But as Ackerman and Markram continued to take the Australian bowlers down, especially in the way in which they continued to milk them for singles alongside the regular flow of boundaries, Australia was going to bed convinced that their Test team was in crisis. With Pat Cummins’ decision to field first on what looked for all money to be a pitch designed for making bulk runs, the final slip-up in what is considered a litany of missteps. The non-inclusion of Scott Boland and the bizarre late drop-out of Steve Smith didn’t help calm the waters of mistrust around the Test team down either.
By the time Starc returned for his clean-up act with the second new ball, Ryan Rickelton and Marco Jansen had played with great maturity and responsibility to drag the staggering South Africans back to a position of relative strength. Starc had in the middle of all this, bowled his 13th over where he took two wickets in the space of three deliveries, both off short deliveries, to land a double blow when the home team looked to salvage their sudden turn in command the first time around.
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