AN AUSTRALIAN fast bowler from a team called the Bushrangers, who once won a wood-cutting title, chopped down the South African batting at Sydney yesterday.

Peter Siddle, a 24-year-old medium-pace bowler from the Victoria Bushrangers team, wrapped up the Proteas’ first innings with five wickets for 59 runs. At times he was quick for someone regarded as only medium-pace, hitting the speed button at 140km/h. The man who was once the junior wood-chopping champion of West Gippsland, a rural part of Victoria to the east of Melbourne, but gave up the activity in which his father and grandfather had been experts because “I didn’t want to cut any of my toes off. It can be a bit dangerous”. So he concentrated on football (that’s the Aussie Rules version) and cricket, bowling in particular. Until yesterday , he had taken only five wickets in the series, one in the first Test at Perth and four in the second at Melbourne. Australia lost both. But yesterday he doubled that total with his best figures in his four- Test career (he played in the second Test against India in November, which Australia lost by 320 runs where he took four wickets). He only came into the Australian Test team because of an injury to regular fast bowler Stuart Clark in the Mohali Test, and kept that place when Clark was ruled out of the series against South Africa. Yesterday, he exploited a breaking Sydney pitch to wrap up the South African innings with four wickets in just 22 balls while conceding only seven runs during that spell. Having trapped South African stand-in skipper Neil McKenzie lbw the day before for 23, Siddle finally broke the Mark Boucher- Morne Morkel sixth-wicket partnership by bowling Morkel for 40. The pair had put on 115 to take South Africa safely past the follow-on target of 246. After Morkel’s wicket, Siddle trapped Paul Harris leg before, then bowled Dale Steyn, who played the ball from somewhere near square leg, before ending the innings by knocking over Boucher’s middle stump as the South African keeper tried desperately to reach a century with big hits. “It’s very pleasing to get my first five-for,” he told reporters after playing yesterday . “I’m very happy about that. It’s good to go out there and be able to stand up for the team and be part of the team. “It was a tough day. The main focus coming into today was team bowling, bowling in partnerships and all working together. We did that and in the end I was able to get the rewards. It was a good day for Australia and a good result.”

Bruce Manly In Sydney

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