A career-best haul from veteran spinner Keshav Maharaj has inspired South Africa to a crushing 98-run win over Australia in the first ODI in Cairns.<\/p>\n
With Australia cruising at 0-60 chasing the Proteas’ 8-296, Maharaj wreaked havoc during a stunning spell as the hosts lost 6-29 in 55 balls at Cazaly’s Stadium.<\/p>\n
The 35-year-old bowled his 10 overs unchanged \u2014 at one stage having 5-9 \u2014 to finish with 5-33. It was the first five-wicket haul of his ODI career and was aptly named player of the match.<\/p>\n
Debutant Prenelan Subrayen, a right-arm off-spinner, started Australia’s collapse by getting the dangerous Travis Head stumped for 27.<\/p>\n
Captain Mitch Marsh played a lone hand from the top as none of Australia’s middle-order reached double figures.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mitchell Marsh of Australia reacts after losing his wicket. (AAP: Darren England)<\/p>\n
While Marsh remained at the crease, Australia had an outside chance of pulling off a remarkable win.<\/p>\n
But when Marsh fell for 88 to Nandre Burger (2-54), it was only a matter of time before the Proteas secured victory and bowled Australia out for 198 in the 41st over.<\/p>\n
Spin, unexpectedly, dominated in Cairns, after Travis Head’s part-timers also proved hard to handle.<\/p>\n
Australia’s aggressive opening batter took 4-57, claiming opener Ryan Rickelton (33), as well as Tristan Stubbs (0) and rising star Dewald Brevis (6) within three balls.<\/p>\n
The Proteas need no reminder of Head’s bowling capabilities after he took two crucial wickets in Australia’s thrilling World Cup semi-final win in 2023.<\/p>\n
Rickelton made a productive start with World Test Championship final hero Aiden Markram, the pair putting on 92 for the opening wicket.<\/p>\n
Markram (82) played flawlessly for his first 80 balls, but fell to a stock-standard delivery from Ben Dwarshuis (2-53) when seemingly headed for a fourth ODI century.<\/p>\n
WTC-winning captain Temba Bavuma returned for his first match since the historic final at Lord’s two months ago, crafting a patient 65 before being bowled by Dwarshuis when trying to lift the run-rate with four overs left.<\/p>\n
All-rounder Wiaan Mulder, fresh off his extraordinary 367 not out in a Test against Zimbabwe last month, delivered in the final overs with a blazing unbeaten 31.<\/p>\n
Earlier, South Africa suffered a major blow, losing spearhead Kagiso Rabada for the three-match series.<\/p>\n
The 30-year-old will miss the 50-over games in north Queensland due to an ankle injury.<\/p>\n
Australia fielded first after captain Mitch Marsh won the toss and elected to send the Proteas in to bat.<\/p>\n
When captaining Australia, Marsh has won the toss 21 times and chosen to field every time.<\/p>\n
Australia opted to play Alex Carey as a specialist batter, electing to use Josh Inglis as the wicketkeeper instead of their Test gloveman.<\/p>\n
But Carey and Inglis both fell to Maharaj, playing poor shots to get out.<\/p>\n
The second ODI will take place in Mackay on Friday.<\/p>\n
AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A career-best haul from veteran spinner Keshav Maharaj has inspired South Africa to a crushing 98-run win over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,72,740,60951,44,60950,1183],"class_list":["post-80117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cairns","tag-cricket","tag-keshav-maharaj","tag-news","tag-odi","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}