THE TWEET TO REMEMBER

 

Image Credit: ESPN CricInfo and Pretoria Capitals.

Venue: Kingsmead Cricket Ground, Durban [March 1-5, 2018].

The Australian Cricket Team is touring South Africa to play 3 Test Matches. Interestingly, this is their first test series on the African soil since the famous 2018 series. Who can ever forget the 2018 contest, which took the cricketing world by storm? Even though that particular bilateral is mostly remembered for the ball tampering scandal, one cannot deny the fact that the level of cricket played was of the highest standards.

At the opening test in Durban, we witnessed one of the most destructive performances of Mitchell Starc, who picked up 9 wickets in the match and sealed the game for his side. Even though Aiden Markram did score an impressive hundred in the second innings, that was not sufficient, as the Aussies won the game by 118 runs. Unfortunately, whenever we remember that test match, it is neither the spell of Starc nor the hundred of Markram that comes into mind, but it's the run-out antique of De Villiers and the scuffle that we had on the stairs of Kingsmead.

In the second innings of the game, there was a mix-up between AB and Markram in which AB got run out for a duck. However, in the course of the celebration, Lyon threw the ball upon de Villiers, which was intentional and against the spirit of the game. Moreover, given his aggression and celebration, David Warner did cross the line, which raised the temperature of the series.

And this is when we saw one of the coldest tweets in the history of the game. At the conclusion of the first test, de Villiers tweeted, "This series will be one to remember." And boy! What happened next was something truly unbelievable. Not only did ABD deliver a strong performance, but the Proteas came back harder and won the series 3-1. AB, who scored 71 and 0 in the first test, went on to score 3 fifties and one hundred in the next 6 innings, thereby scoring an aggregate of 427 runs at a staggering average of 71.17.

Apart from ABD and Markram (480 runs), the bowling trio of Rabada, Morkel, and Phillander too joined the party as they dismantled the Aussies in the next 3 games. Moreover, it was not just a defeat that the hosts inflicted upon the visitors, but was rather a total demolition of the Australian side. The margins kept getting better for the Proteas as the Kangaroos looked clueless.

Unfortunately, AB de Villiers announced his retirement after the series, but the performance he delivered would be remembered for ages.

To watch the Documentary of that Series, Click Here.