DEFINING MOMENTS FOR HARRIS AND JOHNSON

PAUL HARRIS and Mitchell Johnson returned career defining performances to highlight the final afternoon of the Castle Test series between South Africa and Australia at Sahara Park Newlands on Sunday.

In straight statistics the Proteas won by an innings and 20 runs - only the second time that South Africa have beaten Australia by an innings - while Harris was named man of the match for career best figures of six wickets in an innings and nine wickets in a match and Johnson was never in doubt for man of the series.

He would have won that award even without his maiden Test century that followed his unbeaten 96 in the opening match of the series at the Liberty Life Wanderers Stadium. He and Dale Steyn finished the series with 16 wickets each and there is no doubt that Johnson has arrived as the next top all-rounder in world cricket.

Johnson and Andrew McDonald fought a superb rearguard action that raised the prospect of the match going into a fifth day and possibly forcing South Africa to bat again.

The pair came together with Australia's top order having crumbled to 218/6 with the second new ball just having been taken but they proved more than equal to the occasion as they posted the second lower order century partnership in which Johnson has been involved on this tour.

In the first match of the Castle Test series at the Liberty Life Wanderers Stadium, Johnson and new cap Marcus North set an eighth wicket record partnership for Australia against South Africa of 117 with Johnson being stranded four runs short of what would have been a maiden Test century when he ran out of partners.

McDonald reached his 50 off 56 balls (8x4) while Johnson was even quicker, taking 51 balls to reach this particular mark (7x4, 1x6). It was McDonald's first half-century at this level and the fourth for Johnson who is becoming an extremely consistent No. 8 for his country.

The pair raised the century partnership off 91 balls with the 150 taking another 50 deliveries of attacking strokeplay that matched what AB de Villiers and Albie Morkel had produced for the Proteas on Saturday.

Johnson went on to claim another partnership record for Australia against South Africa when he and McDonald went past the 160 that Richie Benaud and Graham McKenzie recorded for the seventh wicket at Sydney in 1963/64.

Paul Harris finally broke through when McDonald edged on to his pads for De Villiers to take a diving catch at silly point. The final partnership was worth 163 in 26.3 overs and the pair had reduced the deficit to 61.

The Harris/De Villiers combination struck with the very next ball to remove Peter Siddle without scoring and give Harris his second fifer at Test match level. He previously took 5/73 against Pakistan at Karachi. It was also the first time in 44 years going back to Harry Bromfield against England at Newlands in 1965 that a South African spinner had taken a fifer in a home Test match.

Thereafter it was merely a case of mopping up which Harris did on the ground where he learned his cricket but Johnson was not to be denied his century and he remained defiant and undefeated to the end.

Earlier Dale Steyn and Paul Harris had shared the six top order wickets equally. Steyn's third wicket enabled him to reach 170 Test match dismissals and placed him level in fifth place on the South African all-time list with off spinning legend of the 1950s, Hugh Tayfield.

Those ahead of him are Shaun Pollock (421), Makhaya Ntini (388), Allan Donald (330) and Jacques Kallis (257).

The Proteas were hampered by an injury (right groin strain) to Kallis who left the field during the final session of play. The exact extent of his injury will only become clear in the morning when it can be properly assessed.

Michael Owen-Smith

Media Officer, Cricket South Africa