T20 World Cup 2021: Nervy Australia huff and puff their way to first win, beat South Africa by 5 wickets
After losing both Smith and Maxwell, the game came down to 36 runs needed off 24 balls but Stoinis and Wade kept their calm to get their team home.
Australia huffed and puffed their way to get those two crucial points in their first game of the ongoing ICC Men's T20 World Cup against South Africa at the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi but they got them, which matters the most.
The bowlers did the job for them. Glenn Maxwell was the first one to put his name on the wicket column, dismissing Proteas skipper Temba Bavuma. Josh Hazlewood then removed the dangerman Rassie van der Dussen on his first ball of the day. If that wasn't enough, in his second over, he got Quinton de Kock to lob the ball up in the air only to see the ball crashing onto his stumps.
After losing three wickets in the powerplay, The Proteas needed a partnership. Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klassen and David Miller did their best to uplift the scoring but all of them got out at the wrong time and middle of that collapse, Keshav Maharaj slipped while taking a run in the middle of the pitch and was too late to return to the crease.
South Africa could score 118 runs on the board, even though there was something on the board, but it wasn't going to be enough.
Their pacer picked up three early wickets but the pair of Steve Smith and Glenn Maxwell stabilised the innings. The Aussies were running away with the game with an unbeaten 42-run partnership between the two when the moment of the match took place.
Anrich Nortje was dispatched for a boundary by Smith on the previous delivery but he followed it up with a similar short-pitched delivery but this time the batter didn't have the same amount of room to play that kind of the short but he still found the gap. However, Markram ran like a cheetah towards his right, timed his dive to perfection and flung himself in the air and grabbed the ball with both his hands to complete a fabulous catch.
Markram's catch brought another wicket as Tabraiz Shamsi clean bowled Glenn Maxwell as tried to switch hit but the No 1 T20 bowler in the world was too good for it. The dot balls increased and the equation came down to 36 runs needed off 24 balls.
However, it wasn't to be for the men in green as Marcus Stoinis and Matthew Wade timed the chase very well in the last four overs, showing their experience and taking calculative risks to get the Aussies over the line.