Australia, led by middle-order batsman Michael Hussey, fought back magnificently after tea on the second day of the third Castle Lager Test at the Wanderers on Saturday. At close of play, Australia had 246 for seven.
After the afternoon session, in which South Africa took four wickets for 94 runs, Michael Hussey once again joined hands with the tail-enders, putting on 68 runs with Shane Warne and 68 with Brett Lee to take Australia close to South Africa’s first-innings total of 303.
Ntini achieved his 11th five-wicket haul when Shane Warne was caught by Shaun Pollock for 36. Earlier, Ntini had dismissed Matthew Hayden for three, Ricky Ponting for 34, Damien Martyn for 21 and Andrew Symonds for four.
South Africa resumed play on their overnight score of 238 for six, with one over to go before the new ball was taken. Australia made good use of the new ball, with Pollock caught by Ponting off Stuart Clark for eight, Ashwell Prince caught by Justin Langer off Lee for 93, Andre Nel caught by Martyn without scoring, and Nicky Boje caught by Langer off Michael Kasprowicz for a fighting 43.
There was drama at the start of the Australian innings when Langer — playing in his 100th Test — was pole-axed by Ntini’s first delivery. He had to be helped off the field, and was later taken to hospital for a precautionary scan. He suffered significant concussion and a cut on the back of the head that required two stitches. It is not clear whether he will be able to bat in Australia’s first innings.
”He’ll see a specialist in the morning,” said team physiotherapist Alex Kountouri. ”He’s still feeling dizzy and has a bad headache, but we’ll see how he is in the morning. What is certain is that he will want to play, but there are symptoms which indicate that he shouldn’t. There are a couple of tests we can do. It’s a safety issue.”
But although they continued losing wickets at regular intervals, Australia batted at an average of nearly four-and-a=half runs an over. When Boje finally had Hussey out leg before wicket for 73, Australia were 61 runs behind.
Six minutes later, when Ntini came back into the attack and hit Lee on the body, the umpires offered the batsmen the light, and play ended eight minutes early, with 14 overs and four balls still to be bowled. Lee was not out on 42 — his highest Test score against South Africa — and Kasprowicz had yet to score.
Hussey said afterwards that he had not felt under any particular pressure because of the situation when he came in to bat. ”We’ve been under pressure throughout the series,” he said. ”It’s been a tough series all round. But we were pretty relaxed — the most important thing was to play the ball, and back your partner. Brett Lee and Warney are pretty capable players, so I just kept telling them to keep backing themselves, and if the ball was in their area, to go after it.
”I think batting will be pretty hard the whole time, but I think we can chase down anything they set us,” he said.
South African coach Mickey Arthur said he thought the match was very evenly balanced, and there was still a lot of hard work to do.
”We’ve got to bat well in the second innings and put the pressure on them in the last innings, because I think it will start going up and down a little. Hopefully we’ll get enough to make the runs a long way away from them.”
Arthur said it was disappointing that, once again, Hussey had managed to put together two good partnerships with tail-enders.
”He’s played well against us all summer, and he seems to bat well with the tail-enders. They seem to get confidence from him. He had two 50-plus partnerships, and that’s 100 runs — and on this wicket, that’s huge.”
The coach said there was a feeling of pride in the South African dressing room. ”We’ve put together a fighting performance,” he said. ”I thought Ashwell’s innings was terrific, under a bit of pressure as well. He fought really hard.
”Between lunch and tea, we executed our game plans beautifully. We let it go a little after tea, and let them get away a bit.”
Arthur said he would like South Africa to get a lead of 250 to 280 runs. ”And then I’d back us. Anything less, and it’s a 50-50 game,” he concluded. — Sapa