Captains: 'An incredible game'
Johannesburg - The South African and Australian cricket captains struggled to find words on Sunday to describe the fifth and final one-day international, which South Africa won by one wicket, with a ball to spare.
The match saw both teams breaking the world record for the highest scores in international cricket. A total of 872 runs were scored, at a rate of nearly nine an over throughout the match.
"Incredible," said South African skipper Graeme Smith.
"We'd struggle to repeat a match like that. I think it compares with the tied Test between Australia and the West Indies at Adelaide as one of the greatest matches in cricket history."
Ponting agreed that it was one of the best one-day matches of all time.
"We had no defence against Smith and (Herschelle) Gibbs. We've talked about Australia scoring more than 400 one day. We did that today, and lost. It is incredible."
Gibbs the deserved winner - Ponting
Ponting said that while there was always a chance that South Africa could pass Australia's record total of 434, the odds against it were very high.
"We scored that many, so it was possible that they would too - but there was no way on earth that they should have done it."
Ponting, who was jointly named Man of the Match with Gibbs, but declined the honour, saying Gibbs was the deserved winner.
He added that, despite having made his highest score in one-day internationals (ODIs), it was still disappointing to make such a massive score and lose.
"But teams have often had success at running down big scores against us," he said.
He suggested that the advent of Twenty20 cricket, as well as a relatively small ground, meant that huge scores were possible.
Monday a recovery day
"We have to get over this quickly and prepare for the Test series," said Ponting.
"South Africa will be buoyed by the result going into the Test series, and there's a very short turnaround period."
Smith said South Africa would probably take Monday as a recovery day and start preparing for the Tests on Tuesday.
"We need to get our feet back on the ground," he said. "It's been an emotional rollercoaster the past few days.
"We came so close in Durban on Friday, and so were pretty down, and then we won today, and won the series."
Gibbs, whose 175 was his highest ODI score, said he had woken up on Sunday morning with a good feeling.
"The last time I had that feeling was when I made a hundred against Australia at Edgbaston in the World Cup in 1999. I wish I had that feeling more often."
Asked where he rated Sunday's match, he said he thought it was one step ahead of Edgbaston.
Smith said that the team had not had any gameplan to score 435.
Had to get momentum going
"You don't lie in bed and imagine making a total like that," he said.
"We just knew we had to go out and score quickly. It never really crossed our minds that we could do it.
"We had to get some momentum going. We were smashing balls all over the place, and then we'd look up at the scoreboard, and we were still 350 behind.
"Chasing massive totals like that, you either get quite close, or you get nowhere near."
The captains praised both teams for creating such an exciting match.
Ponting said: "The batters did well, but the bowlers didn.'t."
Smith said: "I think it's a wicket the batsmen would like to roll up and keep, but the bowlers would like to bury it."
The first Test begins at Newlands in Cape Town on Thursday.
Posted by: www.SouthAfrica-CarHire.com
