Key events
57th over: Australia 168-4 (Head 93, Boland 8) Again, a single for Head first ball of the Rabada over, driven to deep cover. They have a sweeper back now. One probably always should for Head. It nearly brings about Boland’s downfall, but instead his nick hits the rope for four. Almost ran the ball away rather than edging it. Why he was running it at first slip, I don’t know, but it somehow bounces and squeezes between the two slippers and away for runs. He even follows up with a single to pinch the strike.
A few revisions of the equation, I think the target for the day was 82 overs at the beginning, so 79 after this one.
56th over: Australia 162-4 (Head 92, Boland 3) Jansen to Boland, who plays him really well. Confidently onto the half-front foot to defend with bat right next to pad whenever the ball is pitched up. Gets hit by a shorter one, glancing blow, and leaves alone what he can. Another over down.
Play gets under way
55th over: Australia 162-4 (Head 92, Boland 3) Head is happy to take the single first ball of the day! That’s interesting. He’s batting with the usual No11, Boland was nightwatch last evening, but if they were looking to bat time, then perhaps Boland facing Rabada second ball of the day would not be ideal? I guess it’s also a good thing for Head to play normally and try to score normally, because that’s the way to keep a slight nudge of pressure on the bowlers. Even when runs don’t matter much, they still don’t like strike rotation and being scored from.
In any case, Boland handles Rabada comfortably, blocking a yorker and then working a run to leg. Head threads his first boundary of the day through point! A bit of a warm-up over from a bowler sending down his 12th of this innings after 12 more in the innings prior.
Lunch has formally been taken, we have two sessions to play, and they theoretically have determined that 82 overs will be bowled today. That will not happen, one way or the other, but the intention is to play as late as possible, if required. Either that or South Africa kill this contest quickly.
We are close to action. Sun is out, a little patchy white cloud against the blue sky, and the players are on the field.
Lunch taken early
Update: lunch break is taking place now, and play is scheduled to being in 25 minutes.
“Shame about the rain hope it doesn’t ruin an exciting last day,” writes Tom Barrington. “As a UK based radio cricket enjoyer, I had to find an Australian feed yesterday. I tuned in during the collapse and was amazed at the funereal atmosphere, it really was striking how down the team were and the calls for an enquiry were starting. I think they had a point re Maddinson, but this is still an extremely successful side who have a great chance of winning the series still and ultimately the World Test Championship.
“Do you think this is part of the difference between the culture around cricket in England compared to Australia (ultimately borne out in results), in the lack of acceptance of failure? I’ve listened to many worse England collapses and there is much more of an acceptance of fate, combined with some gallows humour.”
In a word, yes. My theory from my experience working a lot in both countries, which others may dispute, is that broadly speaking the English are good losers and bad winners, while Australians are good winners and bad losers. Caveats! Generalisations! Do not deluge me with contrary case studies, I’m talking broad social averages here.
The theory being that because Australians expect to win, they move on from it quickly and don’t wallow in smug gloating to the same extent, but when their teams lose, they are shocked to the core that such an outrage could happen, and can’t cope with it.
All out for under a hundred is UNACCEPTABLE to an Australian mind, it is the province of weak teams from weak countries that do not have our indomitable pioneering spirit born of the hardscrabble clay, or something. There’s a lot of hypernationalist myth mixed in there, and a lack of ability to be philosophical about failure.
But those complaints also have a point, that a lot of flaws in this current team have been visible for a while, and haven’t been addressed, so when a Test falls apart because of those self-same weaknesses, people get stroppy about it.
“I’m following Australia vs South Africa all the way from Seattle and it’s 2:10 AM. Trust me, there is nothing more Seattle-like than a rain on a weekday. This Test makes me feel included even if I have to sit and wait here at 2 past midnight! On the other hand, the rain reminds me of the South Africa exit in the 1992 world cup against England. Cheers!”
Not sleeping… in the largest city in Washington state… if only there was a film reference that I could employ. Still, that is serious dedication, Muhammad Najib, to be waiting up all night to read the rain delays. We salute you. Go Orcas.
Rain intensifying on final morning
The rain is intensifying. This is settling into becoming a really significant loss of time. On most grounds you’re generally at least an hour from resuming after serious rain, so that would take us past the scheduled lunch break. And on this ground, the outfield got so soaked that we lost several extra hours on day two even in the sunshine.
“Whilst you’re pondering the weather perhaps you could work on an Edges of Maddinson’s County zinger,” writes Patrick O’Brien. “Actually, does he even use a County? Ah well, carry on.”
Maddinson uses a DSC. He has played a little bit of county, for Durham. Didn’t go so well.
“Crisis? What crisis?” asks Rowan Sweeney. “The thing that sets Australian cricket apart is the shared commitment between fans, staff and players to achieve excellence. Case in point – yesterday morning Head and Boland were ready to greet the first ball, and they’re here again for more today.”
