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Key events
53rd over: South Africa 135-6 (Bavuma 47, Jansen 21) That looks better from Jansen! Sublime on-drive from Scott Boland! Goodness me, what a shot. That comes after he clipped a boundary off his pads. Eight from Boland’s over, unheard of. Jansen has scored 20 in his last 11 balls.
52nd over: South Africa 127-6 (Bavuma 47, Jansen 13) Marco Jansen knows only one way, so he throws the bat at Starc and gets lucky. One edge, another couple through cover but with no technique, just whoosing the bat and getting middle. Three boundaries in the over makes for good reading, but doesn’t promise a long stay.
Luca Human writes in, no need for the skin suit when communicating remotely. “Unfortunately the alien overlords have decided to give me a runny nose today, which does nothing to dampen my enthusiasm for the cricket. Quick Q: would you say Jansen and/or Rabada are top 10 Test bowlers right now? And how does Starc keep his longevity?”
Rabada is probably top 20 ever, so he’s definitely top 10 now. Incredible performer despite relatively limited opportunities and constant interruptions given SA’s stop-start schedule. Jansen is a bit like Boland: amazing numbers, but the sample size is still short of 100 wickets. He’s probably top 10 fast bowlers in the world right now, nearer 10 than top, though maybe not there if you include spinners.
As for Starc, just a relentless commitment to fitness, close attention to recovery, no alcohol, limited T20 league bowling means he takes breaks where he can, lanky sort of body and smooth action maybe makes him less injury prone as an older player. Conditioning in this era is a science, and he’s the beneficiary.
51st over: South Africa 114-6 (Bavuma 47, Jansen 0) Lovely on-drive from Bavuma, four down the ground, and Cummins replies with a forehead-seeking missile that the RSA captain barely avoids. And another one! Leaping at him, and Bavuma leaps, that was Robin Smith style, both feet off the ground while yanking his head away from the line over middle stump. Yikes.
WICKET! Mulder c Renshaw b Starc 13, South Africa 110-6
50th over: South Africa 110-6 (Bavuma 43) Starc goes up for a review! Once again, Pat Cummins makes the right change and gets immediate reward. Well, reward from the sixth ball, anyway. Bowls outside off, bowls full, five balls that let Mulder play or think about playing from the front foot. Then at the last, drops in the bouncer. It’s perfect. On line, that horrible height, Starc’s relatively flat skimming trajectory, given the way his front leg collapses and his bowling arm gets so low. The line, too, left-arm over to the right hander, giving him no way to escape the ball. In the end Mulder is squared up, facing the ball, trying to get under, trying to get his bat up, but all he can get on it is a flick of glove, onto a clip of the helmet, and away to slip. The standing umpire says it was all lid, but Starc and Renshaw are confident there was glove, and the soundwave proves them to be right.
49th over: South Africa 110-5 (Bavuma 43, Mulder 13) George from Brisbane: “Is Josh Hazlewood on the field?” Yep, or at least he was a few minutes ago, last time I saw him. Standing at mid on, best I can tell from the long lens. Australia opening up with Boland, on the hot streak, and Cummins for aggression. Good bouncer from Cummins! Perfect badge height to Mulder, who just gets under it. That might be why he sprints a single to mid on, and indeed there is Hazlewood, underarming at the stumps.
48th over: South Africa 108-5 (Bavuma 42, Mulder 12) Boland again, the whole over to Mulder. Goes past his edge a couple of times, and tries the bouncer variation in the middle, but Mulder is equal to that at least, and pulls a couple of runs.
47th over: South Africa 106-5 (Bavuma 42, Mulder 10) Bavuma looks intent on settling in. Cummins gives him a couple of bouncers, but he’s very happy to get out of the way. The tempter outside off stump is allowed to pass by. Contrast that to Mulder, who plays and misses at one of those.
46th over: South Africa 105-5 (Bavuma 42, Mulder 9) Boland to Bavuma may be the defining battle of the day. Scott is working him well, arrow-straight on that off-stump line, seam just gently lilting to the left and then the right, nipping in at the right-hander, who defends well, and eventually can deflect one such ball to leg for his first run of the day. Mulder follows suit.
