Australia v South Africa: Third Test

[lemonbella]

Graeme 98 (4037) [12]

Battingwise Graeme gets 98 He didn’t score too many runs this match, however he clearly gets a 10 for playing the match in the first place. Then he gets another 10 for even walking out in the second innings and a further 13 for admitting that he had to be dressed by Morne Morkel in order to do so.

The other 65 are for doing it all whilst not being able to eat breakfast. Breakfast is important to Graeme.

There's 1 point deducted for not wearing his glasses on the balcony. That made me a little sad. And I've tried putting contact lenses in with only one hand and it's really damn hard.

There's a Graemeyness score of 4037 This mark was quite high even before the match started because of Graeme's sarcastic response to Doug Bollinger's "150000% effort". (Graeme's response was made all the better by Bollinger's failure to see the funny side in true, Australian cricketer style.)

Then came the match; and the bravery; and the flying to Melbourne and back in two days so that he could still collect his shiny thing; and the having to rest the shiny thing on the podium because his arms don’t work anymore; and the not wanting his bats to get damaged on the flight home and protecting them with his pants; and the protecting his cast from getting wet moments after he himself had removed the cast to put his hand in front of a really hard ball travelling at 90mph.

The bulk of those points, though, are because for a while there, Graeme was clearly seriously considering performing an experimental medical procedure on himself…."it sounds simple enough." Thank God he broke his other hand.

Graemey Sveltness gets a 12, There's a brief video of him in a black t-shirt which is a 10 by itself, but then he managed to make Kallis's shirt look svelte and that's quite a feat.

McKenzie 7

McKenzie's batting doesn’t really deserve that, but he got to be Captain and wear his special captainly hat. He pointed and huffed at fast bowlers and made special bowling gestures that no one understood. Then he made Kallis bowl uphill, like a proper captain. I'm really quite fond of Captainly McKenzie. I want Graeme to be captain, but should Graeme ever need to be forcibly restrained in the dressing room again, they should let McKenzie point and yell instead.

Amla 7

He was Hashim Amla again, so that's good. He did batting as well, although not quite enough. Mostly though, he gets points for saying that he'd rather get a duck than drop a Ntini wicket again. He looked so sad that Makhaya came and gave him a reassuring hug.

Kallis 6

Okay, do something for me everyone would you? Name me a great innings of Jacques Kallis's. Not a good fifty or so, but a match winning century or a gritty fightback to save a test. *waits* Do not look it up on Cricinfo.

You can't can you? I feel that's my point proven.

However, you may have noticed that Kallis actually has a score. Quite a good one. That's the effect the South Africans have had on me this series. They've made me feel benevolent towards Jacques Kallis. I hope it doesn’t last long.

de Villiers 7

Important runs in the second innings, and he clearly enjoyed pretending to be important as he fielded at first slip. He also gets four extra points because I forgot him last time around.

He'll get an additional 67 if it turns out that his next little website video is Graeme being dressed by Morne Morkel.

Duminy 9

Duminy gets 5 points just for being cool. Quite possibly the coolest cricket I have ever encountered. I may have to invent some kind of series coolness award, just to recognise it.

He gets an extra 4 for making a complete hash of fielding a boundary ball and then laughing hysterically about it when it was on the big screen. He got to do a wicket as well. He tried to be all fierce and the laughed hysterically about that too.
.
Boucher 9

Boucher's first innings was, well, Boucheresque. That's the problem with finding a word as excellent as Boucheresque, it ends up limiting one's vocabulary.

He was all combative in his little post match interview and pointedly reminded Ricky Ponting that they'd managed to chase 414 with no problems whatsoever. There's an extra point for promising to push Graeme out the door should they have needed two runs to win.

Morkel 24

His bowling and first innings batting are worthy of a good score by themselves, and at least one of those points is for the spectacularly inept opening batting effort. Micky Arthur said they tried him out because he was always comparing himself to Matthew Hayden and he proved that he really is as bad as Matthew Hayden

However, he gets an extra 14 for getting Graeme Smith dressed. There must have been a few items of kit that they both had to look a bit embarrassed about and agree never to speak of again.

For the record, the commentators departed from the animal metaphors this match and went for an architectural one instead: the leaning tower of Pisa "except he topples over more". I hope he's in the starting line up for the one dayers because I can’t wait to see what they think of next.

Harris 9

Most of that is for the fact that he managed to injure himself celebrating a wicket. He had to go off and be stretched and everything.

He gets an extra 3 for lending Graeme a jumper that had a huge burger stain on it. He's so going to get a call from his Mum about that.

Steyn 14

Steyn failed to realise that he taken a wicket on two occasions, only being alerted when other people leapt and cheered. This is because Steyn clearly thinks of himself as a batsman now. This time around he was all combative and growly when Siddle tried to be mean. That was slightly undermined by how scared he looked for the hour he was at the wicket in the final innings, but I'll still let him have the points.

However, 10 of those points are for the wonderful, wonderful interview he gave to channel 9 in which he explained that lions wander into supermarket car parks in his home town and that the rest of the team come and get him when there's a scary mouse or snake in the dressing room.

Finally, he gets an extra three because he gave the credit for all his wickets to his captain at a time in his career when he'd be perfectly within his rights to take the credit himself.

Ntini 8

He's a senior batsman now, Graeme said so, and that's worth all the points by itself. He gave Graeme a huge and special hug at the end, and got laughed at and cheered by the entire SGC (I'm sticking with that abbreviation) for spending significantly more time at the crease than he's ever done, anywhere before now.

Micky Arthur

Micky Arthur deserves the special mention this test, because he almost chewed his own hand off watching those last overs. You never got that from Duncan Fletcher. Also, he swam in Sydney Harbour whilst his team shouted "Shark" at him. Again, you never got that from Duncan Fletcher.

Finally he was looking for some Graeme-sized chains, and I don’t think he was actually joking.