Fore-play: Australia 222 all out (48 overs). Ricky Ponting 63. SA: 223 (38.1 overs). AB de Villiers 82, Hashim Amla 80. Herschelle Gibbs – a blistering 38.

So SA have wrapped up the series with a game in hand. While Ponting (albeit at least one reprieve) was skimming along beautifully, Australia had the game in relative control but it was all South Africa after that.

When Australia toured India recently, I kept waiting for those famous Gilchrist type lower order counter-attacking innings from Shane Watson and Cameron White, which never happened. Now that all of us have slowly understood that what Gilchrist and Symonds (to a certain extent) did isn’t easy to do, maybe Brad Haddin needs to as well.

Herschelle Gibbs looked different on the field today after his fantastic knock in the 3rd Sydney ODI – more secure and happy that he’s back to contributing to the team and game. And that carried on when he came out to bat, while tearing into Mitchell Johnson – the two have been at each other over the last couple of games with Gibbs straddling Johnson on both occasions.

With the foundation of the run-chase set, De Villiers and Amla did the wrapping and parceling with ease.

Pre-Play: Injury news for both sides – Nathan Bracken replaced by Hilfenhaus, Cameron White comes in for Nathan Hauritz (no injury required for that change).

Boucher misses today after a Tait yorker squished his toe – De Villiers will handle that aspect, while Morne Morkel fills the vacant spot.

Aus Batting

SA Batting

Scoreline: Australia 257/4 declared. South Africa in pursuit of 376: 62/1.

Matthew Hayden played some of his trademark strokes en route to his highest score in recent times (39). Australia through useful knocks by Ricky Ponting (53), Michael Clarke (41) and Mike Hussey (45) pushed the target and then declared – a declaration based on the dicey pitch, Graeme Smith’s unavailability and the safe notion that getting 300 runs on Day 5 is tough – even during the Perth Test Day 5, SA needed only 187 runs on the final day.

Matthew Hayden was given a rousing sendoff after he fell, by the SCG crowd, considering it’s upto the selectors to decide if that was indeed his last knock for Australia. If good sense prevails it shouldn’t be. Especially when you consider the return of Simon Katich to glorious form today – over the last few days, everyone (or at least I) have been stunned by his strokeplay. Today, Katich regained his touch by not scoring a single run for an hour at one stage. The eventual streaky single that ended his supreme form had all his fans disappointed and led to a moment of acrimony between Ntini and Boucher.

Just as Day 3 had a bizarre bunch of moments, Day 4 too had a couple:

Hashim Amla played some stunning drives on his way to 30 not out as South Africa after the fall of Morkel (sent in as opener) felt their way around this chase.