Proof Aussies can have last laugh; selection call backfires as Lyon faces awkward truth — Day Four Talking Points

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Australia head into the final day of their gripping three-Test series in South Africa with everything to play for.

Their challenge - a run chase of 288 on a wearing but still batter-friendly Cape Town pitch - is tough, yet far from unattainable.

Even if just one team in history, a Ricky Ponting-inspired Australian gaggle of greats in 2002, has ever managed more fourth innings runs to clinch a win at Newlands in a famous triumph back in 2002.

But after a full day of toil under a baking South African sun as Proteas pair Ryan Rickelton and Wiaan Mulder brought up career-defining tons to take their team into the ascendancy, the first major challenge of Pat Cummins and his team’s 12-month Test odyssey will need them to dig deep like never before.

And the questions are already being asked.

From a key selection call which backfired on the fourth day, to a champion missing his chance to again lead the attack for the first time in years, the choices Australia have made in Cape Town will be rigorously scrutinised should they fall short.

But as for their mindset going into a final day with a win, a loss, a draw and even a tie on offer, former Proteas great Shaun Pollock was in no doubt.

“I think Australia will definitely go for it tomorrow,” he said late on day four.

Scroll down for the biggest talking points from day four in Cape Town!

1,328-DAY HISTORY LOOMS WITH FINAL DAY CRITICAL TO WTC RACE

Only the presence of a fit Steve Smith would have improved the script as a superb series between Australia and the Proteas reaches its conclusion on Saturday. It is utopian given the fascinating sub-plots at play aside from the result.

Eight years ago the Aussies left Cape Town in disarray, tortured by the Sandpapergate saga that led to the suspensions of Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft. There return for Test cricket has been to source of great fascination.

After 14 days of superb cricket that has ebbed and flowed, with wild momentum swings, brave comebacks, stunning innings and brilliant bowling spells, it all comes down to this.

Australia needs 288 runs to win what has been a gripping series and keep alive what this XI hopes will be a legacy-defining year that cements its status among the greatest ever.

The pitch has been lifeless but an attack featuring Kagiso Rabada, Marco Jansen and Simon Harper, bizarrely identified as a villain in this team, is as daunting as they come.

Defeating the reigning World Test Champions on home soil is a key leg in a daunting series of challenges also featuring New Zealand and India away leading into the Ashes, with the 150th Anniversary Test and another WTC final potentially an added bonus.

It is not only that dream of snaring prized international scalps that is on the line at the stunning Newlands Cricket Ground sitting in the shadows of magnificent Table Mountain.

So, too, is the chance to further their chances of reaching the WTC final, a pursuit that has been a priority and is part of the reason this team has persisted with proven stars.

Success on Saturday will allow Australia to retain top spot in the race for the final at The Oval.

A draw, which is now a live prospect depending on what unfolds early on, would see Australia conceded top spot to the Kiwis but retain a decent margin on the Proteas.

And a loss which seemed a distant prospect until the Proteas stirring fightback on Friday would see Australia drop from the top of the world to third in the race.

Could you have scripted a series that began with Australia winning by 214 runs in Durban before coughing up a strong position to lose by an innings in Gqeberha any better? From an Australian perspective, a fit and firing Smith would have helped.

Instead success rests on a reshuffled top order that features the out-of-form Marnus Labuschagne, who would love to resuscitate his career with a defining knock, while others including Cameron Green and Josh Inglis will be hoping to fire once again.

Reigning Allan Border Medallist Travis Head shapes as the key at the top of the order, as he has so often in massive games for his nation over the past few years.

If the dashing left-hander gets away early, it will be a significant step forward for the Aussies. But if he chops on … Australian fans will have their heads in their hands.

As Ryan Rickelton and Wiaan Mulder batted South Africa into the ascendancy with brilliant centuries on Friday, the Proteas fans celebrated wildly around Newlands.

The old school banger from Journey “Don’t stop believing” had fans clad in budgie smugglers dancing on the hill as Mulder celebrated a fine hundred near stumps.

But the Australians showed tremendous spirit in the final session to wrench back an opportunity in a Test that was getting away from them courtesy of brilliant fielding.

It is a daunting assignment for Australia. But “the feeling” that drives them is that they are winners.

They will be buoyed by recent history: according to PitchViz, conditions in Cape Town are similar to those at Edgbaston during the 2023 Ashes and Christchurch against New Zealand in March 2024.

In those matches, Australia successfully chased 282 and 281 with two and four wickets in hand respectively, with Cummins hitting the winning runs in both.