45th over: South Africa 103-5 (Bavuma 41, Mulder 8) Not great fielding from Boland to start the day, sliding across at fine leg in awkward fashion, half on his back and his backside rather than sliding headfirst or feet first. That means that he touches Mulder’s glance but can’t stop it ricocheting into the rope. Cummins not wildly impressed. South Africa tons up. Mulder picks off a couple more to midwicket. He batted well in the Durban rearguard. He’s needed again. Three tons in his career, though they’re all against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.
44th over: South Africa 97-5 (Bavuma 41, Mulder 2) It will be Boland to start the day, with the sun shining and the greenness having gone out of the grass. He spoke yesterday about not wanting to give players an easy leave early in their innings, but Bavuma is able to leave three of six balls to start the day.
First email of the day from Kenrick Riley.
“Dear Geoff, thanks for the link to that doco. What a ride you two’ve had! [That was yesterday, see the post here.] Anyway, I stupidly bet my mate that Boland would take 7-27 in the first innings. Mind you, at 4-31, if he got a hat trick now, I’d be only four runs off my prediction! Thanks for the blog.”
That was a bold prediction, given it would be in the top 25 Australian innings analyses ever, but sometimes one has to be bold. Seven wickets is still well and truly on. In theory, equalling Laker’s 19 is still on.
Scott Boland with 4 for 31 has been the story of the first two days, and he’ll have plenty of opportunity for a five-wicket bag in his first foray to South Africa as a cricketer. He’s now played in his fifth country, as well as England, India, West Indies, and at home.
There’s a line I’ve been seeing more often in the last couple of days saying, oh, well, he only has such good stats because he gets picked in favourable conditions. Which is the kind of thing someone would say who doesn’t watch the cricket or remember much. This is Boland’s 20th Test, and only three out of 20 have been played as part of four fast bowlers. And only three out of those 20 have been unsuccessful with the ball (Nagpur, Edgbaston, Leeds). So he’s played in a wide range of conditions, usually as a replacement for part of the Big Three rather than a complement to them, and has succeeded far more often than most bowlers in history.
You can email me anytime during the day – an OBO tradition. Thoughts, prayers, threats, curses, incantations.
Another point of interest is how Josh Hazlewood pulls up today, after being off the field crook yesterday. He and umpire Chris Gaffaney. Did they have a quiet dinner at an unvetted seafood joint?
Preamble
Geoff Lemon
You heard right. Cricket, like love, never runs on time. Or at least if often runs late. But today, at least, it’s running early. We’ll get that early start (by 15 minutes? What’s that going to get us, two overs?) and if the skies stay clear we can play late like we did yesterday. It won’t necessarily make up overs, in terms of the 450 scheduled for the match, given how slowly modern teams bowl their overs, but it will make up a few of the overs lost to rain the last two days. And every over we get back gets us closer to a result.
As to which way that result goes, Australia are in the better spot, but there’s so much riding on this current partnership and on Temba Bavuma specifically. We saw in Durban how lower order batting can define a match, and South Africa still have the opportunity to define this one. Bavuma has a great record as captain, though he’s often the supporting player – today he needs to be at the forefront, and get some help from Mulder, Jansen, and Harmer, primarily.
Can he get through the early burst from the Australians and build his way into the day? It all rides on that.
After a couple of days filled with rain interruptions that have only allowed a total of 43 overs, the skies have cleared and the sun is shining in Gqeberha with the mercury expected to hit 20C. Play will resume 15 minutes earlier than originally planned with first ball now at 9.45am local/6.45pm AEDT/8.45am BST and South Africa back at the crease.
Geoff Lemon will be with us shortly for a proper introduction, but for now catch up on his report from day two.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Scott Boland had to wait a long time. Scott Boland took a wicket as soon as he got a chance. It was the same story on day two of the second Test at Gqeberha as it had been on day one, with rain delaying play, this time until deep into the afternoon. When a wet outfield had finally dried enough to allow play to resume in African sunshine, South Africa lost three more wickets to finish on 97 for 5.
#South #Africa #Australia #mens #cricket #Test #day #live #Cricket
