Cape Town: In 1998, Sri Lanka’s captain Arjuna Ranatunga sent England in to bat on a flat pitch at the Oval, to the general surprise of many. Alec Stewart’s men promptly ran up 445.
Five days and a 10-wicket win later, Ranatunga walked away looking like a genius, explaining that he had not wanted to ask his ace spinner Muttiah Muralitharan to bowl for two innings in a row. Muralitharan took 16 wickets for the match.
Australia are a long way from emulating Ranatunga’s team, but they ended day one at Newlands in a position where a couple of good days’ batting can deliver them the series under the glorious gaze of Table Mountain.
Mitchell Starc, with figures of 6-72 including a Wasim Akram-esque burst of four wickets in nine balls to end the day with the Proteas bowled out for 329, spoke with typical bluntness about one of those days of Test cricket that will live long in the memory.
“We can delete the first session,” he said. “They took the game to us in the first session. Clearly not our best stuff, and I think after lunch we were back on the money.”
There was undoubtedly some rhyme and reason to Pat Cummins’ decision to send South Africa in on an extremely flat-looking pitch at Newlands, but any such thoughts were hard to discern for almost every one of the 11,028 spectators who created the best atmosphere of the series.
All they saw was that Steve Smith had been the latest of withdrawals, forcing the Australian selectors to rush Josh Inglis into the team, the first time they had been forced to make four changes within the same series since – you guessed it – the final Test of the sandpapergate series in 2018.
On that occasion, the team’s sheer state of shock and instability had allowed the Proteas to dominate proceedings at the Wanderers in Johannesburg, and for the first two hours in Cape Town something very similar seemed to be developing.
Marques Ackerman and Aiden Markram saw nothing to fear in the new ball and plenty to hit, rollicking along to 0-140 at lunch amid widespread predictions of doom for Australia. Not just in this game and series, but in a fall of the Roman Empire kind of way.
Starc, Cummins and Josh Hazlewood looked to be as flat as the pitch, the recalled Nathan Lyon had little to work with, and Travis Head dropped a straightforward catch at cover. Scott Boland, left out after a five-for and some dogged batting in Gqeberha, had good reason to scowl.
However, the resilience this team has often spoken about has another level to it, beyond dealing with opponents, spectators or foreign conditions: it is the resilience to climb out of self-made holes, of which they have dug plenty since Cummins became skipper in 2021.
Starc, who had not swung the new ball on this trip until this evening, explained how he had eliminated a few possible issues with the help of the coaches and also his wife Alyssa Healy.
“There’s been a lot of things that haven’t felt right through the series,” he said. “Had a bit of a look last night with James Franklin and Ronnie [Andrew McDonald], and also my wife has watched a lot of cricket. So yeah, a lot of us have been around long enough to try and problem-solve while we’re going.
“There wasn’t really much difference in the action. I probably was searching for a feeling that [I] probably didn’t need to. If I just switch my brain off, I might be right. It would have been nice to do with the new ball in the first hour, but yeah, I think that’s a feature of our group.
“We can problem-solve before the end of the day’s play, and as I said, to bowl them out, on clearly not our best stuff in the first two hours, I think we’ll take that.”
Lyon and young batting allrounder Cooper Connolly were key to the problem-solving. Ackerman had raced to 95, but the looming milestone gave Lyon a chance to prey on impetuosity – something wider and faster did just that, and Alex Carey did the rest. No assistance at all was needed for Temba Bavuma, who was dragged forward by flight but beaten by drift on the breeze, the ball skidding on to flick the outside of the off stump. Lyon rightly celebrated a virtuoso piece of spin.
“He was ready to get on that bus about six o’clock this morning,” Starc quipped. “He was fantastic today. He controlled that end for us throughout his spells and got a few rewards. The ball to Bavuma was the Nathan Lyon we know, and it’s what helps this bowling attack.
“And obviously that battle with Ackerman was pretty exciting that he was going to go after him, but Lyon got the last laugh there, and he obviously was able to get that weekend.”
Connolly then slid one on to Matthew Breetzke’s front pad, winning an lbw verdict via DRS for his first Test wicket. These breakthroughs, allied to Starc’s wickets with short stuff, meant that Marco Jansen’s second significant innings of the series did not do too much damage before the new ball curled so viciously that it almost vindicated Cummins’ decision.
Whether the call will be looked upon kindly by history will depend on a rather bigger question than Australia’s resilience with the ball – their capacity to put up a big innings with the bat against Kagiso Rabada and company without any contribution from Smith. A score of 400-plus is needed, something not achieved by Australia for 22 months.
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Daniel Brettig is The Age’s chief cricket writer and the author of several books on cricket.Connect via X.From our partners
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