They have not lost a series in almost four years - a run of 1,328 days since India claimed a 2-1 win in Ahmedabad in early 2023.

What a finale it shapes as, with Rickelton saying after stumps it felt like the most fitting of conclusions.

“If you had to say that it’s going down to the third Test, day five, with all three results on the cards or two results on the cards, yeah, I wouldn’t have believed it,” he said.

“It’s been a special series. It’s ebbed and flowed properly in all three games. Both teams have edged ahead and the other one has clawed back. And there’s been some mistakes but some really good things done as well.

“But it’s been a cracking series, and yeah, hopefully it comes down to a really good day for South Africa tomorrow.”

‘TOO DEFENSIVE’: CAPTAIN CUMMINS’ CRUCIAL MISSED TRICK

There was always going to be a chance that two critical calls could come back to bite Australia in Cape Town - and the final judgement on both rests on what unfolds on Saturday.

The first relates to the call by captain Pat Cummins to bowl first, a decision that drew widespread condemnation on Tuesday and one that will be decided on the fifth and final day.

If Australia is able to chase down the massive target, it will be forgotten. If the match culminates in a draw, ultimately it may not have made any difference to the result.

But if the pitch finally breaks up and proves a problem for batters tomorrow? It might yet join an infamous legion of bad calls.

Australian bowling coach James Franklin conceded on Friday night in Cape Town that the pitch offered far less than they were anticipating when they made the decision to bowl first on Tuesday.

“I think we thought that there might have been a little bit more in it on day one,” he said.

“(When they were) none for 140 at lunch, it was a little bit of a take your breath moment, but we reassessed and through the second and third sessions ... we shifted our tactics a bit and we obviously picked up 10 wickets through the rest of that day.

“So I think the rest of this game has probably played out a little bit more traditionally in how wickets move through days and days two and three have been pretty good to bat.

“Today’s been pretty good to bat, albeit there’s been a little bit of rough outside the right hander’s eye-line, so day five, let’s see what we get.”

The decision at the toss aside, Cummins has had his share of good moments and some where his captaincy could be queried during the Newlands Test.

To watch the Aussie skipper ring the changes and rotate his bowlers with success on Thursday afternoon when they were fresh helped the tourists to a strong position.

But with the pitch failing to deteriorate overnight - if anything it proved even more benign on day four than it did on the third day - Cummins was forced to use eight bowlers, and at one stage rotated six bowlers in seven overs.

Had Cameron Green not been restricted, it is certain a ninth would have been used as well, which would have left only the wicketkeepers Alex Carey and his understudy Josh Inglis as Aussies not to roll the arm over.

“Obviously we have a couple of breaks during the day to reassess on how we’re going and ... Nathan got through, I think, 30 overs today, so it was just (about) trying to break him up a little bit,” Franklin said.

“That’s a massive workload for someone to work through on the day, and another aspect of it is that we’ve seen in the series Matt Renshaw come on and provide or create some mistakes or some better errors.

“It was perhaps trying to break the rhythm of the South African batters, keep chopping it up a little bit, so they have to keep readjusting to what they’re trying to do, (while) at the same time giving Nathan a little bit of a breather before he comes back and gets back to work.”

Rickelton, who was stunning in launching the South African fightback, said it was tricky to get used to the constant changes but did note the key was waiting for the part-time bowlers to make a mistake in order to profit.

But former South African paceman Vernon Philander believes the Aussies missed a trick in the morning session by not being more aggressive in the field early on.

By opening with sweepers on both boundaries, rather than fielders in catching positions, he believes the Aussies gave the Proteas time to settle in with less pressure on them.

“I think the captain was way too defensive this morning. Those were just too easy rotations for the batsman. He made it way too easy for South Africa,” Philander said on SEN.

“Now you are forced to make the play and I just get the feeling … it (has) allowed South Africa to start playing more freely.

“They have only themselves to blame. (If you) allow good teams to get back into the contest, they will put you to the sword.”

‘SELECTION ERROR’ LAID BARE AS STAR’S ABSENCE WHACKED

Hindsight judgements can be harsh but as the Aussie quicks and almost everyone else toiled away on Friday, the discussion turned back towards an absent fast bowler.

The decision to leave Scott Boland out of the final Test after his superb performance with the ball and stoic effort with the bat in Gqeberha was always clearly a challenging call.

It is indisputable the decision to play Nathan Lyon was the correct call and although he did not snare the early wickets he would have liked, the veteran kept the pressure on.

