The Australia vs South Africa 1999 World Cup semifinal stands out as a great ODI. The 2019 World Cup final between England and New Zealand was even better. Heck, even the 2002 NatWest Final, where India defeated England in a last-over thriller, is right up there. But there’s only one ODI that stands above them all. Australia 434. South Africa 438. March 2006. The greatest of all time.
Imagine scoring 434 and believing you’re invincible, only for the other team to chase it down, with the entire drama unfolding over eight hours. When Mark Boucher scored the winning runs, people were in tears as the Bullring erupted. What were the odds?
Herschelle Gibbs, who infamously dropped the World Cup seven years earlier, played the innings of a lifetime with his knock of 175. All the Proteas bowlers went for plenty. Roger Telemachus was taken for 89 runs, while Jacques Kallis was belted for 70 in six overs. For Australia, Nathan Bracken took 5/67, and Brett Lee conceded 68; Andrew Symonds wasn’t spared, going for 75. But the one bowler who proved to be the difference between a win and a loss for the Aussies was Mick Lewis. The Australian seamer bled 0/113 in 10 overs. Twenty years later, it remains the second most runs conceded by a bowler in an ODI, with the wounds of that defeat still fresh in his mind.
Warne came to Lewis’ aid
Lewis, who played seven ODIs and two T20Is for Australia, never recovered from that onslaught, as it proved to be his last international appearance. It’s not easy to recover from a hammering of that sort, but after the match, Lewis found a friend in Shane Warne. Though not part of the series, the spin great was staying at the same hotel for the upcoming Test series. And when the world seemed to be crashing down around him, Warne was there to lift Lewis’ mood.
“I remember ‘Warnie’ texted me. He was at the hotel because he was over there for the Test match,” Lewis recalled to foxsports.com.au. “He texted me ‘how are you feeling?’. I said I’d had better days. So, he replied, ‘when you get back to the hotel, come up to my room and let’s have a beer’.”
Part of history
The bowler was vilified and hounded for his performance. A lot of time has passed, but the ghosts of that match stayed with him for a significant period. Yet, when everything is said and done, Lewis was part of something epic, a game that has already stood the test of time and promises to be remembered for years to come.
“I got off the plane, and the bloke asked me and I said, ‘look, I just had a bad day at the office. Everyone has them and we move on. That’s life’,” Lewis recalled to foxsports.com.au.
“I never really thought about the game until people started asking me questions five, ten years later. It was an amazing game. I think the famous quote was Jacques Kallis walked off and said, ‘they’re 20 short’. I think he proved to be right in the end. At the time, it was chaos everywhere. It was a great game to be a part of.”
