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An untimely rain stalled the Australian progress in the third Test against South Africa which will make the third day of the game a rather important one as far as getting a result out of this game is concerned. Follow the action live from 7.00 pm AEDT.
Less than 40 overs were possible on the second day of the Cape Town Test match which puts the onus on to the visitors to force a result in the game.
They have a good part of three days to go with the overs adjusted for the rain to bowl South Africa out twice but they will also need to reckon with the fact that they may not either have the opportunity to enforce the follow-on or have the inclination to do that even if they get a chance to do that.
What goes without saying is that Australia will be looking to declare without facing a ball tomorrow and will need to do all the damage in the first innings.
They have a slightly different bowling live-up with the inclusion of James Pattinson, which will improve the freshness value of the attack and could help them when they bowl the second time in the game.
For now though, they will need to do much better than how they went about their business in the second Test.
Mitchell Johnson has the pace to test the South Africans in much the same manner as Morne Morkel had done on the first day but the big question is whether the pitch will assist him in any way.
For most part of the game, it’s looked to be a dead surface and it will now boil down to whether Johnson can extract some kind of unevenness, some life out of it to trouble the South African batsmen.
Ryan Harris will be coming on with question-marks around his form but the Aussie management has done well to show faith in him. Can he repay that faith by improving upon his poor showing this series so far?
There has been a lot of talk around how Nathan Lyon could well be the joker in the pack for the Aussies. He is the one genuine spinner across both the sides and has shown he can turn the ball prodigiously if the conditions are right.
As shown by the pair of JP Duminy and Dean Elgar, who shared five wickets in the innings thus far, there’s something in it for the tweakers.
With Shane Warne in the shed helping out the Australian slow bowlers – admittedly for the T20 format of the game – he could well have a huge say in the game, if not now, then in the second dig.
South Africa seemed to have recovered well from how they had gone in the opener but can they do that batting second will be worth a watch.
Their objective will be to bat long and hard through to the end of the day, and possibly into the second session of the fourth day to ensafe the game. Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers and Duminy have shown what they are capable of and with Elgar having toughed it out in the last game, South Africa will be confident of their own ability from here on.
Join me for this third day of the third Test on Monday and you can follow the live score of this game from 7.30 pm AEDT and post your comments below.
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