South African cricket team in Australia in 2008–09
| South African cricket team in Australia in 2008–09 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 |
 |
||
| Australia | South Africa | ||
| Dates | 6 December 2008 – 30 January 2009 | ||
| Captains | Ricky Ponting |
Graeme Smith(for tests) Johan Botha(for ODIs and T20s) |
|
| Test series | |||
| Result | South Africa won the 3-match series 2–1 | ||
| Most runs | Michael Clarke (383) | Graeme Smith (326) | |
| Most wickets | Mitchell Johnson (17) | Dale Steyn (18) | |
| Player of the series | Graeme Smith (South Africa) | ||
| One Day International series | |||
| Results | South Africa won the 5-match series 4–1 | ||
| Most runs | Shaun Marsh (218) | Hashim Amla (199) | |
| Most wickets | Ben Hilfenhaus (7) |
Makhaya Ntini (8) Dale Steyn (8) Johan Botha (8) |
|
| Player of the series | Albie Morkel (South Africa) | ||
| Twenty20 International series | |||
| Results | Australia won the 2-match series 2–0 | ||
| Most runs | David Warner (96) | JP Duminy (147) | |
| Most wickets | David Hussey (4) | Dale Steyn (4) | |
The South Africa cricket team toured Australia between 6 December 2008 and 30 January 2009, playing three Test matches, two Twenty20 Internationals and five One Day Internationals against Australia.
Following a dispute with Cricket Australia, the three leading news agencies, Reuters, Agence France-Presse and Associated Press decided not to cover the series.
The South African players and media were buoyant ahead the tour, citing their telling Test form and Australia's coincident decline. Proteas captain Graeme Smith saw it as his team's best chance to win a Test rubber Down Under: the bowling attack was globally vaunted, the fielding polished and the batsmen enjoying a particularly fecund run, Neil McKenzie, Hashim Amla and Smith himself all having passed 1,000 Test runs for the year, while Ashwell Prince and AB de Villiers hovered around the 900 mark.
Australia, on the other hand, was still reeling from its two-nil Test defeat in India, although a clinical display against the touring New Zealanders assuaged some of their apprehensions: most notably, wicketkeeper Brad Haddin's sizeable hundred against New Zealand for once made seamless the void left by Adam Gilchrist's retirement.
The press duly built the series up as a must-see, but the players were far more reticent than they had been during the adjacent encounter three years before. Early in December, however, Australian captain Ricky Ponting drew considerable criticism for his comments about the ICC's wines and spirits. "It has taken us a long time and a lot of great wins in different conditions around the world to get us to that number-one spot", Ponting declared, speaking to the Associated Press. "If South Africa beat us three-nil I don't know if that gives them enough points to get over us. But if they won the series one-nil or two-one, I don't think that would mean that they deserve to take over that mantle. It's a bit the same with India last series. Just because they beat us, the number-one team, doesn't necessarily mean they go from the number four or number five in the world to number one in the world, because it's something that's accrued over a long period of time." The remark was seen as fatalist and trivialising, suggesting that the rubber hardly mattered and, in the eyes of many, that Ponting's hopes of securing a series victory were low.
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