But Philander, who knocked the Australians over for 47 back in 2011 at Newlands, said Boland would have been important as a point of difference to the pace attack.

Whenever the Big Three are fit, Australia plays them, which is understandable given their success over many years, and statistics show that the Proteas have a weakness against bouncers which the tourists have exploited to an extent in this Test.

In the second innings David Bedingham, Matthew Breetzke and the dangerous Marco Jansen all fell to shots played to the deep, though South Africa did score more than 350.

But Philander is not convinced this style is necessarily effective in South African conditions if used too frequently and believes Boland offers a point of difference.

While the tactic worked for Australia in Durban, where the pitch had more bounce, Philander said the decks in Gqeberha and at Newlands favoured bowlers who pitched the ball up further and tried to make sure the stumps were in play.

This would bring the mid-on and mid-off into play more regularly, as per Mitchell Starc’s dismissal of Aiden Markram in the infancy of the Proteas second innings.

“I do feel Scott Boland … he would have been so much more effective given the fact this is a surface where you want to venture a little bit further (in length),” he said.

“Sometimes it is not even up for discussion. It is a selection error and sometimes the selectors need to also man up.

“When you play certain venues around the globe, surely you do your homework. Playing at Newlands, it is the art of seam that brings you into play. It is the stumps that come into play.

“The point I am trying to argue here is that you cannot leave Scott Boland out. To me it is about form. You want to pick your in-form players.”

Franklin conceded it was always difficult to leave the Victorian veteran out but stressed this was a collective attack.

“It’s a great position to be in as a collective when, you know, Scott comes in for one Test match and gets a five wicket bag, and then obviously for various reasons he’s missed this game,” Franklin said.

“And I think it’s about the collective. It’s not about one individual. And I think it’s a pretty good place for us to be as a group if Scott Boland’s not playing, because we know how good a performer he is when he comes and plays.

“As I said before, I think we thought that if anything, there’d be a little bit in it on day one and that first session didn’t quite go to plan and it was a little bit slower than we thought.

“We anticipated a little bit more bounce in it, and even talking to the curator here, he anticipated that as well. And we probably didn’t get it quite right in that first session as a bowling group, and we we can admit to that, and they batted beautifully as well.

“So we we obviously reassessed, and the boys came back beautifully. They’re world class operators.”

Rickelton, for his part, said that Boland was an extremely challenging bowler to face, but felt the Australian attack remained challenging on a flat deck even thought South Africa was able to launch a massive comeback.

One thing the absence of Boland did do was deny Australia the chance to challenge the Proteas with Test cricket’s newest fad.

Where Alex Carey won rave reviews for his work up to the stumps of Boland and Michael Neser through last summer’s Ashes, the extra pace of Josh Hazlewood, Starc and Cummins forced him back to all bar the spinners in Cape Town.

With the ploy becoming commonplace around the world in the last 12 months, and famously used by New Zealand to their advantage against England and Joe Root during their series mid-year, the visitors could ill afford an empty chamber in their revolver on a pitch offering them scant support.

‘BITTERLY DISAPPOINTED’: STAR MISSES CHANCE TO LEAD

Nathan Lyon’s vicious off-break that spun through Temba Bavuma en route to the stumps late on day three was a klaxon warning in South African faces.

The third time he had dismissed the Proteas skipper for the series, the veteran at a stroke justified the decision to recall him at Boland’s expense for the series-deciding Test.

And it also suggested the GOAT would, for the first time in years, be the key man for Australia in conditions suiting him far more than the three-man pace attack who have led the way for the better part of a decade.

There was another late burst of magic: a sharp-turning off-break similar to if not quite as spectacular as Bavuma’s the evening before that Simon Harmer, when shouldering arms, didn’t expect to come back into him.

It rebounded off his gloves and crashed into the stumps.

Several other balls throughout the day threatened to do likewise, with Alex Carey left with plenty to do behind the stumps and leaking six byes in 134.4 overs, though to be fair one of those was a bouncer that cleared him.

But while Lyon never fatigued, his 44 overs for the innings, comfortably the most out of the Australian attack, yielded only those two wickets, with Wiaan Mulder slapping him disdainfully with the turn over the deep mid-wicket fence by day’s end.

It’s the 38-year old’s heaviest workload in an innings since sending down 65 overs on an Ahmedabad featherbed in 2023, while his 67 for the match is his most since 2022’s tour of Pakistan, on another flat track in Lahore.

