David Gower at Leeds in 1989, when Australia topped 600 and declared. Nasser Hussain in Brisbane, 2002, when Australia were 364 for two by the end of the day. Edgbaston 2005, where England lamped 407 from 80 overs.
Those were the looming comparisons for captains deciding to bowl at the toss, after Pat Cummins did the same in the third Test at Cape Town, only for South Africa’s openers to smash 140 by lunch. Yet, by day’s end, Australia had taken 10 for a further 189, Mitchell Starc destroying the tail with four wickets in six balls, all out 329 constituting a serious Australian comeback. The Australian setup has looked frazzled this tour: confused player selections for the squad, then for the XIs, confused shot selection in the middle, players bouncing around the order with nightwatch duties and injury absences.
Here they chose to leave out their best player from the second Test, Scott Boland, for Nathan Lyon, and were forced to leave out their best player of the last decade, Steve Smith, for Josh Inglis, as well as dropping Nic Maddinson and Beau Webster for Cameron Green and Cooper Connolly. The last time a touring Australian side made four non-disciplinary changes was in the West Indies in 1984. So it tracked that there was confusion in Cummins’ decision, as well.
He has been a bowl-first enthusiast relative to captaincy convention, this being the ninth time he’s made that call in 25 opportunities, and perhaps was banking on there being more juice in the surface on morning one than on afternoon two. But with locals describing a Cape Town surface that is known to run easy, and on a morning of bright sunshine with plenty more predicted, surely the safest move was to try to build a score? That’s what Aiden Markram and Marques Ackerman did, Markram setting the tone with some early blows, then Ackerman following his lead until surpassing it.
Starc and Josh Hazlewood bowled poorly, too short and too wide on too many occasions, and with no swing and no lateral movement from the pitch, Markram laid into front-foot drives, back-foot punches, and even a shockingly audacious smash from Hazlewood on the up. When Cummins came on to play enforcer, Markram pulled him for six. Lyon, the spinner, was bowling by the 12th over rather than waiting to influence day five.
Before long, Ackerman took over. Happy to hook whenever the opportunity came, he cleared fine leg for six from Cummins and belted Lyon out of the arena over midwicket. When Starc returned for a later spell, Ackerman smashed 18 off one over, hitting four boundaries in a row.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
