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South Africa embraces a new reality

South Africa awoke to a new reality on Monday: the Australians are beatable, even in matches that matter. England, of course, proved this to the world last year. But down here on the southern tip of Africa we didn't believe it



The moment of victory: A nation has to pinch itself © Getty Images
South Africa awoke to a new reality on Monday: the Australians are beatable, even in matches that matter. England, of course, proved this to the world last year. But down here on the southern tip of Africa we didn't believe it.
The preceding events of this season seemed to reinforce the truth as it has been received in South Africa, where Australia's superiority over the first half of the summer seeped into the national consciousness like a New Year hangover.
Even now that South Africa had the Australians where they wanted them - in South Africa - the wheels refused to stay properly on. Victory was well won in the 20-over cartoon and in the first two one-dayers, but an ominous lapse allowed Australia to pull one back in a morbid match in Port Elizabeth.
Then they levelled the series with a helter-skelter one-wicket win in Durban that had about it a smidgen of the swagger that South Africans have come to dread over the years. Now what?
"The overriding thought I had on Friday, even though we lost the game, was that it was the first time I had seen Australians do a few silly things and make basic mistakes," Jonty Rhodes told Cricinfo. "We put them under pressure and they showed they are human.
"Australians have had this amazing self-belief, and against them we've sometimes been labelled chokers. That's harsh, but sometimes we've lacked that self-confidence and belief in our own ability. When the Australians have you by the neck they don't let go, they stick a knife in while they're strangling you."
A knife, made of graphite, was an apt enough metaphor for Ricky Ponting's bat on Sunday. He wielded it like a madman with a method, and the look in his eye was unnervingly akin to Jack Nicholson's in The Shining. 434 for 4! Now what?
At that stage, Rhodes had another overriding thought: "Please, Lord, let it rain! Hard, hard rain! The clouds were forming and I was doing the old rain dance. But it didn't work, and thank goodness it didn't."
The stunned crowd was relieved for the distraction offered during the lunch break by the stars of Tsotsi, the South African winner of this year's Oscar for best foreign language film, as they paraded their golden statuette around the ground.


Boucher and Pollock celebrate an incredible result © Getty Images
South Africa's coach, Mickey Arthur, couldn't afford such flights of fancy. "I said we could either roll over and die, or we could set ourselves targets," he said. "We've been saying we want to play brave cricket. It was time to live up to that brand. We wanted 180 after 25 overs and after 25 we had scored 229, so the boys didn't listen to me.
For Rhodes, the target seemed out of reach. "It was a great wicket, but I didn't think 435 was possible," he said. "Everything went the Australians' way in their innings. They batted really well, but their mis-hits fell into the gaps or went to the boundary. They chanced their arm, and everything just clicked. And you don't often see two teams doing that.
"But Herschelle [Gibbs] got to the crease very early, and that played into our hands. Then Graeme and Herschelle played superbly."
The scale of this epic revealed itself in the chariot race that South Africa's innings became. Somewhere, surely, Ben Hur was watching and smiling warmly.
"We were scoring at nine an over, and the rate required was still nine an over," Rhodes said. "And you think, 'How the hell is that possible?' That is real pressure. We're always saying don't look at the scoreboard, but you can't help yourself. But the guys didn't panic, which was great to see."
The Wanderers crowd, the most patriotic in the country, had been smashed into silence by the Aussie onslaught. But, with the help of Smith and Gibbs, they began to believe in the impossible.
"The Wanderers has such a good vibe when South Africa are on top, and it can be quite an intimidating place for the opposing team," Rhodes said. "The crowd was very quiet for a while, but then they just went berserk."
The removal of Gibbs and his lightsabre numbed them again. Mark Boucher, though, didn't mind the quiet. True grit never does, it just gets on with the job. Meanwhile, Johan van der Wath took his Sylvester Stallone impression to another level with a combination of Rocky-esque blows to keep the ember alive.
Then Australia dismissed van der Wath, Roger Telemachus and Andrew Hall in the space of 18 deliveries. South Africa were 433 for 9, and there were three balls left in the match. It was the No. 11, Makhaya Ntini, who walked out to face an increasingly pale Brett Lee.
Now what?
Lee pitched the ball wide of the stumps, and Ntini dabbed it to third man for the precious single that levelled the scores and put Boucher back on strike. "Makhaya Ntini has never played a more important cricket shot in his entire life," Arthur said, and who would argue with that.
Now what?
"No runouts! No runouts!" the injured Shaun Pollock screamed from the players' balcony in a nervous nod to South Africa's Edgbaston `99 nightmare. The fractured slivers of his voice were at least as shrill as the violins in the shower scene from Psycho.
Boucher had that covered. "If it goes to one of the inner ring fielders, we don't run," he told Ntini. But, of course, Boucher smashed it through mid-on for four to win the match. For South Africans, the sound of music - throaty, beer-swilled, braai-smoked, music - filled the air. For Australians, the apocalypse was now.
Now what?
"What does this mean for South Africa? Well, nothing much changes because the guys know what they are capable of," said Rhodes. "Right now it's going to be important for the South Africans to get off their high. Mentally, you are fatigued after a game like that.
"Your adrenalin levels go through the roof, and the guys need to come down to earth quickly." What now? The Test series starts in Cape Town on Thursday, and it could be titanic.

Telford Vice works for the MWP Media agency in South Africa