“Australia would have rocked up this morning and expected Nathan Lyon to do a much better job than what he has produced,” former Proteas great Vernon Philander said on SEN.

“He had plenty to work with. Plenty of rough. I am pretty sure Nathan Lyon would feel bitterly disappointed with his efforts today.”

The inability to bowl Australia to victory late in matches was a millstone around Lyon’s neck in the early stages of his career.

A seven-wicket final day haul against India at the Adelaide Oval in December 2014 was the making of the man who’d go on to become just the third Australian to 500 Test wickets, while his average in the third and fourth innings of matches over his career is just a tick over 27.

Coming a Test after being deemed surplus to requirements in Gqeherba, and heading into an Australian summer where the events of last year’s Ashes proved he is no longer a set and forget selection, the ease with which Rickelton and Mulder in particular handled the veteran will give selectors much to ponder.

Former great Mark Waugh floated, when naming Cooper Connolly in his ideal Australian team against New Zealand for the first Test in December, that “conditions” could allow the Aussies to name the emerging star as their frontline spin-bowling option.

That would allow Boland back in as part of another four-man pace battery.

Such a move would be a bitter pill to swallow for Lyon, who has not been usurped as Australia’s primary spin option in any conditions since 2013.

Rival spinner Harmer was adamant after play on day three that spin would play a “massive role” across the final two days.

A final blow to Lyon - and another jolt for selectors - would be if the unheralded Protea can do what his champion counterpart couldn’t on the final day.

‘DEFIES BELIEF’: PROTEAS’ KEY CALL QUESTIONED

But for Brexit, Simon Harmer wouldn’t even be here.

The South African off-spinner was 27 and five Tests into a burgeoning career when he made the decision to take up a ‘Kolpak’ deal with Essex in the County Championship - a law allowing athletes from countries with free trade agreements with the European Union to play as ‘local’ players.

Frustrated by the stalling of his international career, having lost his domestic contract after being dropped from the Test team, Harmer later said he would “never in a million years” have dreamed he’d ever again represent his country of birth.

But the UK’s controversial decision to leave the EU months before Harmer signed his deal would eventually prove a life-changer: Kolpak deals were declared null and void at the end of 2020, opening the door for a South Africa return a year later … and with years of County dominance under his belt to further his case.

He played against Australia at the SCG in early 2023 in spin partnership with veteran left-armer Keshav Maharaj before another two-year stint between drinks.

Having returned to Test cricket in Pakistan last year, he has since played seven Proteas Tests in succession; while this series has offered a unique challenge.

For just the second time since his 2022 return, Harmer played in Gqeberha as the frontline spinner, picked ahead of Maharaj despite his outstanding record at St George’s Park, and then again at Newlands.

“Keshav has been a stalwart for us and he’s won many games, right, for us as a team. (But) I think he understands the cricketing reason behind it,” captain Temba Bavuma explained.

“Australia have a plethora of left-handers in their top six, top seven, so a guy like Simon turning it away from them, he becomes a real threat.”

Come Day 5 in Cape Town, on a wicket offering Nathan Lyon sharp turn and with footmarks caused by both Mitchell Starc and Proteas counterpart Marco Jansen coming left-arm over the wicket, Harmer will be the most important man on the field.

That spin will play a crucial role was made evident in the final session of Day 4, with the Protea shouldering arms to Nathan Lyon, only for the ball to sharply turn, ricochet off his gloves, and bowl him.

But with only Aiden Markram’s part-time offies to back him up, that he will need to go it alone may prove crucial should Australia get on a roll in their run chase … or, alternatively, need to fight for a draw.

“South Africa have got a few things wrong in this series and they’re still in it up to their ears,” former Australian leg-spinner Kerry O’Keeffe told Fox Cricket.

“But they picked two spinners in the first Test (in Durban) when they should have picked one, and they picked one spinner in this Test when they should have picked two.

“Because this is going to go square in the Australian second innings And all the pressure will be on Simon Harmer.

“The intel was in a recent first-class game, it turned square in the fourth innings and the spinners bowled them out. Yet they still went in with one specialist in this Test.

“It defies belief.”

Harmer’s four first-innings wickets were all members of Australia’s top six, picking up Travis Head, Josh Inglis and Alex Carey when well set plus Marnus Labuschagne for a duck.

With so much at stake, both for the series and the World Test Championship, who’d have thought that such a blockbuster series would rest on the shoulders of perhaps the most under the radar member of either XI.

And the rough outside off-stump will be something he will have eyed off with glee late in the day, even if his own innings was ended swiftly by Lyon.