Australia fire after the rain as Pat Cummins leads charge to victory
After a day and a half of waiting through rain and darkness, play finally resumed at the SydneyGround. After three matches waiting through injury, Josh Hazlewood resumed his Test career. On a damp surface, he came out breathing fire, starting a slide that had South Africa’s first innings 6 for 149 by stumps, still 326 behind Australia’s declaration score of 475 for four.
With play not starting until 1:45pm on the fourth day, Australia decided not to bat further after having last faced a ball on day two. That left Usman Khawaja on 195 not out, unable to chase his first Test double century. With 157 overs left in the match, and losing two at every change of innings, the Australians decided that chasing a win was the priority. Before play all was convivial, with the visitors presenting with the pink caps they had signed to raise funds for the McGrath Foundation.
Never mind. Hazlewood only needed ten more balls at Elgar, coming around the wicket to pin him with a savage bouncer that he gloved to wicketkeeper Alex Carey for an overhead catch on 11. His opening partner Sarel Erwee made another start of 18 but fell to Nathan Lyon’s spin, into the attack by the eighth over and striking in the 18th. Another left-hander, Erwee left an off-break from around the wicket that did turn, but not quite enough to miss his off stump.
Temba Bavuma and Khaya Zondo decided that positivity was the way, each hitting Lyon for a couple of sixes whenever the length was short enough to pull. They added 48 either side of the tea break before Bavuma feathered another excellent Hazlewood delivery that straightened on a line that tempted him to play. Zondo was foxed by Cummins’ pace and smarts, the right-armer coming around the wicket to the right-hander as if to bounce him, then rifling a yorker through him that smashed him on the boot.
Nor was Cummins done. His third wicket came two overs later, his off-stump line and seam movement doing for Kyle Verreyne on 19, whose hard-handed poke down the line resulted in an edge to Smith that no umpire could dispute. That made it 138 for six, and while Marco Jansen was roughed up by the Cummins short ball, he batted through six overs with Simon Harmer to stumps.
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