Australia will have the chance to bat South Africa out of the game come the second day of the third Test at Cape Town on Sunday after David Warner and Michael Clarke’s contrasting showing pulled them ahead on the opening day. Follow the action live from 7.30 pm AEDT.
There were talks before the start of the Test match about the Cape Town track being tweaked around to take the pace and bounce from it, thereby making it difficult for the Australian speedsters to garner too much assistance out of it.
That’s exactly how it turned out on the first day but a combination of factors ensured that it wasn’t South Africa who were going to take away the advantage after the day one of the game.
It started with the toss and once Australia had won it and South Africa had gone in without a frontline spinner, things became that much more difficult for the hosts.
Of course, the scrappy nature of the surface should have allowed their seam bowlers to gain some reverse out of it but tragedy struck when Australia’s tormentor-in-chief from Port Elizabeth, Dale Steyn, broke down early and the rest of the bowlers failed to step up sufficiently through the rest of the day.
Make no mistake, there wasn’t much by the way of help in the pitch for the quicker men, and yet, Morne Morkel extracted all that he could from the surface, even wounding the Australian captain a couple of times during the initial part of his innings.
Unfortunately for Morkel, he had nothing to show for in the wickets column, allowing Australia to surge ahead in the absence of a struggling Vernon Philander and Kyle Abbott showing any signs of penetration.
And then there was a small matter of Warner taking the game away from the opposition with an innings that had his name written all over it.
He attacked from the very beginning, and rarely gave his opposition any opportunities, if any. In fact such was his dominance over the South African attack that by the time he was dismissed, he had scored 135 out of the team’s 217 runs made at that stage.
While he slowed down towards the latter part of his innings, he used up only 152 balls to get there as compared to the 194 deliveries that had been used up by his partners to score the remaining 82 runs.
In fact when Warner got out, as the third wicket, there was every chance of South Africa making a comeback into the game.
However, with Steyn back in the shed, and the Clarke having weathered the early part of a raging storm against him, he was able to make it through to the end of the day without getting separated from his number five batsman, Steven Smith.
Clarke will require medical attention through the evening and probably early second morning too for all the blows he took from Morkel – there were at least three of them to his face, forearm and thumb – but that shouldn’t stop him from taking back the crease in pursuit of his century.
And if the pair can see off the first one hour or so of the session without any loss, they could well be in line for a score of more than 500, one that should allow them to dictate terms in this series-decider.
The situation around Steyn is still unclear with the team looking to administer an early morning fitness test on him to decide the course of his further participation in this game.
Join me for this second day of the third Test on Sunday and you can follow the live score of this game from 7.30 pm AEDT and post your comments below.
Blaze
Guest
Glad I didn't stay up for the rain to stop...
Radelaide
Guest
I agree that match fixing exists on the sub continent especially but my point is only with the lesser paid players because bookies whether legal or not wouldn't want to keep losing and could still alert the ICC or whomever. Maybe a situation where the illegal bookie was the fixer but that's beyond my imagination.
Suneer Chowdhary
Roar Guru
@Radelaide, you are forgetting one big thing. You are alluding to fixing where betting is legal and hence it's easier to catch any such deviations. What happens when betting is illegal like in some of the countries in Asia and there's a lot of illegal, underworld betting happening, no way to track these deviations, isn't it?
Suneer Chowdhary
Roar Guru
Of course, that's correct, everything's possible. In fact, run-outs to get a match fixed would be far too obvious. It's the new form of fixing, spot-fixing that earns the punters a lot of money, where the results of the games do not matter. It's about betting on what will happen on a particular delivery - whether they will bowl a no-ball, wide, go for more than 15 in an over and so on.
Radelaide
Guest
That's a hard one is a fixer going to risk $100000 (including money to Misbah) on a multi paying $8 when he could do his part but the team still wins.
Radelaide
Guest
When those English soccer players got busted in Melbourne last year fixing local games there was 9 involved and the way they got busted was the asian bookie got suspicious when extraordinarily large numbers got bet on exotic, obscure bets and kept winning. So lets say a player is getting $100000 to ensure that 4 of his teams wickets are down by the 10th over or no balls the third ball of his 6th over then the fixer would have to make a lot more than that and with those sums on a bookie would grow suspicious quickly after a few wins, so therefore only smaller paid players can be corrupted or the only way I could see if a fixer put many bets on with different bookies with smaller sums not to arouse suspicions.
