Australia blow Proteas through the roof

This was the 1,620th ODI in recorded history -- and the first ever to be officially played indoors, under a roof.

And with that, we have said pretty much all there is to say about a game that was as one sided as any in recent history. Australia, seemingly in no mood to end its winning run, thrashed South Africa by a length and a half, without ever working up a sweat.

South Africa won the toss, inserted Australia, and spent most of the first half of the one day encounter at the Colonial Stadium watching two class performers take the game away from them.

Shaun Pollock's decision to insert was probably prompted by the fact that the pitch at the Colonial Stadium is an unknown quantity. And in the early overs, he seemed to have got the call right, when Adam Gilchrist, Ricky Ponting and Mark Waugh departed with just 37 on the board.

Gilchrist was the first to go, Jonty Rhodes at point taking advantage of a momentary hesitation to throw down the stumps in a brilliant piece of fielding.

Ponting, who like Shane Warne has lost out in the race for the team vice captaincy, came in at the fall of Gilchrist and looked to play shots from the get go. With opening seamer Telemachus getting the ball to go off the deck, Ponting's attempts to play the off to leg pick-up shots seemed a bit dodgy. One such took the leading edge and ballooned only to fall safely in no-man's land. Unchastened, Ponting tried a similar shot almost immediately thereafter, and this time the ball went up and down Rhodes' throat.

Mark Waugh had watched two partners go, and seemingly, learnt nothing. Telemachus was bowling the kind of line that demanded caution -- 'Junior', however, opted for flamboyance, and holed out to Nantie Hayward.

That brought Michael Bevan and Steve Waugh together. The two put on a brilliant display of one day cricket, calmly accumulating through fine placing and great running in the early stages of the innings, consolidating the Australian innings and timing their assault to a nicety, to stitch together a 212-run partnership for the fourth wicket off only 211 balls.

Through the association, Bevan was the calm, controlled accumulator. And Waugh, the downright aggressor as he contributed 108 to the partnership off only 97 balls (Bevan 104 in 114).

Bevan fell in the slog overs, attempting to up the tempo, but South Africa's misery was compounded by Shane Lee's cameo innings of 28 off 14 balls, which powered a 29 run partnership with Steve Waugh off just 17 balls.

Waugh ended undefeated on 114 off 103 balls.

For South Africa, Telemachus took two early wickets and Pollock and Kallis one apiece, but none of the bowlers on view managed to contain the rampaging Australian fourth wicket partnership. Kallis in particular had a disastrous outing, going for 74 in his ten, while Hayward (45 in 6 overs) and Telemachus (54 in 10) were similarly prodigal.

Glenn McGrath was not. Prodigal, that is. He won the game for Australia in his first five overs, which produced an astonishing analysis of 5-3-2-0.

Though Brett Lee, returning to active duty after the controversy over his bowling action, was prodigal in comparison, giving away 21 in his first four, that one spell from McGrath pretty much served as a "wake up and smell the coffee" call to the Proteas. When chasing 6 an over, you need to get off to a flier. That did not happen. Failing that, you needed to conserve wickets. That did not happen, either.

The Protean batsmen focussed their attention on keeping McGrath and Lee at bay -- and as usually happens, lesser bowlers reaped the rewards. In this case, the main beneficiary of McGrath's meanness were the medium pacers Harvey and Shane Lee, who by the simple expedient of keeping the ball three quarter around off and seaming it just a shade, teased the batsmen into indiscretions.

Andrew Hall went for an airy drive and found the nick through to Gilchrist. Gary Kirsten, patient as always, attempted for once to try and hit a bowler -- this time, Shane Warne -- out of the line of fire, only to miss and be stumped by a country mile. Darryl Cullinan played Warne with authority -- this deserves mentioning, in view of the fact that Warne appears to have some kind of hex on the batsman -- but then tried to hit Harvey out of town, and lost his stump. Jonty Rhodes tried a reverse sweep, and holed out to point....

You get the point. There was only one side in the contest.

Australia won by a 94 run margin -- and now go 1-0 up in the three match series.

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