Must be a fairly rare occurrence. I would claim a reasonably advanced stat-search capability, but not sure it’s good enough to look that one up.
We just did another round of the cover dance. Covers off, revised session times, players warm up, rain returns, covers on.
“At risk of overcooking the Shield chat,” writes Eamonn Maloney, “you don’t have to select from a bunch of mediocrities averaging 35 when it’s early in the season and the small sample size is inflating averages. Made a big ton? In you go son!”
If they had more than four days between matches, you might be right, the emergency calls may be going out. Though on the other hand, the current regime is happy to ignore Shield cricket completely when they feel the vibe is more compelling: Maddinson, Connolly.
Assuming that Green is fit for Cape Town, then somebody has to go: you’d assume Maddinson, Webster, or Labuschagne. And if Inglis is fit and firing, he’s a calm head they they like, so the changes might be dual.
That said, Labuschagne ‘failing’ in the high 30s is not the worst problem a cricketer can have. And I think they’ve botched Webster’s career by making him peripheral, batting seven and bowling the odd over, rather than backing him at six as part of the top-tier batting unit. He had such a good start but has faded badly in recent matches, and I’d point at least one finger at a lack of clarity about what his job is.
Scratch that, now the covers are coming back. We’re whittling down the overs that Australia has to face, but the unclear timings would also increase the uncertainty in that dressing room.
It sounds like we might get play 15 minutes from now.
Pondering that, there may indeed be some layoffs from this Australian team if they lose here and need to win in Cape Town to take the series.
I see the Australian team situation as having been the same for a while. A very good bowling attack, whatever their age, but suspect batting. Mostly the bowling is good enough that the batting only has to scrape enough runs together – see Durban, see Mackay. On the occasions when the bowlers don’t dominate, which no group of bowlers always will, the batting can’t cope. See Darwin, see Gqeberha.
“Our Test team is late-stage capitalism,” writes an unnamed Australian correspondent. “Spurts of comforting nostalgic old reliables coming good (Smith, Lyon, Boland), some new-tech hopes (Head opening), but really we know its allll crumbling. Even the banks are laying off workers.”
We’re going to have a slightly delayed start because there was some rain this morning. Covers are coming off, at around the scheduled start time. The Australians will of course be very pleased by every over lost.
You can email me, of course, like Simon D has done: “I’m a pom – living in Aberdeen for my sins – I’m not in the slightest bit bothered about the three way hit and giggle fest going on in Pakistan at the minute. But this… this is gripping. I bloody love Test cricket.”
That’s the stuff, Simon. Though I will say the concept of an ODI tri-series is now also sufficiently retro that it almost belongs in the same category. Things to please traditionalists. In fact, there are two ODI tri-series happening simultaneously. England and Sri Lanka are in Pakistan, as you say, while Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe are up to the final of their own version in the UAE.
There’s also an Ireland-Namibia ODI series, India are playing all formats in New Zealand and are halfway through a T20 right now, and Australia’s women are playing New Zealand’s women in a T20 starting any minute.
But here, we’ve got the real quiz.
Weather! We’ll have some of it. Allegedly the good kind. Mild day with some sunshine, says the prognostication. Good day for batting, if one can keep at it.
Early start by 15 minutes, extended finish by “until it gets dark”.
Want to know what happened on day four of the second Test? Luckily, I know a guy who has a good source for match reports.
There it was, another entry in Australia’s hall of infamy against South Africa. There was 47 all out, in the innocent days when the 2011 Test was the worst humiliation in Cape Town. There was 85 all out in Hobart, 2016, that led to half the side being sacked. Now there is 99 all out in Gqeberha, one day after the home team blew past 400, only for the visitors to follow on halfway through day four.
Preamble
Geoff Lemon
What say you, traveller? Tarry by the fire a minute? We may trade tales of desperate glory.
A bit of that ahead of us today, or at least it needs to be if Australia hope to save this game. This is a team that was forced to follow on yesterday, then lost four more wickets second time around, and they’re still 170 runs behind.
The equation is this. To take on the task we have Travis Head nearing a hundred, Scott Boland nightwatching at the other end, then it will be Steve Smith with a crook neck, Alex Carey of the horrible shot yesterday, and the bowler trio of Cummins, Starc, Hazlewood.
Between them, this lot need to bat for three sessions, with perhaps a slightly early end for bad light. Or, if they’re able to score as well as bat time, they could try to make that 170 and get into the lead, where every run is worth double because South Africa would need time to score them back.
Admittedly that’s unlikely given the four wickets to have fallen, but if things did pan out that way, Australia could kill the game sooner than three sessions by getting far enough in front.
Far more likely is that South Africa’s bowlers will be refreshed by a night’s sleep, and will pick them off in time, with six wickets to get.
The series will stay live if South Africa pull this off. High stakes. You in?
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