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The points system the determines the world number one Test ranking in cricket was under the pump last night, as a strangely off-colour South African pace attack was tamed by a calf-injured cowboy cricketer by the name of Shaun Marsh, and a deck that got easier as the ball got older.
You’ll recall that Marsh has scored hundreds before in Test matches, only to go missing in action after entrenching himself in the team.
Shaun got the nod from Darren ‘I can do no wrong’ Lehmann. He played with an obvious calf injury for 4-5 hours.
Poor old Shane Watson wasn’t quite up to playing, again, but Marsh was selected, and he wasn’t going to say to Boof that he couldn’t play.
So Boof’s bacon was saved by Shaun and Steve Smith, the latter refusing to hit anything that 1) wasn’t a half volley 2) wasn’t short and wide.
I have never seen a better, more important, technically more perfect innings from Kingsford. He was the perfect foil for Marsh, who owes his innings to no-one but Boof and Justin Langer.
Given the opportunity, Shaun has succeeded in every form of cricket at one time in the past six months. His confidence and self-belief have returned.
He escorted the Scorchers to the Big Bash grand final win in T20. He escorted the Australian 50-over effort against England this summer and now he has an unbeaten ton at Centurion to tell brother Mitch and dad Geoff about.
I wrote earlier this week that Shaun and Shane Watson and George Bailey should have rested from this tour and I don’t step back from that statement. There are five or six other guys who could do what was required yesterday just as well.
Most Australians will come to understand that as time goes on.
This is Australia’s great fortune. They have produced a water-tight talent identification system which puts people in the right place at the right time on the right pitches.
Alex Doolan, for instance, was the most secure of all the top order batsmen for his 27 runs. True, he got himself out, so he won’t be so rash as to pull a full length ball to the only man within 50 metres next time. Clarke and Warner threw their innings away. Rogers got a jaffer from Morkel.
But back to the walking wounded. Bailey played for Tasmania at the WACA yesterday and made nine. He just will not step down from any cricketing assignment. He is one of the true gutsy men in Aussie Cricket.
Watson should be back home in Sydney getting fit.
Shaun knew he was hurt when he left Australia. So did Justin Langer. So did Boof.
But they saw that he could play with painkillers and pain they backed their judgement that he could play for Australia with the calf strain at Centurion. Brave call!
The calf strain was fine until early in his innings when Shaun took spinner Petersen down the ground for 4. The grimace on his face afterwards told me the story. The calf was acting up and he knew he was in trouble.
He was almost run out two or three times. He was made to stretch by Smith’s enthusiasm to either get him on strike, or get the strike himself.
How he got through the heat and the pain, only he knows.
Will he bat again in the game?
That remains a mystery. Certainly he will go back to the crease today, but will he be needed in the second dig?
There are no runners allowed in this game. No drinks people allowed on the ground in stifling heat. Marsh was made to suffer by the rules, the conditions and his calf.
Yet 4/297 is the red badge of courage he will wear with pride on resumption. Essentially at 4/90 Australia looked very wobbly. So did Boof. But the track and the dying ball got Smith and Swampy back in the contest.
Steyn was crook and operating at about 80-85% capacity. Morkel was often too short. Philander looked unfit, especially late in the day. Medium pacer McLaren was steady, moved the ball in and out, but was hardly menacing on that slow old deck and with the old ball.
All the South Africans looked surprisingly stiff, as if they don’t know what a stretching programme is.
The spinners scarcely turned the ball and were picked off pretty much at will by Smith and Marsh. And their fielding was very undisciplined in my view.
They didn’t back up well, didn’t throw well, didn’t catch well, and to go with their average field placements, I just thought they were way off the mark in the field.
At 4/90 I would have thought Graeme Smith would have been jumping all over the Aussies with his best bowlers, but he went to spin and let Marsh and Smith off the hook. Not for the first time.
A newish ball will help most bowlers for 40 overs at Centurion, judging by yesterday. Marsh and Smith must be close to records if this marvellous partnership of almost 200 continues.
I’m not sure what the heat and the slow track will mean to the contest as it unfolds today. It’s likely the South African batsmen will have their work cut out to score against Siddle, Harris, Johnson and Lyon, but the track isn’t offering much for the quicks right now.
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