South Africa v Australia at Port Elizabeth: 2nd Test

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Can South Africa fight back? Must say I was surprised just how easily Australia won that 1st Test. I reckoned they would be a handful for SA but not that Aus would win about as comprehensively as they did against England.
OK, SA are now Kallis-less and there have been question marks about health/fitness of their fast bowlers. But they are at home and they are, for the time being, the number one side in the world.
AB looked great in that first Test but hardly anyone else did. They are going to have to find a way to deal with Mitchell J. Taking evasive action and then getting out just doesn't cut it (or hook it!). What was unfamiliar, and just a tad shocking, was how SA's fielding disintegrated in that Aus second innings. That's another area they are going to have to improve on.
SA teams far inferior to this present one always had plenty of fight and constantly played above themselves. It's time for the current lot to step up. This could easily be 3-0 to the Australians if SA get off on the wrong foot in Port Elizabeth.

And Marsh gets a pair.

Aus 153/3.

So the real shaun marsh Is back. 

A pair. 
Neither Marsh or Doolan are Test players

Watson and Hughes should play at Cape Town

Hughes? What are you on to, Gerry? Can't play pace, can't play spin. A half baked technique full of issues. He might eventually overcome his issues and emerge into a good test batsman, but there should be some drastic improvement from a year ago for him to be considered. Think Watson will be back for the next game.

msp83 wrote:Hughes? What are you on to, Gerry? Can't play pace, can't play spin. A half baked technique full of issues. He might eventually overcome his issues and emerge into a good test batsman, but there should be some drastic improvement from a year ago for him to be considered. Think Watson will be back for the next game.

Hughes averages 50 in South Africa. With 2 hundreds and 2 fifties. 

Marsh is no better than Hughes, Marsh has 6 ducks in 15 Test innings. 

Doolan is very ordinary.

Funny how Doolan was a hunch and looked good at Centurion although the SA bowling was off colour.

Then here looked out of his depth. His 1st class ave is mid 30's and it showed.

18 overs for about 30 runs since Warner was removed.

Dale Steyn removed Michael Clarke. Fantastic catch by Faf du Plessis. 

Another failure for Pup

Steven Smith goes for a golden duck. 

Dale Steyn on a hat trick!!!

Michael Clarke goes. Australia 156-4.

And Steyn takes 2 in 2. Steven Smith goes LBW. Australia 156-5.

Aus doing the same mistake has England in going into their shell since losing Warner.

4 wkts for 4 runs and 5 wkts for 30 runs.


Aus will be desperate for the rain now.

skyeman wrote:Aus doing the same mistake has England in going into their shell since losing Warner.

4 wkts for 4 runs and 5 wkts for 30 runs.


Aus will be desperate for the rain now.

Steyn might just finish them off tonight.

Steyn cleans up Haddin. 

Steyn on fire!

Another 17 overs remaining in the day's play. Another 45 minutes or so left. Play can be extended by a half hour if the light holds good....... Can the South African bowlers provide that extra, final push?

Rogers with a fine response to three low scores. A fine 100 amongst the devastation.    

South Africa having to depend a bit too much on the parttimers, Missing Parnell more than at any other point in the game.
Just as I Type, Philander ends a pesky partnership as Johnson goes. Australia 197-7.

Steyn's back on to try and finish it off today itself.

Duminy and Elgar have combined for 18 overs. Morne has bowled only 11 so far. Think Smith should bring him back as well.

Rogers is standing between South Africa and a win. How much more costly is that wrong call from the umpire/review not taken going to be?

Australia 201-7, time's running out for South Africa, the weather reports for tomorrow not looking good........

msp83 wrote:Rogers is standing between South Africa and a win. How much more costly is that wrong call from the umpire/review not taken going to be?

VERY!! If it rains all day tomorrow.

Probably the last over of the day. Seems Rogers and Harris have done enough for the weather to do its job for Australia tomorrow.

The extra half-hour granted. Can SA do it?

Steyn takes out Harris LBW, the batsman reviewed, but its umpire's call and he has to go. Australia 209-8.
And Smith, interestingly, has brought on JP Duminy to bowl.

Have not seen a score card like that for quite some time.

1 wkt away from 1 -1 and a decider. Aus have been outplayed this time.

Proteas you ripper!!!

Outclassed Australia. And all the while one bowler short.

Brilliant comeback from the number 1 side in the world. And Dale Steyn showed why he's the best in the world. Had an average first test by his standards, and didn't look close to his best up to that decisive final afternoon. He didn't even take a 5for, but what a performance it was from Dale Steyn!!.

In the end...the end came quite fast...like the 3rd or was it the 4th test in Ashes in England...when Aus colapsed from a great start to an abysmally low score.

very good test match cricket

Very good test match cricket indeed. And the weather factor added that much more excitement, and thankfully, its designs of playing spoilspot was thwarted!, though just about!.

Very happy with that win, the odds an signs were against us, going into this test the confidence must have taken a big dent, then everyone and his dog criticised the Proteas for batting slow on a pitch that really didn't offer much to the bowlers.

After putting on a 400+ score we dealt the Aussies a blow with aggressive bowling, but without Kallis as back up, Steyn struggling and Parnell injured, I thought it was a special display to get them out for less than 250.

Again as he started the second innings everyone was questionng whether we would bat aggressively enough y take the game forward, we answered that by batting in excess of 4 runs per over on a pitch historically never yielding more than 3.

Then the declaration became the topic of discussion, whether Smith will bat Australia out of the match before declaring ang thus risking bad weather on day five.

He gave an early enough declaration to give his bowlers the opportunity to bowl OZ out on day four.

