Australia's hard grind offers clues for the final push
After a gruelling day in the field, Australia may have picked up valuable lessons to help them chase down 288 and clinch an epic Test series in Cape Town
Pat Cummins had to delay getting a feed during the lunch break on Friday. Or so it seemed like as he descended the stairs holding a chicken wrap and continued munching away on it while addressing his teammates in the customary huddle. It wouldn’t have surprised anyone though. It was only understandable that the Australian Test captain would have had little time in between his briefings and reviews with the coaching staff and his fellow bowlers about the plan of attack for the second session.
It was but a great glimpse into the arduous challenge that the Australians were up against on the warmest day of the Test on a surface that had given them the bare minimum assistance. There was a starker illustration of simply how tough a day it had been a bit later in the piece when Mitchell Starc stood at the top of his mark in his umpteenth spell of the South African second innings. He was grimacing in pain. The big left-armer had taken two tumbles off his delivery stride on the hard Newlands pitch after having clutched at his right calf a couple of times, probably seizing up due to cramp. He looked battered and bruised. He walked around like he was battered and bruised. But he still kept steaming in.
Starc wasn’t the only Australian on the field who looked like he was going to use up all his laundry allowance before the trip back home over the weekend. At least nine of them looked muddied and covered in dust, indicative of the hard grind they’d been put under by Ryan Rickelton and Wiaan Mulder on a dramatic Day 4 of the final Test.
It was also however a great window into what the South Africans will be up against on the final day of the Cape Town Test as they look to defend 288 and seal the series. For, there’s still hardly anything on offer for the fast bowlers, except uneven bounce at best. The new ball has barely swung except for when Starc had it talking under very cloudy skies on the first evening. There has been negligible seam movement to boot. And the fact that every wicket of the home team’s second innings except the one of Marques Ackerman who was felled by a snorter from Starc, came via genuine batting error is another reason why Australia should be able to follow a blueprint designed around being patient to get over the mark.
The big threat for the visitors would be the enigmatic Kagiso Rabada who was toothless in the first innings. But Rabada rarely goes an entire Test without having an impact and that too against the team he loves winning against the most. What part of the pitch he’d use to his benefit though remains to be seen. The Australian fast bowlers definitely changed their mode of attack, trying to bowl a lot fuller and a lot straighter. Expect Rabada to do the same, even if the slowness of the pitch shouldn’t face too much of a threat to Matt Renshaw & Co. The only bowler who genuinely looked to be in the running to take wickets on Friday was Nathan Lyon. Mainly when he was operating from the Wynberg End and utilising the generous rough area outside the right-hander’s off-stump. He had the ball spitting at Mulder quite a bit and it took a truly great display of resistance from the all-rounder to keep Lyon at bay.
Simon Harmer would have spent most of the day taking notes on how Lyon was able to get the right-hander’s second guessing Even if he only managed the one wicket for the day, that of Harmer who shouldered arms and was tragically bowled off his bottom glove. There was a lot in Mulder’s approach, where he kept going across his stumps and nullifying any exaggerated turn by using his wide frame but also being able to then tuck it into a gap on the on-side.
In Rickelton’s own words, it was much easier being a left-hander with the middle of the pitch still very benign and presenting very manageable turn at the moment. South Africa could turn to Ackerman’s very part-time leg-spin, like Australia did with Marnus Labuschagne, to use the rough outside the left-hander’s off-stump but the likes of Head, Renshaw, Alex Carey and Cooper Connolly shouldn’t have much of a concern tackling him.
There was one delivery from Starc from the Kelvin Grove End that nearly got Rickelton who was jumping up in the air expecting it to rise till chest level. Instead, it snuck through and hit the bottom of his bat. Beware Jansen from that end in that case.
It was a day where lunches were forced to be had on the go with bodies and minds really put to the test. It was also one where Australia prevailed through the hard toil. They might have also however picked up enough cues along the way to potentially chart their course to victory on what promises to an epic finale to an epic Test series.
