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Key events
In Sydney, half century for Plimmer from 40 balls. Nice striking, though she’s also been dropped twice on the way there.
The South African openers might not mind dodging the earliest hour or two of the morning session, with these early starts in South Africa. There will be some moisture on the pitch under the covers, which won’t be fun, but at least starting in the middle of the day might mean that things dry out faster, and it’s less cool and pleasant for the fast bowlers. Marginal gains are still gains.
An inspection is coming up in 15 minutes, at this stage.
New Zealand women just raised their 50 in the 9th over, with Plimmer now settled into her innings able catching up her strike rate and get it above a hundred. Amelia Kerr got out to a diving catch by Lucy Hamilton at fine leg, they’re two down.
There’s a bit of clean-up happening in the centre at the moment, so fingers crossed that it reaches a point of completion.
“I agree about Verreyne, but it’s sad to see, given that he played really well for Nottinghamshire in 2025, but did begin to drop off a bit last season. Loads of talent and determination, but sometimes it just doesn’t click. Any idea why?”
Wouldn’t have a clue, John Starbuck. Verreyne was their best when a very ordinary South African team got clobbered in Australia a couple of years ago. He’s a very dynamic style of batter, fast hands, loves to carve away outside off stump, uppercuts and late cuts, that sort of thing. That’s a fast scoring game but a high risk game. It worked for him with the bounce in Australia, he did score quickly there, not huge scores but was making 50s while nobody else was making anything.
Perhaps when that sort of game drops in effectiveness to 99% from 100%, it goes wrong more noticeably than other game styles? He did have a run of tons after Australia, then dropped off sharply in the last 18 months, although his team doesn’t play much, which doesn’t help.
The women’s game has started at North Sydney Oval. A new player in Fiona Devonshire is off for an early tea, bowled by Kim Garth. Georgia Plimmer has whacked a couple of fours from Lucy Hamilton, but that’s about all there is to cheer about for the Kiwis. They’re 19 for 1 after four overs, not moving quickly.
Still waiting for our start. There’s very light rain at the ground, not enough to bother many of the spectators, but you can’t start a game until it’s perfectly dry, so say the playing conditions.
I like all the changes for South Africa. It’s great that Tristan Stubbs wants to be a Test player, given all his attention from the franchise circuit, but he didn’t look up to speed in Durban, where Breetzke really did take it up to the Aussies in the one-day series, and looked to have a lot to offer technically as well as in attitude.
Ackerman has a monster first-class record and has earned a shot at the next level up, and to make space for him the move involved getting Rickelton out of the opening spot, which he desperately needs based on the evidence of Durban, then having him go down the order to become the keeper in place of Verreyne, who was dreadful last start and hasn’t made runs in any Test for a while.
Then Rabada coming in speaks for itself, although Maharaj has historically taken the fight up to the Australians, so I’d have expected him to stay as the lone spinner. But glad to see Harmer get another chance to show his quality.
So the hosts look stronger up top, stronger in the middle, and stronger as a bowling outfit. It may all fail terribly, but it’s a nice setup before a ball is bowled.
Although with the rain delay, maybe the women’s game is genius timing? There’ll be something to watch in a few minutes’ time.
Mark Chaimungkalanont emails in, with an Australia-NZ T20 for the women’s teams to begin in 10 minutes.
“Surely another miss from CA with the Aussie women’s clashing with the men’s on a Sunday? Watching some top class cricket v NZ after being flogged in the rugby surely was better than a full clash tonight. Nothing else on last night and would’ve been three days after Bangladesh.”
Yes, yes, and yes. The Australian women’s team has an appalling schedule this season and next, shoehorned into October and March. CA will give you umpteen justifications around T20 leagues, ground availability, etc, but the overall impression is very much back to the second-class citizen era. Get your house in order, CA.
Aaaaand just as we’re getting ready for a start in a few minutes, the drizzle returns, and the choreography of the covers returns with it.
The big call is once again the fast-bowling selection. Nathan Lyon was never left out of an Australian team when available from August 2013 to July 2025. Played 116 Tests in that span. Today he’s been left out for the third time in the last eight Tests that he’s been fit for. It’s a severe change in approach from the national side.
The big reason is that Scott Boland is so good, and is sitting on the sidelines so much of the time. They love his effectiveness but he can’t get past the other three quicks when they’re all fit. So with this surface expected to be effective for his bowling style – very accurate, fuller than the others, threatening stumps and pads more often – he’s in.
Teams
So, mature-age debutant Ackerman will be into the action immediately, opening the batting this morning. Steve Smith is playing after some concern following his head knock in Durban.
South Africa
Aiden Markram
Marques Ackerman
David Bedingham
Temba Bavuma *
Matthew Breetzke
Ryan Rickelton +
Wiaan Mulder
Marco Jansen
Simon Harmer
Anrich Nortje
Kagiso Rabada
Australia
Nic Maddinson
Travis Head
Marnus Labuschagne
Steve Smith
Matt Renshaw
Alex Carey
Beau Webster
Pat Cummins
Mitchell Starc
Scott Boland
Josh Hazlewood
Australia win the toss and bowl
Pat Cummins has no hesitation in bowling first, something he’s done more than most captains. He cites the fact that it’s a damp morning, that the wicket will be freshest today, and rather burying the lede, that they have once again dropped their spinner to play four fast bowlers, with Scott Boland coming in for Nathan Lyon.
Temba Bavuma says, “We were undecided, but a decision has been made on our behalf.” Understated as ever. For his team, Marques Ackerman will debut, Matthew Breetzke comes in to help the batting, and then there’s Rabada. So that means Verreyne and Stubbs miss out from the batting side of things, and interestingly Keshav Maharaj is the spinner dropped rather than Simon Harmer. Maharaj bowling left arm is very much the senior bowler, but Harmer the off-spinner may have been preferred with so many Australian left-handers.
Interesting given left-arm spin has been effective against Australian sides for a while now.
Preamble
Geoff Lemon
Hello, cricket pals. Get ready for something spicy. And wet. Spicy and wet. The tom kha soup of cricket. It’s coming to your table very shortly, direct from Gqeberha, which you may know historically as Port Elizabeth.
Here’s the deal. Australia in South Africa, tough away trip but they’ve got a record doing it, very competitive and tense history between the teams, not to mention some… uh… stuff that happened last time that was spoken about exhaustively in the first place. And amid all this context, Australia rolled up and grabbed the first Test in Durban despite a batting collapse on day one.
Point two, South Africa will revamp their side quite substantially, and oh oh oh oh, Rabada’s back. Last time we had this tour, Australia also won in Durban but then got torn up by Rabada in Gqeberha. This time he’s coming off a hamstring injury, so point one will be whether he can bowl at his best and get through without aggravating it.
South Africa have to grab this game to stay in the series, and there are precious World Test Championship points / chunks of win percentage on offer. Shall we?
Geoff will be here shortly to take you through the first half of the day, but for now remind yourselves of how Australia took a 1-0 series lead with victory on day five of the first Test in Durban.
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