Australia's star all-rounder Cameron Green justified his record-breaking signing in the IPL 2023 by snaring a cracking fifer to annihilate South Africa batters in the Boxing Day Test at the MCG on Monday (December 26). Green, who was roped in by the Mumbai Indians for a whopping Rs 17.5 crore in the just concluded IPL 2023 auction, rode on stellar 5/27 to rip through the Proteas' batting line up to reduce them to a lowly 189. Yet again the Dean Elgar's side saw a batting collapse as this time the last five wickets fell for just 10 runs.
Batting first, South Africa didn't get off to a good start as skipper Dean Elgar and Sarel Erwee failed to score big and crashed at an individual scores of 26 and 18 respectively. The flurry of wickets continued until 5/67 until Kyle Verreynne (52 off 99) and Marco Jansen (59 off 136) steadied South Africa's boat but to only delay the inevitable as the visitor's who were once recovering at 179/5, lost their last five wickets in quick succession as their innings summed to just 189. Green removed both the set batters Verreynne and Jansen including the scalps of Theunis de Bruyne (12 off 31), Kagiso Rabada (4 off 5) and Lungi Ngidi (2 off 6) .
Apart from him, Mitchell Starc snared two wickets while Scott Boland and Nathan Lyon bagged one each. Meanwhile, the hosts lead the series 1-0, following their comprehensive win in the series opener in Brisbane last week.
Home-town hero Boland, who made his test debut in Melbourne a year ago, struck the first blow of the day when Erwee was caught at third slip at 29-1.
South Africa had recalled top-order batsman de Bruyn for his first test since 2019, but the right-hander top-edged a pull shot off the bowling of Green and was caught behind at 56/2.
Elgar's departure heaps pressure on South Africa's middle order for the afternoon session. Khaya Zondo and Kyle Verreynne are yet to score.
Elgar had been dropped on seven by rival skipper Pat Cummins after offering a difficult caught-and-bowled chance. The left-hander was also dropped at gully on 19, off the bowling of Green.
The risky tactic of choosing to bowl first paid dividends for Australia captain Pat Cummins in the first test in Brisbane, which Australia won inside two days. But that was on a pitch that offered alarming pace and bounce for the fast bowlers, whereas the Melbourne pitch does not appear to favour the quicks to the same extent.
