49.5 overs South Africa 438 for 9 (Gibbs 175, Smith 90, Boucher 50*) beat Australia 434 for 4 (Ponting 164, Hussey 81, Katich 79) by one wicket
Scorecard .
Herschelle Gibbs, arms aloft, celebrates his hundred. He was finally dismissed for 175
Seven years ago, in the semi-final of the 1999 World Cup, South Africa and Australia contested what has widely come to be regarded as the definitive one-day international. A total of 426 runs in two innings, twenty wickets in the day and world-class performances across the board - a match that built to a pulsating finale in which South Africa threw away their place in the World Cup final with what also came to be regarded as the definitive one-day choke.
Today, however, South Africa can be called chokers no longer, after burying the ghosts of 1999 with victory in a match even more extraordinary and nail-shredding than its illustrious forebear. Never mind 426 runs in a day, Australia had just posted a world-record 434 for 4 in a single innings - the first 400-plus total in the history of the game - with Ricky Ponting leading the line with an innings of cultured slogging that realised 164 runs of the highest class from just 105 balls. And yet they still lost - by one wicket, with one ball to spare, and with the Wanderers stadium reverting to the sort of Bullring atmosphere on which it forged its intimidating reputation.
