Fifth ODI, Australian cricket team in South Africa in 2005–06
Cricket match
The 5th One Day International cricket match between South Africa and Australia, also referred to as the 438 Match or 438 Game was played on 12 March 2006 at New Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg. The match broke many cricket records, including both the first and the second team innings score of over 400 runs. Australia won the toss and elected to bat first. They scored 434 for 4 off their 50 overs, breaking the previous record of 398–5 by Sri Lanka against Kenya in 1996. In reply, South Africa scored 438–9, winning by one wicket with one ball to spare. The match has been acclaimed as the greatest One Day International match ever played.
Background
For some years, there had been an intense rivalry between Australia and South Africa in One-Day Internationals, dating from the semi-final of the 1999 Cricket World Cup, where South Africa could only tie against Australia in a match they needed to win to progress to the final. Some followers of cricket considered that to be the greatest game of all time. Earlier in the 2005–06 season, South Africa toured Australia, where they failed to reach the final of the three-team one-day series, including losing three of their four matches against Australia. They also lost the three Test series 2–0.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fifth ODI, Australian cricket team in South Africa in 2005–06” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.