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Key events
8th over, Australia 51-1 (Maddinson 26, Labuschagne 1) Junk from Mulder! Short and wide, and Maddinson again hurls the hands and this time slams it through cover, got every piece of that with an angled bat. This is gonna be a fun day on the internet for all of us who said it was madness to pick him, when he nails a ton off 60 balls. He adds a couple more to leg. Flying.
WICKET! Head c Bavuma b Jansen 11, Australia 43-1
7th over, Australia 43-1 (Maddinson 26) Yeeeesh. Travis Head’s stinky run continues. This is another funky dismissal, trying to work Jansen to the leg side and getting a leading edge, and the ball lobs up to the South African captain at mid on! First blow for the hosts, they need a lot more wickets in a hurry though.
That’s the last ball of the over, which almost brought Maddinson’s wicket as well, when he nicked the ball but it bounced through the cordon for four.
6th over Australia 37-0 (Maddinson 21, Head 11): Just two balls remaining from Mulder’s final over of last night. Maddinson picks up where he left off! Hurling the bat at width, and getting something on it to slice it away for four.
And we’re about to get things under way on day four. Mulder has the ball in his hand, Maddinson is on strike. Let’s do this.
One of the aforementioned bowling quartet, Nathan Lyon, says he’s in the best shape of his career at the ripe old age of 38, nearly 39. His secret? Giving up the booze and an intense fitness regime. He’s what he had to say about it, after figures of 2-58 on day three.
The amount of work that I’ve put in, I’ve never had any doubt that I’ll get back. I haven’t had any alcohol for a fair while now, but I’m just trying to squeeze as much out of the lemon as possible that I can. I still feel like there’s a lot of decent cricket ahead of me, that’s for sure.
The weather looks sunny, fine, humid, 27C, for Durban today. Until the lights go off. Sticky bowling conditions.
Australia’s day in the field was all about The Quartet, those four absurdly credentialled bowlers who are still going strong. Here’s my piece from yesterday.
Preamble
Geoff Lemon
Hello world. It’s day four! Hooray. Well, it’s really kind of day three, because we’ve had about 220 overs rather than the 270 we should have had, given that bad light has called us off early each day. And it probably will again. If only there had been some way of knowing what time the sun goes down in a particular place at a particular time of year. “South African schedulers shocked to discover it is night time!” That’s my newspaper headline.
Anyways, the point of the thing is that we’re a fair way into a match, and we’re hoping there’s time for a conclusion. Australia lead by 139, they’re 33 without loss, and they have a lead to try to grow. South Africa have some good chasing memories from the World Test Championship final, but some bad batting memories from the first innings here. They really need to wrap up Australia for 150ish, I’d say, which is a tough ask but far from impossible.
Away we go. Let’s see what happens.
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