10. JP Duminy and Dale Steyn's partnership in Melbourne, 2008
South Africa, 1-0 up in the series Down Under, were in serious trouble when Steyn joined Duminy at the crease. They were 251/8 in reply to the Aussie's first innings total of 394. But the pair added 180 for the ninth wicket, with Steyn surviving no fewer than three dropped catches - by Ricky Ponting, Mike Hussey and Nathan Hauritz - en route to a memorable 76. His ability to stay allowed Duminy to score 166 and ultimately give SA a slender first innings lead of 65 runs. But with Steyn on fire with the ball, taking 10 wickets for the match, the Aussies were trounced in the seconds, dismissed for 247 and then taking just one wicket before SA strolled to their first-ever series victory in Australia.
9. The ball of the century, 1993
Shane Warne made his mark by bowling England's Mike Gatting with what he termed the "ball of the century" in the first Ashes Test at Old Trafford. Playing in his 12th Test, the leg spinner pitched the ball well outside leg stump - and Gatting let it slide by behind is legs. But the ball cut back into the stumps and Gatting was out for four. From that point on Warne entrenched himself not just as the world's greatest leg spinner, but also the best bowler on the planet.
8. Injured Dudley Nourse leads SA to first win in 29 matches, 1951
For sheer courage and guts, you can't beat Dudley Nourse, SA's captain on the 1951 tour of England. Batting with a broken left thumb (suffered in a county match three weeks earlier) he scored 208 to steer his team to 483 in the first innings of the opening Test at Trent Bridge (he was dismissed only when he was run out). Nourse didn't bat in the second innings, but SA went on to win by 71 runs to score their first Test victory in 29 starts and 16 years, having last achieved a triumph in 1935, the same year Nourse made his international debut. Nourse's 208, which featured 25 fours and no sixes, was the third double century by a South African. England went on to win the series 3-1.
7. India fights back against Australia, 2001
Steve Waugh's Australian juggernaut were surely one of the greatest Test teams of all time. And when they went to India in early 2001, nobody was surprised when they trounced the hosts by 10 wickets in the opening match of the series - pushing their winning streak to a record 16 matches. In the second Test at Eden Gardens in Kolkata, Australia hammered 445 runs in the first innings and then bowled out India for 171. They asked Sourav Ganguly's side to follow on and at 115/3 (still 159 runs behind), Rahul Dravid joined VVS Laxman in the middle. They put on 376 for the fourth wicket to turn the match around, with Laxman making 281 and Dravid 180. India finally declared on 657/7 and bowled out Australia for 212 for victory by 171 runs.
6. The Bodyline Series, 1932/33
England skipper Douglas Jardine, Arthur Carr and quick bowlers Harold Larwood and Bill Voce decided to use the bodyline attack - bouncers on the leg stump to force the batsman to duck out the way, or block and risk being caught by close legside fielders, or hook and risk being caught on the boundary - in an attempt to curb Bradman's phenomenal run sprees (he had averaged nearly 140 in the 1930 Ashes series in England, won by Australia). They got Bradman out for a golden duck in the first Test, although he scored a century to help Australia win the match. But England persisted with their bodyline attack, much to the disgust of the Australians, and they ended up winning the series 4-1 (Bradman still averaged nearly 57). Laws were changed as a result of the bodyline tour - starting by empowering umpires to intervene if they felt a bowler was deliberately trying to injure a batsman.
5. The 438 match, March 12 2006
This game went some way to erasing the painful memory of Edgbaston. The Australians posted a world record 434, thanks largely to Ricky Ponting's 164 from 105 balls. It should have been an impossible task, but Herschelle Gibbs, batting at No 3, went riot as he stroked 175 from 111 balls, with Graeme Smith adding 90 off 55. But the Aussies started getting wickets fairly regularly to fight their way back into the match. No 11 bat Makhaya Ntini joined Mark Boucher at the crease with three balls remaining, and five runs to win, and he immediately scored a single. Boucher belted the penultimate ball, bowled by Brett Lee, to the boundary for a one-wicket victory. The record total, however, was broken by Sri Lanka less than four months later, scoring 443 against an overmatched Netherlands in Holland.
4. Lance Klusener and Allan Donald at Edgbaston, 1999
This match damaged a nation's psyche. South Africa and Australia tied this World Cup semifinal, but it was effectively a loss for Hansie Cronje and his band of men, who were lower on the Super Six table than the Aussies. had gone into the England tournament as favourites. The game had see-sawed, and it seemed that Klusener had clawed it back, hammering 31 runs from just 14 balls. That included two fours off the first two balls of the final over. Four balls to come, one run required. Damien Fleming managed a dot ball and then came that gut-wrenching moment - Klusener struck Fleming straight back and charged while No 11 bat Donald dithered at the other end, before dropping his bat and running to the other end - too late! An outright loss would have been better.
3. The Basil D'Oliveira fiasco, 1967-68
Sport and politics don't mix. That was the mantra of apologists for international sporting tours to apartheid South Africa. But it was a mantra the National Party government was incapable of practising themselves, when Interior minister Pieter le Roux warns that all-rounder Basil D'Oliveira, a so-called Coloured who grew up in Cape Town, will not be admitted to the country if he is picked for the England touring team. His threat came in January 1967, and after much toing-and-froing between SA and England, the tour was finally called off in September 1968. Wtihin two years SA cricket was in international isloation.
2. Hansie Cronje and the match-fixing scandal, 2000
Nobody believed the accusations when they first surfaced - that the SA skipper had taken money from bookmakers to get some players to underperform during their tour of India. it seemed unthinkable that Cronje - once voted the most popular SA captain among cricket, rugby and soccer would have done something like that. He denied the allegations initially, but then a few days, at 3am, Cronje spoke to United Cricket Board boss Ali Bacher on the phone, saying: "Doc, I haven't been honest with you." Not only did that spell the end of a great career, it threw a cloud of doubt over world cricket. A torrent of accusations against many top world cricketers surfaced after that, but in the absence of evidence, little came of it. We're told the sport is clean now, but even so, every time an underdog team loses, one always has to wonder.
1. Jonty Rhodes's run-out of Inzamam-ul-Haq, 1992
South Africa had to beat Pakistan if they wanted to qualify for the semifinals of the World Cup. After being limited to 211, Kepler Wessels and co were aided by rain which pushed up Pakistan's asking rate from 4.9 in 28 overs to 8.5 off 14. But Inzaman-ul-Haq (48 off 43 balls at the time) and skipper Imran Khan (34) threatened to chase down the total. Having miscued a Brian McMillam delivery, Inzamam made the mistake of trying to take on the energetic Rhodes at deep backward point. About a third of the way, Inzamam turned back while Rhodes streaked in to pick up the ball and, instead of throwing at the stumps, he raced on to the wickets, diving to knock the bales off and dismiss Inzamam, Pakistan's top-scorer that day. Although a key moment in the match, this moment effectively revolutionised fielding in world cricket, and one photograph of the moment became iconic (as well as rich through royalties). SA ended up losing to England in the semifinals, and Pakistan went on to win the tournament.
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