Malinga Almost Pulls It Off!

Oh Man, what a match !!!! It was a match of nerves towards the end!!!

Not many heart patients would have survived this one. The best match of the tournament so far !!!

At one point in time, only 4 runs were required by SA with 8 overs & 5 wickets in hand and all of a sudden Lasith Malinga takes 4 wickets in 4 balls!!!
Simply unbelievable stuff!!!
Malinga was 4 -0-37-0 at one time, then 7.4-0-49-0 and suddenly his figures looked as 8.2 -0-49-4!

SA were under tremendous pressure all of a sudden with only 1 wicket remaining and 3 runs required in 3 more overs !!! And Lasith Malinga and Chaminda Vaas were bowling nothing but poison at the speed of 140+ at the batsmen!!!

Misses, appeals and more misses and more appeals followed.

A scrappy and chancy maiden by Vaas and it was all getting too close to breathe.

And then Malinga comes in to bowl the 49th over and an edge past second slip secures the victory for SA....

phew... the 'Chokers' managed not to choke this time, but what a hum-dinger of a match!!!!!

Hats off to the fighting spirit of the Lankans and to the stoic and resolute effort by Kallis! He was a villain against the Aussies, but a true hero here! Malinga almost stole the thunder under Kallis's feet, but it was not to be.

The blame for defeat should be taken by Mahela for bringing Murali late and then for replacing him with other bowlers mid-way through his magical spells.

But Sri Lankans can only hold their heads high after the defeat for their amazing and unbelievable fight!!!

MoM was the unlikely Charl Langeveldt who wonderfully bowled in the morning to take 5 SL wickets. It could very well have been Lasith Malinga had he taken one more wicket today...
But ifs and buts have no meaning in the life, do they?

The point to ponder over is that with stalwarts like Pollock, Ntini, Murali, Vaas, Jayasuriya, Sangakarra, Kallis, Smith, Gibbs etc., who would have thought that a Malinga / Langeveldt could have been the possible man of the match candidate???

Take a bow, spirit of the game!