Australia win Test and series

Australia beat South Africa by nine wickets to win the second cricket Test and the series late on the fourth day at the Melbourne…

Australia beat South Africa by nine wickets to win the second cricket Test and the series late on the fourth day at the Melbourne Cricket Ground today.

Australia, leading by 210 runs on the first innings, dismissed South Africa for 219 in their second innings and lost Justin Langer for seven on the way to victory.

Man-of-the-match Matthew Hayden fittingly hit the winning runs, a boundary off Allan Donald.

Jacques Kallis, like his unbeaten 65 in the second innings in Adelaide, again played a lone hand for South Africa and was run out on 99 going for an impossible second run which would have claimed his 10th Test hundred in the lost cause.

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Kallis was given a standing ovation by the crowd as he left the arena where four years earlier his fighting 101 salvaged a draw for Hansie Cronje's team in the corresponding Boxing Day Test.

The third Test in the series starts at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Wednesday.

Match scores: Australia 487 and 13 for one, South Africa 277 and 219.

AFP