 Shane Warne and Ricky Ponting celebrate a wicket |
Australia captain Ricky Ponting was delighted by their successful start to the three-Test series in South Africa. They won by seven wickets in Cape Town on a pitch offering help to both seam bowlers and spinners.
"It was difficult to bat on even today, it was still seaming around a lot and it was hard work.
"A bigger total would have been hard to chase, but full credit to our guys and Stuart Clark on debut was fantastic," Ponting commented.
Seam bowler Clark was given his first Test cap at the age of 30 because Glenn McGrath had stayed at home to care for his wife, who is suffering from cancer.
And he seized the opportunity with magnificent career-best figures of 9-89 which earned him the Man of the Match award.
"It's been a lot of fun. If I'd got one wicket I'd have been happy - to get nine, I don't know what to say.
"It was conducive to seam bowling and I'm expecting it to get a little bit tougher from here on in.
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"If I can get nine wickets every Test match I play it will be great, but (I'll take) one game at a time and we'll see what happens," said Clark.
Winning inside three days gives Australia extra rest before the second match at Durban, which begins next Friday.
"We've obviously got off to a very good start, but as we know cricket's a funny game and it can change around pretty quickly.
"We've got make sure when we hit the field in Durban that we're ready to go and ready to play some even better cricket than we played here," Ponting added.
MMIX
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