Life is grand

My nerves are shot.

It is the 44th over, 5th ball, South Africa are 206/5 and need just 4 runs from 32 balls. At the crease, facing, is Shaun Pollock backed up by Kallis on the other end. Pollock is fresh, just 13 runs, but Kallis is in his 80s and looking solid.

Two good batsman, 4 runs needed, 32 balls and 5 wickets remaining.

Sri Lanka are beaten but somebody forgot to tell Malinga as he comes in and pops a slower ball at Pollock who misses and the ball takes a stump.

Nice ball Malinga. But no worries, we have 4 wickets remaining and need just 4 runs. At this point the South African commentator says “4 runs for 4 wickets, I think I’ll back South Africa” to which the Sri Lankan commentator in all seriousness says “Oh I don’t know, we’ll see.” Ho ho, funny.

Malinga comes in to bowl at Hall, the new batsman. He fires a yorker at Hall who reaches far forward and knocks the ball high into the air and straight into a safe pair of hands. Out.

Another nice ball, Malinga. Still OK for South Africa, 3 wickets for 4 runs.

Malinga is on a hat-trick but has to wait for Vaas to bowl an over. Vaas does a good over conceding just one run and Malinga comes back.

Kallis is facing, Malinga bowls and OUT! Malinga gets his hat-trick and South Africa are 207 for 8 having been 206 for 5 just a short over ago. Still, we only need 3 runs and Ntini comes into bat. He is not a great batsman but he can make a run or two when needed.

Malinga comes in to Ntini and sweet mother of god… OUT! Ntini misses by a mile and Malinga gets four wickets in four balls. Apparently that has never been done before in international cricket. Wow.

I’m sitting on the edge of my couch in Ireland tearing a pillow to pieces. One more wicket and South Africa loose. They need just 3 runs. Three bleeding effing runs!

Malinga into the new batsman, Laangeveldt, and… not out. Safe. Thank god.

I then takes South Africa from 46.4 overs to 48.2 overs to score three runs. The whole time the Sri Lankans look like they can win, their bowling is scary and our batsman are cowering behind bats. Peterson’s bat and stumps are shaved many times, a gust of wind would have made the ball touch and he would have been out.

Very, very poor from the South Africans and well done to the Sri Lankans. Nerve wracking stuff.

I go for a lie down.

(Full commentary here.)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 28th, 2007 at 10:03 pm and is filed under Cricket, Post, South Africa, cricket world cup, sri lanka. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.