Comment: Rob Houwing

Cape Town – South Africa frittered away a golden chance to grab a commanding 2-0 lead in the five-match ODI series against Australia at Hobart on Sunday.

Scorecard: Australia v South Africa

Instead their five-run defeat in another nail-biting contest got Australia right off the hook and smart money suggests they will be restored as favourites to bag the series from here as tour fatigue possibly takes effect to a degree for a few Proteas players.

How did Johan Botha’s side let it slip? No specific individual was to blame, and the Aussies deserved lots of credit for a professional showing in the field in defending their narrowly sub-250 score.

Nathan Bracken, in particular, gave another masterclass in the art of one-day bowling strangulation, while Ricky Ponting’s clever, boundary-curtailing field placement was another influential factor, I thought.

Yet the Proteas will be kicking themselves for failing to grab the series firmly by the throat, and it is the home side who may now carry handy momentum into the Sydney “middle” game on Friday.

The one thing you can say about the current South African side, however, is that they are looking infinitely more competitive and organised than they did in the woeful ODI finish to the England tour, and they remain in with a fair shout at the silverware themselves.

That said, they were in the driving seat at around the 30-over mark in the chase, with the near-capacity Bellerive Oval crowd notably subdued.

They say this is the point where you double your score if you have healthy wickets in hand, to gauge where you will end up, and under those circumstances the Proteas were only marginally shy of the runs requirement – but with all of eight wickets still to play with.

Ordinarily you would expect a South African side to win 75 percent of the time from there, but then they got fatally blasé for a while and the rate suddenly shot up dramatically – ultimately too much so, as the likes of Mark Boucher and Albie Morkel were faced with an unrealistic two-runs-per-ball task near the finish.

Jacques Kallis and AB de Villiers had been the bedrocks in putting the Proteas into a position of real strength, but they were unable to ram home the advantage as the fours dried up and mere scampered singles kept taking the requirement further and further up.

The former again played with welcome composure, and occasional off-side brutality, although he was visibly angry with himself for getting out on 72 off 96 balls when he had clearly set out stall to be there at the end.

Kallis thus has to wait a little longer to reach his 10 000 runs in ODIs; he is 16 short and ought to hit the landmark at the hallowed SCG. Remember that the remarkable cricketer is also a tantalising 12 shy of that milestone in Tests!

De Villiers was guilty of one of his occasional errors of judgement in going for an ill-advised second run and being short of his ground by almost a bat length as the pressure only increased on the South African late-innings cavalry.

Until Graeme Smith returns to the fray, you suspect the Proteas will remain deprived of at least one known, explosive boundary-hitter and it something they have somehow got to address for the remainder of the series.

In the field, you could not fault them for commitment as they pulled back a runaway Aussie assault by Ponting and the highly promising Shaun Marsh which threatened, at one stage, to waltz the side to the near-300 mark – that would have been a fine achievement on a track that contained an intriguing “snake” or two.

But the old strike firm of Makhaya Ntini and Dale Steyn, not to mention an illuminating little spin cameo from JP Duminy, had a lot to do with the innings subsiding appreciably and then South Africa getting into a position themselves to take the “chequered flag”.

Instead the Proteas somehow manufactured their own speed wobble and I can imagine a few words stronger than “darn it” being heard afterwards from the visiting dressing room at the picturesque Bellerive …