Miller's magic ton condemns Aussies

A hobbled but heroic David Miller revived the ghosts of Australia’s most calamitous ODI defeat of a decade earlier with a century that smashed records and delivered South Africa a resounding series win over the world champions.

Chasing an unprecedented and unlikely 372 after centuries from David Warner and Steve Smith had lifted Australia to the highest one-day score posted at Kingsmead, Miller’s 118 led the Proteas to their second-most memorable win over their arch foes.

Second only to the landmark pursuit of 434 they pulled off in 2006.

Not only were the Proteas seemingly out of the match when they fell to 5-217 in the 32nd over, the fact that left-hander Miller appeared to have injured his groin taking a run just minutes earlier made a successful run chase seem the stuff of fantasy.

Especially with only novice allrounders Dwaine Pretorius (in his second ODI) and Andile Phehlukwayo (his fourth) to accompany Miller in the chase of the final 160 runs before South Africa were reduced to the bowlers.

But Phehlukwayo played the innings of his brief international life to post an unbeaten 42 from 39 balls while Miller remained 118 not out (from 79), with the novice sealing the remarkable win with an audacious reverse sweep with five balls to spare.

The four-wicket win – the biggest successful run chase since that day at Wanderers a decade earlier – handed South Africa an unassailable 3-0 lead in the five match series.

And left Australia searching for answers after their batters had answered repeated calls over recent days to lift their games, only to have their inexperienced bowling attack rendered impotent against Miller’s onslaught.

With a couple of lamentable fielding lapses into the bargain that saw the reigning World Cup holders tumble to a third consecutive ODI defeat, the first time that’s happened since their 4-0 pummelling by England in the UK four years ago.

South Africa rightly celebrated their historic win and their series triumph in the knowledge the two highest successful ODI pursuits are now theirs.

It was an unprecedented score at a venue that has not historically existed as a batting paradise given its often damp and lush conditions, but one that left the home team clearly undaunted.

History also told the Australians only once in more than 45 years of ODI cricket has a team posted a score equal or greater than the visitors 6-371 and ended up losing.

But enduring national euphoria repeatedly reminded the home side that aberration had been perpetrated by South Africa, at the expense of the touring Australians at Johannesburg a decade earlier.

And that’s how the pursuit panned out on the back of a breezy start that preceded Miller’s brutal finish.

After sitting out the first two games of the five-match series, the first due to illness the second at the behest of selectors, Hashim Amla began as if delivering a statement.

One that contained 45 runs crafted with trademark timing from 30 balls and which left his opening partner, the sublimely in-form Quinton de Kock, solely in a support role.

Amla’s departure saw de Kock fill the breach, and rather like Australia’s unsuccessful pursuit of a similar score at Wanderers three days earlier the chasers were on pace for much of the pursuit.

But the loss of wickets at vital times – de Kock for 70, Faf du Plessis (33) and Rilee Rossouw (18) – saw the required run rate remain more than seven per over.

When South Africa’s last specialist batter JP Duminy fell to an outfield catch at the start of the 32nd over, it had blown out beyond eight.

It proved a challenge Miller, with the aid of Pretorious and Phehlukwayo, accepted with relish.

At game’s end, the shell-shocked Australians seemed stunned as to how they had found themselves in such a predicament having dismissed the top-half of the home team’s batting with barely half the required runs scored.

Warner and Aaron Finch’s opening stand of 110 was Australia's first century-partnership for the first wicket since game two of the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy Series in New Zealand eight months ago.

And in recording their respective hundreds, Warner and Smith became the first Australians to score individual centuries in a single ODI played outside Australia since George Bailey (156) and Shane Watson (102) managed it against India in Nagpur three years ago.

Having been fingered from within and outside the touring party as the main culprits in Australia’s consecutive hefty losses at Centurion and Johannesburg, the batting group made good their pledge to lift.

Not only in output, but in tempo as set in the first 11 overs when first Warner and then Finch cashed in on a pitch that despite its typically Durban green hue offered true bounce but no pace or seam movement for the bowlers to work with.

Having heaved into Steyn, whose 10-over spell of 2-96 enters the record books as the most expensive by a South African in an ODI, Warner motored to 50 from 41 balls while his partner was still finding his way through the gears.

But when Finch found the slipstream he more than picked up the pace, launching Steyn into the crowd from consecutive deliveries and notching his half-century with another blow beyond the rope off Pretorius.

Who had come into the South Africa team to replace Wayne Parnell – the previous holder of the Proteas’ most expensive ODI spell – who has been ruled out of the remainder of the series due to a side injury sustained while fielding last Sunday.

Finch’s attempt to blast another from the first ball of leg-spinner Imran Tahir’s next over cost him his wicket, and when Smith arrived at the crease he was in a contrastingly circumspect mood.

Accepting the responsibility that he and others had assigned the batting unit following their sub-par efforts of the previous week.

However, with Warner firing on all cylinders, the skipper understood his greater good was to find his rhythm, play a supporting role and aim to be there at the very end.

Which he came within four overs of achieving.

He had just reached his half-century when Warner holed out to Tahir, the pair having built on the opening platform with a 124-run second-wicket stand of their own.

The intent to see it through that Smith harboured was obvious when he was almost the victim of a poorly-judged single called by George Bailey shortly after he replaced Warner.

The skipper throwing up his arms in scarcely disguised agitation as Miller’s throw – which would have had Smith back in the sheds for 58 – shaved the stumps as Smith abandoned any hope of making good his ground.

Frustration that flared again in the 45th over when Mitchell Marsh, facing a tailor-made scenario to crown the innings with his trademark big hitting, muscled his first airborne stroke to Miller at mid-wicket having scored two from eight balls.

Prompting Smith to slap his bat into his left pad as he watched Marsh depart.

But an over later he was celebrating his sixth ODI hundred in the manner of someone who had been anxiously eyeing it from the moment he arrived in the centre.

And while he was unable to add the finishing flourish – bowled by a slower Steyn off-cutter for 108 – the increasingly assured and impressive Travis Head deposited that cherry with a whirlwind 35 from 18 balls.

Which, for the first time in the series, put the onus squarely on the inexperienced bowlers.

A challenge they were unable to accept.

AUSTRALIA'S ODI RECORD IN DURBAN

Won 6, lost 3

Biggest win: 141 runs v South Africa, Apr 2009

Biggest defeat: 7 wickets v South Africa, Feb 1994