Australia’s quality pace duo of Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood have ripped the heart of South Africa and will leave nothing in the tank chasing a final-day victory in the third and final Test at the SCG on Sunday.
“We’ve got three weeks off, so we can burn ourselves tomorrow, and if pace is playing more of a part than spin, then we’ll probably have to push it out a bit further,” Hazlewood said after South Africa struggled to 6-149 at stumps in reply to Australia’s 4-475 declared. Hazlewood has 2-29 and Cummins 3-29.With the most favourable weather forecast of the Test beckoning, Australia still need 14 wickets to claim a 3-0 clean sweep of the series.
“We definitely would have batted if we had the full day’s play, that’s for sure,” Hazlewood said. “We probably would have tried to get another 60 or 70 runs maybe just to push that follow-on [mark] out. We didn’t go on until after lunch, so we had to go straight out there.”The first four days have all been impacted by weather but at least Sunday promises a full day of cricket, with Australia having 98 overs to claim an improbable victory.
Elgar, on six, appeared to have been brilliantly caught by Steve Smith diving low to his right at slip to gather an edge off the returning Hazlewood. Replays showed the catch was taken cleanly, but the ball may have touched the ground as he turned his hand to bring it up.
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