South Africa came up with a Herculean effort in their second innings at the WACA to record the second biggest run-chase in history of Test cricket as they successfully chased a mammoth 414 set by Australia with six wickets in hand. The epic run chase gave the Proteas a 1-0 lead in the three-match Test series.The Proteas, who surpassed the recent chase by the Indians (387 runs) against England in Chennai last week, were four runs short of the world record chase by the West Indies against the same opponents at St John's in 2003.
The chief architects of South African victory were their skipper Graeme Smith (108) and middle order batsman AB de Villiers (unbeaten 106).Chasing 414, it was skipper Smith who set up the victory for the visitors with a blistering hundred on the fourth day, in order to give his side a realistic chance of achieving the target on the fifth and final day.
Test debutant J P Duminy, who replaced injured vice-captain Ashwell Prince in the middle-order, remained unbeaten on 50 to provide able support to de Villiers. Resuming at their overnight score of 227-3, South Africa lost the wicket of stalwart Jacques Kallis (57) at the stroke of lunch on Sunday morning.But de Villiers and Duminy played nerveless innings on a tense Sunday afternoon in Perth to take their side home. The duo put on an unbroken stand of 112 runs as the Aussies lost their second consecutive game at the WACA. The hosts, who had lost to India in the same venue early this year, are losing a back-to-back Test matches for the first time since 1984-85 at their most successful ground Pert.
Except for Mitchell Johnson, the Aussie bowlers looked off-colour all through the Test match. The left-armer claimed eleven wickets in all. On the final day, Ricky Ponting was left clueless as his strike bowler Brett Lee failed to trouble the Proteas.
Spinner Jason Krejza had a poor match returning match figures of one for 204, despite his impressive debut in India. South Africa scored a brisk pace of 3.46 runs per over and maintained a similar run-rate all through the Test.Man-of-the-Match de Villiers had a match aggregate of 169 runs. The youngster, with over 1000 runs in the calendar year, brought up his fifth Test century this year has clearly proved that he has arrived with a bang.The second Test is in Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) on the Boxing Day
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