Australia’s second-innings collapse of 99 all out in Gqeberha has left the travelling supporters of the Test side facing the familiar misery of another batting failure, with South Africa now needing only time and discipline to complete a victory that once seemed distant. For the fans who follow this team through its recurring crises, the scorecard read like a rerun: 47 all out in Cape Town in 2011, 85 all out in Hobart in 2016, and now 99 in Gqeberha, a day after the home side had passed 400 and enforced the follow on halfway through day four.
The damage began when Nic Maddinson’s first innings ended after four balls on the third evening. By an hour after lunch the following day, his second innings was over too, and in between nine other Australian wickets had fallen in 38.3 overs. Marco Jansen and Kagiso Rabada delivered spells of real ferocity, working up serious pace, beating edges with full deliveries and peppering the batters when they pitched short.
Yet the bowling, excellent as it was, did not always need to be. Several Australian batters gave their wickets away. Scott Boland, sent in as nightwatch, nicked one early, and Travis Head was lbw to a ball angling in from the left-armer; Matthew Renshaw could hardly be blamed for a delivery that reared off the shoulder of his defensive bat. But Alex Carey and Beau Webster both played loose punches off the back foot at rising balls and were caught, rounding out Jansen’s five for 33. Mitchell Starc repeated the error for Rabada’s second wicket. Marnus Labuschagne got tangled in his footwork and edged Anrich Nortje to slip, where Simon Harmer took a sharp catch, while Pat Cummins simply slogged to the deep.
Steve Smith, for his part, ground out 28 to become the twelfth player to pass 11,000 Test runs, though he looked uncomfortable throughout. A neck problem, it emerged, was making it difficult for him to turn his head, and when Wiaan Mulder’s nip-backer bowled him he was as far from hitting the ball as he has ever been.
At 156 for four, still 170 behind, Australia could in theory survive the final day. The margin of South Africa’s lead stood at 326 with a session and a half remaining, and Temba Bavuma faced a choice: bat briefly to extend the buffer, or send his bowlers straight back in. Even with Anrich Nortje sidelined by a groin strain after just 3.3 overs, Bavuma asked them to go again, and Maddinson lasted 10 balls, hitting two fours before edging Rabada as his back foot crept away from the line.
That selection continues to look like the mistake it always promised to be. It is tempting to call Maddinson unlucky, facing Rabada in the gloom and then again with his tail up, but facing the best bowlers with the new ball in difficult conditions is precisely the job a Test opener is picked to do, and it is a job not given to players whose last good first-class run is closer to three years old than two.
For a while, Head and Labuschagne looked capable of carrying Australia to safety, Head flashing edges past the cordon and Labuschagne surviving two chances at short leg and an overturned lbw review. They passed the first-innings total for the loss of only one wicket. But Labuschagne, having beaten his recent bogey of 37, fell for 39, launching Harmer’s spin to the deep with little to gain. From 100 for two, Renshaw was bowled for 11 by Rabada’s sharp in-dipper from around the wicket, and Harmer trapped the promoted Webster for eight with a straightening off-break. Boland, incongruously, was sent in as nightwatch for the second time that day.
Any rescue must now come from the sore Smith, Carey, and Head resuming on 87, whose second-innings record as an opener, currently over 70 against a first-innings average of 33, makes the strongest case for the batting-order changes Pat Cummins has hinted at. If Head and his partners cannot save the day, something about this order will have to change for good.