Suneer Chowdhary
Roar Guru
Right, so Australia are way ahead at this stage, having gotten to nearly 500 in their first dig, but what this rain has essentially done is to lay down a marker for Michael Clarke - he needs to bowl South Africa out twice in a maximum of three days. Various factors to be considered here. One, what happens in case they are in a position to enforce the follow-on? Secondly, if any bowling attack in the world can scythe through a line-up twice in three days, it's Australia. Then again, a lot of the overs lost today could well be covered over the next three days, so they may not lose too many overs in the end analysis. But what that will mean is that the bowlers will need to bowl many overs in a day's play and make it that much more difficult for them to do that over two innings. Then again, what about the pitch? It was slow on the first day and quickened up on the second but will it make life tough enough for the South Africans over the next three? Of course, the other way of looking at it is that if South Africa can bat well over the entire day three, get to something in the region of 4/250 or something, we could well be looking at a grind over the next two days. Hoping for an exciting next three days then, that's it from me for tonight. Will be back tomorrow, probably half hour earlier than usual.
TheTruth
Guest
Cheers again Suneer, disappointing end to the day. Hopefully it dries up overnight
TheTruth
Guest
True Suneer, but since cricket is such a team sport, potentially you could bribe the 'cheaper' player to runout (for instance) youe teams best batsman. You don't need to bribe the best player. Look at Aus as a pure hypothetical, You could bribe Doolan, for instance, to run out Clarke or Warner and drastically alter this match without having to approach the big dollars needed to bribe Clarke. Obviously this could go wrong, as Doolan could get out before doing this, but still
Suneer Chowdhary
Roar Guru
So that's that, we are done with the day's play, called off due to rain.
TheTruth
Guest
Well I am probably exaggerating numbers, but in essence, yes. Gambling in sport is big,big money and you can bet on nearly anything in a game. For exAMPLE, IF YOU LOOKED HARD ENOUGH, THERE WOULD BE AN AGENCY OFFERING ODDS ON HOW A BATSMAN GETS DISMISSED (excuse caps - pressed capslock lol). So, for instance, you could bet on Misbah being runout and pakistan losing - put it as a multibet.
Suneer Chowdhary
Roar Guru
No, what I am saying is that if a player earns $100,000, he could well be offered the same amount to cheat, while if a player earns a million, those who want to involve such a player could well look to offer him a higher amount, even a million bucks. One must realise there aren't too many players who earn a million dollars per annum anyway. Secondly, whatever's come out in the world of fixing so far - and this is my belief - is the tip of an iceberg. Most of whatever's been revealed has been because of the player stepping out himself or through a sting operation - who knows how much is yet to be revealed.
Radelaide
Guest
Truth, are you saying one person could be offered one million for a couple of matches of a few no balls or a couple of run outs?
TheTruth
Guest
Yeah i know it is not a cut and dried situation and involves a rather lengthy philosophical debate and cheating is not acceptable under any circumstance. But $2 million dollars means more to a player that earns 50 thousand a year (40 years income) than it does to a player who earns 5 mil a year (4 months work). It doesn't negate cheating nor make it acceptable but it does make it understandable
Radelaide
Guest
So you would risk a half a million a year plus jail time for what $100000 a season maybe less, when Cronje and Gibbs got busted they were also getting paid quite poorly by today's standards. I mean when Mark Waugh and Shane Warne gave pitch information for 5 grand each they considered what they were doing wasn't wrong after all that kind of information could probably be gotten from a security guard at the ground the night before instead of a professional, I struggle to think of times when a wealthier player match fixes.
Suneer Chowdhary
Roar Guru
What you are essentially saying is that price for someone to cheat is different for different greedy people.
Jayden
Guest
Suppose, one point is that we get an Extra days rest for the bowlers.
TheTruth
Guest
Haha yeah, no wonder he holds onto the captaincy! that is crazy money
TheTruth
Guest
I agree Suneer but greed is relative. Offering a man earning 100k a year, 1 million to throw a game or 2, or not try as hard is a lot more likely to succeed than offering that same million to a player that earns 2mil a year
Suneer Chowdhary
Roar Guru
@The Truth, you are referring to cricket income alone. Endorsements play a HUGE role. Here goes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes'_list_of_world's_highest-paid_athletes Dhoni earns a small matter of $33 million. Thirty-three million.