14th November, Friday, Perth - Australia beat South Africa by 32 runs in the first ODI of the series. South Africa won the toss & elected to field first. South Africa lost quick wickets at the top and the partnership between AB de Villiers and David Miller was not enough to pull them out of the hole. Australia struck back with quick wickets towards the end and that spelt doom for the South Africans.
Quotes
George Bailey: Reasonably happy with how we bowled, great start but we went a bit flat in the middle. We finished it off well, would have liked to have finished it early. The second dropped catch could have been taken, but we just need to keep going. We thought 250 was good at one stage, but once a partnership developed, we kept going. Its hard to say, but we held our catches, we have some of the best fielders in the game, and we challenge ourselves to do well. It is a great start to the series.
AB de Villiers: We did not play well in all the three formats. Too many dropped catches. Very disappointing, we have got one game out of our way. We need to correct the mistakes. We enjoy playing here, we need to fix the mistakes quickly. We have to see what happened and look to play a better game of cricket. That run out was something that just happens, no hard feelings.
Nathan Coulter-Nile (Man of the Match): I thought we were a bit sloppy in the field, but we got the job done. The crowd was right behind me and I like it here. George played a good knock. The pitch was a bit close.
Team news:
South Africa: H Amla , Q de Kock (Wkt) , F Du Plessis , AB de Villiers (Capt) , F Behardien , D Miller , R McLaren ,V Philander , D Steyn , M Morkel , I Tahir
Australia: A Finch , D Warner , S Watson , M Clarke (Capt) , G Bailey , M Marsh , G Maxwell , M Wade (Wkt) , M Johnson , NC Nile , J Hazlewood