We did, but wat was endouragin is we did it without Kallis and a fourth seamer, our quality of spin bowling was questioned, and yet they did alright.

Very proud of the boys.

With Elgar in there to back Duminy up. South Africa had a couple of handy slow bowlers who did the job on this track. If both of them can produce the goods with the bat, in the absence of a quality option, they can consider going in with 4 quicks in home conditions and use Imran Tahir on spinning tracks. This is not at all an ideal solution and I would like them to try someone like Simon Harmer out, but, this looks like the 2nd best option at the moment.

very good fightback from SA, given their defeat in the 1st test..also fantastic effort to get 20 wickets on that deck, with one bowler missing, and no frontline spinner!

This series is everything I had hoped to see.
Shame it's not a five match
Quality entertainment.

Congratulations to all the Saffa fans.     

1-1 now and the series is alive. I have a feeling all the momentum will be with SA and Oz have a lot of work to do.

Test cricket at its best.  Great comeback from SA to turn tables so decisively.

Couldn't get on to the site over the weekend : but am rather amused reading back over it now...

I turned in at tea thinking that SA probably needed three wickets in the evening session to have a pretty good chance of wrapping up a win unless the last day was almost completely lost , so the speed with which the whole innings was swept away took me by surprise a bit ...but at no stage did I think Australia had any realistic chance of chasing down 448 , even with unlimited time.  This is a very ordinary Australian batting lineup , that has won six matches in a row only because their bowling has been generally outstanding , and they have (with one exception) enjoyed the advantage of batting first. This time , they had to respond to a decent opposition score ; and the results were predictable.

The toss will be very important next week , I think.  As will how well the respective bowling groups recover from their exertions in this match.

Newlands has been good for the Proteas whether they bat first or second, in fact our record batting second is superior to our efforts batting first.

since 1992 we batted first 13 times, winnings 6, losing 3 (all to Australia) and drawing 4, batting second we have won 12 and drawn 1

No other team apart from SA has ever won batting first.

So is it raining in Port Elizabeth today or not?

And so, one of the greatest Test summers in history end with the two best teams facing of in a rubber match. Its a great pity these two only play three match series, but it is what it is. Day 1-4 are already sold out, and have been for three weeks, so the match will get the audience it deserves. let's hope it produces the quality

kingraf wrote:And so, one of the greatest Test summers in history end with the two best teams facing of in a rubber match.  Its a great pity these two only play three match series, but it is what it is. Day 1-4 are already sold out,  and have been for three weeks, so the match will get the audience it deserves.  let's hope it produces the quality

I think 3 tests is actually quite optimal......not too long to burn out players...in a 5 test series....the A-class fast bowlers are either indisposed or trundling towards the end of the series.

and not too short like India's 2 tests series......not giving either sides a chance to recover.

3 tests......go flat out and demonstrate your best efforts

for example this series.......whichever team wins T3 is  in fairness the superior side

To be fair now we get less matches ending in draws 3 match series really do make sense. SA play a lot less tests than England, I suspect this has contributed to the relative longevity of their top players and lower incidences f "stress related illnesses". The Ashes tours do drag on, and yet we still get told there wasnt enough warm up games played.
Sure it would be nice to have constant test cricket, but I do agree that 3 game series are the better real world option.

I agree the five test series can go on a bit, but it's easy to complain when you play in a few. we only play in three Max. Australia is the biggest tour interest wise, and probably crowd wise, and it's quite irritating that we only get six tests in a four year period while the ashes would have played 20 times this decade by next aigusy

I think 5 Test series don't work nowadays - the matches are too crammed in and as KP_fan says you end up with trundling, injuries etc.

5 Test series to me belong to the era of proper touring i.e. where there were several FC games played. Don't see that changing so I would even welcome the Ashes as a best of 3 at the moment

Again, I dont mind a three test series per se, but marquee series deserve an extension, financially as much as anything. All stadiums need the life blood of international cricket, and its disconcerting when the biggest money puller gate wise, isn't treated as such. Look at the situation at the Wanderers, weekend crowds used to quite easily number 50-000+, but after a period circa 2008-2012 where we went from five-six test per summer, to three...with the Bullring getting a test every second year... lo and behold, only 16000 showed up for the indian test, and only 15 000 for the Pakistan test before that. This is a stadium which would have sold out for 2009 Australia series... had Mitchell Johnson not broken peoples fingers. But sure lets limit the amount of tests and act shocked when cricket grounds which dont dont get tests dont attend test matches.

kingraf wrote:I agree the five test series can go on a bit,  but it's easy to complain when you play in a few.  we only play in three Max. Australia is the biggest tour interest wise, and probably crowd wise, and it's quite irritating that we only get six tests in a four year period while the ashes would have played 20 times this decade by next aigusy

Flip that around ...if the Ashes series werent 5 matches you might see more tourists.
The calender will get silly under the new system, with England and Australia playing in a continuous ashes tour occasionally punctuated by 1 test and 95 ODIs series against india, with a novelty series against AN Other every second year.

Its partly because some teams always play 5 match series that they find it hard to commit to 5 with the lower cash generating opposition like SA.

Kyle Abbott has replaced the injured Wayne Parnell for the third and final Test at Cape Town.

Abbott is in excellent form and more than deserves a second Test cap.

great news

The way tours happen these days, a 3 test option does appear better than a 5 test one.

Skyeman. Your point about extraordinary scorecard in the Aus second innings. Both openers got big scores but no one else got more than 6. Wonder if this has happened in Test cricket before - the openers the only ones to make double figures and ALSO making by far the bulk of the runs in a complete innings.