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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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