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Australia turned in another sloppy performance on day four of their Test against South Africa at Port Elizabeth yesterday.
The match was turned on its head in the afternoon.
Australia had been bullying the Proteas’ attack at 0-126 with openers David Warner and Chris Rogers both in sublime touch.
Then a trio of awful shots from Alex Doolan, Shaun Marsh and Michael Clarke handed South Africa the momentum.
Clarke’s tame dismissal, guiding the ball straight to second slip while trying to play an ill-advised deflection to third man, ignited Dale Steyn.
The South African spearhead had flames streaming from his nostrils as he produced some startling reverse swing to account for Steve Smith and then Brad Haddin in quick succession.
Suddenly, Australia had gone from being a realistic chance of engineering an incredible victory to a pile of rubble.
The Proteas’ remarkable rebound performance after being slaughtered at Centurion has created a delectable showdown in the final Test at Cape Town starting on Saturday.
Selection issue: Chris Rogers saves his career
When you are a 36-year-old batsman with just 13 Test caps to your name, your position in the side is never fully secure.
You are always just a mere handful of failures away from being under heavy scrutiny. So it has been for Australian opener Chris Rogers.
Last month he was riding the crest of a wave of achievement, having been Australia’s leading runscorer across the back-to-back Ashes series.
He had offered much-needed steel and circumspection to Australia’s faltering top order.
A vastly-experienced batsman who had wrung every drop of talent from his body, Rogers entered this series with South Africa as one of Australia’s key players.
Then, in the space of three innings, his career nosedived to the point that there was a very real risk this could be the last match in which he donned the baggy green.
Rogers had managed to cobble together just 10 runs across those digs as he struggled to deal with hostile offerings from the Proteas’ powerful pace attack.
Placing him in the crosshairs further was the imminent return from injury of Shane Watson.
The all-rounder appears certain to play in the third Test after Australia’s pace battery laboured through this match.
Veterans Ryan Harris and Peter Siddle showed the wear and tear of their heavy workload the past seven months, suggesting that Watson’s reliable bowling would be crucial to lighten their collective burden.
Given Shaun Marsh and Alex Doolan played sublime innings at Centurion, and Watson has had success at the top of the order, it appeared Rogers may be the man to make way.
Not any more.
His confident, fluent knock of 107 yesterday ensured that he will be in the Australia XI at Cape Town.
His battle may not be completely over however.
With Australia’s next two series against the spin-heavy attacks of Pakistan and India, the selectors may be concerned by Rogers’ poor record against spin at Test level.
Unfortunately, the veteran may have to continue proving himself over and over if he is to keep his belated Test career bubbling along.
Stats watch: Marsh’s curious record
I have often heard cricket followers say that to get a true measure of a batsman over a season or year of cricket it is wise to remove their one or two highest scores then reconsider their average.
I don’t ascribe to this theory but the idea is that some players’ averages are inflated by one or two huge innings which mask their otherwise unremarkable performances.
Is it fair then to do the same for their lowest scores?
Extending the logic, surely their big tons and their ducks are equal as anomalies within a stream of more relevant and representative scores.
This statistical approach works wonder for Shaun Marsh’s Test record.
Removing the innings in which he has failed to get off the mark, Marsh has 493 runs at 55 for Australia.
The problem is that, unlike for the vast majority of specialist batsmen, for Marsh a duck is not an anomaly.
In just 15 Test innings he has recorded six of them. Yes, six ducks in nine Tests.
Extraordinarily, Marsh’s record of registering nought is even worse than that of former New Zealand paceman Chris Martin, known as perhaps the most inept batsman in Test history.
Martin, who averaged just 2.36 with the bat over his 13-year Test career, made 36 ducks at a rate of one every three innings.
Marsh’s duck ratio is one per 2.5 innings.
Regardless of this, I sense he will probably survive this Test and front up again at Newlands, with Doolan instead being dumped for Watson.