Proteas’ backs to wall
TROUBLE: AB LEFT STRANDED AS STARK AND LYON BLOW SA’S BATSMEN AWAY
South Africa lost their last five wickets for just 12 runs. Durban
It was a tale of two tails at Kingsmead yesterday as the value of lower-order runs was rammed home with little subtlety by Australia, who claimed a mighty 189run first-innings lead.
With Mitchell Marsh scoring 96 and the bowlers chipping in well, Australia were able to take their overnight total of 225/5 to 351 all out. The tourists’ last five wickets added 174 runs, which South Africa’s entire batting lineup could not match as they plummeted to 162 all out.
Off-spinner Nathan Lyon removed three key batsmen in Dean Elgar (7) and, three balls later, Hashim Amla (0), followed by Quinton de Kock for 20, ending a promising rearguard sixth-wicket stand with AB de Villiers.
Mitchell Starc then blew away the rest, taking five for 34 in 10.4 overs as the Proteas lost their last five wickets for just 12 runs.
De Villiers was left stranded on 71 not out, a marvellously controlled innings that showed his class and hunger to really add value to the Test team, full of beautiful straight-bat drives and backfoot strokes that were risk-free.
After the game, De Villiers for once did not seem to be the bright and cheerful star of a television commercial, frustration and disappointment writ large on his gloomy visage.
“I’m not sure what I did differently to everyone else, I just felt really good in the build-up to the game and was confident from the word go and really keen for big runs. But unfortunately we could not get any partnerships going.
“Starc was swinging the ball one way so I felt I had him covered, the good delivery that moves off the deck you can’t do anything about, and we had Lyon under pressure at times but we kept losing wickets. There were a couple of soft dismissals but some really good bowling too,” De Villiers said after his 10th half-century against Australia.
Left-armer Starc, bowling with pace and deadly late swing, claimed his ninth five-wicket haul in his 41st Test, having earlier shared a vital 49-run eighth-wicket stand with Marsh that took Australia to 300. Starc belted 35 off 25 balls with four fours and two slog-swept sixes off Keshav Maharaj, before Marsh added another 51 runs with the last two batsmen.
South Africa’s attack bowled with heart yesterday, spinner Maharaj finishing with five for 123 in 33.4 overs and Philander taking three for 59 in 27 overs, they were accurate and controlled, but they bowled with none of the X-factor, the late movement, nor the cunning with which Starc and Lyon destroyed them in the afternoon.
With De Villiers predicting that the pitch will only become more difficult to bat on, South Africa will go into the last three days with their backs firmly against the wall.