 wickets remaining
Australia after restricting South Africa on 266 runs on the first day of the second Test between the two countries, dominated the second day of play at New Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg on Friday, November 18, 2011.
Coming out to bat, the Australians had only one goal in mind and that was to dominate the South African bowlers and overcome the total posted by the hosts in their first innings.
Australian openers, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Phillip-Hughes-c2185 took charge early on as they exhibiting some of the finest batting in modern-day Test cricket.
South Africa, who are regarded as a team with world’s finest bowlers in their ranks was reduced to rubble by the Australian openers as they played every bowler with utter zeal and confidence.
With such a batting onslaught in the early part of the day, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/GC-Smith-c1473 the South African skipper certainly had a lot to worry about as the South Africans did not want the Australians to take the game away from them on the second day of this important Test.
This is South Africa’s first chance in nearly two decades to win a home series against the Australians since their readmission in international cricket in 1992, and Smith certainly did not want this chance to get away from his side.
Nonetheless, the Australians who are currently in a rebuild phase showed just how good they are when it comes to playing according to the requirement of the situation as they kept smacking the bowlers without giving too many chances.
South African fans at the Wanderers had certainly not anticipated such a belligerent batting display from the Australians and were hoping for their team to incinerate the tourists early in the day.
The Australian openers clobbered a mammoth tally of 174 runs in the opening-wicket partnership as http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Watson-c96326 and Hughes scored superb knocks of 88 runs each to subdue the Proteas.
However, after the good work put in by the openers, Australians suffered a massive batting collapse in the middle-order batting line-up as http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Usman-Khawaja-c2729 (12) went after playing meagre knocks.
The Australian middle and lower-order completely failed to capitalize on the stupendous opening stand given by their openers and failed to forge a befitting resistance against a resurgent South African bowling brigade.
With the top batsmen back in the pavilion, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Smith-c90598 knew exactly how to dictate terms on the field and made sure not to let the remaining Australian batsmen make a comeback in the innings.
From the hosts, pacer http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746’s demise after posting 296 runs.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757 then faced just four deliveries before play was stopped due to bad light.
Proteas now trail by 30 runs with 10 wickets remaining and three days of play left.
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