But only one of those 12 century scorers — Ryan Rickelton — is in the ODI squad. In Durban on Thursday, batting at No. 5 — the first time he has taken guard outside the top three in his 18 ODI innings — Rickelton scored 27 off 25 before launching a delivery that Adam Zampa had dragged down short to just inside the square leg boundary, where Matt Renshaw claimed a keenly judged catch.
That reduced South Africa to 125/4 in the 25th. By then Matthew Breetzke had seen Temba Bavuma go. He would also see David Miller’s effort snuffed out in the 34th, when the scoreboard read 168/5, before he was joined in the middle by Marco Jansen. Their stand of 107 off 81 had everything to do with South Africa reaching a competitive total of 297/8, leaving the visitors needing the highest successful chase in a day ODI at this ground.
Breetzke, a live hand-grenade of a human, all tightly torqued focus and fury, played his shots as if they were expletives screamed across a dodgy bar at an hour when decent people were in bed. His 106-ball 112 was his second century in the format, and it made him the alltime leading runscorer from anywhere after 14 innings in ODIs.
Jansen makes no sense. Someone so tall and so lean, but who hits the ball so sweetly regardless, insults the laws of physics for a living. More than two-thirds of his 75 off 59 were stroked and smoked in fours and sixes.
“It was never the plan for [Jansen] to go in guns blazing, but we fed off each other’s energy and that changed the momentum of our innings,” Breetzke told a press conference.
Breetzke greeted the arrival of his hundred with a raw yawp of feeling that ripped through the ground and kept going beyond its walls. What was that about?
“Any century you get for your country is an emotional moment. But I think that was more about how difficult it was in the beginning and how I had to fight myself mentally.
“There were a few stages where I wanted to take a risk, and then we kept losing wickets. So when I got to the century it was a relief.”
But any confidence South Africans had gained from their team’s innings was soon eclipsed by Australia’s onslaught in reply. The home side had limped to 40/2 in their Powerplay. The Aussies were 96/1 at the same stage. South Africa took 128 balls to reach three figures, Australia a blistering 68.
Mitchell Marsh and Travis Head blitzed 90 off 56, a stand that crackled with ominousness for anyone supporting the Proteas. Only 10 of Marsh’s 36-ball 60 — a strike rate of 166.66 — wasn’t launched in fours and sixes.
But Marsh didn’t know, as he walked off after driving Keshav Maharaj into cover’s hands in the 10th, that he would be the only Australian to reach 50. Neither did he, nor anyone else, know all 10 wickets would tumble for 140 runs in 32 overs.
Any number of us might have been able to predict that if anyone could turn the game around it would be the razorly competitive Maharaj, a bowler who doesn’t know when he has been beaten even when he is beaten. Maharaj also removed Cameron Green and debutant Jack Edwards in his haul of 4/20.
Edwards went when Jansen held one of his four grabs on the day: a low, dipping catch at slip. That was merely sharp. What Jansen did to end Renshaw’s 44, an innings that endured through four partnerships and kept Australia in the game, was positively outrageous.
Renshaw pulled lustily at Gerald Coetzee. The ball arched into the already dark Durban sky and seemed sure to strike the turf and scuttle to the midwicket cushions. Jansen didn’t seem to have a hope in hell of preventing that happening.
But the galloping giraffe trapped in a nice kid from Klerksdorp’s body kept on coming anyway. When he swooned into his dive, leading with his lamppost of a right arm, he still didn’t look like taking the catch. Then the amazing happened.
The ball lodged between Jansen’s thumb and forefinger. And stayed there. To ensure it did so he spreadeagled himself gently onto the ground as he slid and turned the back of his hand downward to ensure leather did not touch grass. For good measure he cocked his wrist as he came to a halt and held up his glittering prize for all to see.
All that, mind, with his wrong hand. The crazy catch comprehensively completed, Jansen used his correct hand to toss the ball into air already electric with a crescendo of audience appreciation and awaited the inevitable arrival of a mob of giddy teammates.
“He does do special things, and that was a special catch,” Breetzke said.
South Africa’s victory, by 67 runs, was sealed 30 deliveries later, much to the joy of a crowd of 12,108. That’s around half of Kingsmead’s capacity. This was South Africa’s first match at home since January and their first in Durban since December 2024. And on a public holiday to boot. So where were the rest of the crowd?
On the beach, probably. Or in the shopping malls. Or content to watch at home rather than venture into the grit and grime of the inner city.
It was their loss. Because to watch the ball, to really watch it, you need to be where the ball is.
