South Africa Under Pressure in the First Test against Australia

(This entry was originally posted on Saturday, February 28th, 2009)

Host South Africa is now under huge pressure as Australia is now leading by 297 runs with 9 wickets at hand. South Africa was dismissed for 220 runs in the first innings, in reply to Australia’s 466 runs in the first innings, and thus, South Africa failed to follow on. However, Australia opted to bat in the second innings and reached at 51 losing the wicket of opener Simon Katich for 10. With two days left in the match, Australia seems to have enough chance to win the match, throwing a big total for the host side to chase down in the second innings.

South African innings saw an excellent century from middle order batsman AB de Villiers who remained not on 104. However, no other South African batsman could support him as their first innings fell 46 runs short of avoiding follow on. After brilliant batting performance, Australian pacer Mitchell Johnson picked up 4 wickets in South Africa’s first innings.

Now, Australia will try to score very quickly from the very beginning of the fourth day in order to give their bowlers as much time as possible to take ten wickets of South Africa’s second innings. South Africa will try to restrain the Australian batsmen from scoring quickly and pick up wickets regularly.