First hour on fourth day crucial in series decider

Simon Harmer apologetically reached for one of cricket’s great cliche’s to forecast the future for the Proteas in what has been an engaging series decider at Newlands.

“It’s simplistic, but the most important part of this game for us is the first hour of (Friday) morning,” said Harmer in response to a question about a likely target South Africa would feel comfortable setting Australia.

At stumps on the third evening, South Africa were 140/4, having lost their captain five minutes before the close after a tough final hour of play. It leaves Ryan Rickelton on eight and Matthew Breetzke, 19, to hopefully negotiate that first hour on Friday.

“We can’t get too caught up in what we want and what would be nice and what is defendable, because whatever that looks like is not achievable if that first hour doesn’t go well,” said Harmer.

“So I’m pretty sure that’s what the (team) chats will be around, is just making sure that we don’t get too carried away and look too far ahead, that we try and keep it as simple as possible, and just to make sure that if we have a good hour (on Friday) morning, it puts us in a much stronger position than trying to get 200 and you get sort of sidetracked.”

The Australians don’t want to chase more than 200, said their first innings centurion, Josh Inglis. “The further it goes into the game it’s only going to get harder and harder. It depends how long they bat for. You don’t want to be getting too many more than 200. It’s obviously spinning a fair bit.”

Everyone has recognised that this Newlands pitch has been an excellent one for batting - even the South Africans who wasted the opportunity to use it properly after Australia chose to bowl.

By the end of the third day, Nathan Lyon was getting the ball to bite and spin significantly and until his dismissal Temba Bavuma’s decision to play primarily off the backfoot - as challenging as it was - proved to be correct. Nevertheless balls were still hitting him in the ribs as they bounced and ripped out of the rough.

The morning, after the heavy roller has done its work, seems to be the easiest time for batting, hence Harmer rolling out the cliche about Friday’s first hour. It’s the final session, when puffs of dust accompany every ball bouncing off the surface that the threat has grown for batters.

“If you look at how the wicket changed from (Thursday) morning to the evening, there’s been quite a dramatic change. Mitchell Starc does a pretty good job of churning up the wicket. I definitely think that spin is probably going to come into it a lot more than it has in the first two and a half days,” said Harmer.

“It was quite evident to see tonight how the ball was turning out of different footmarks. I don’t know if the middle of the strip is going to start going up and down for different seamers, but the way that I see it is I think that spin has a massive role to play in the rest of the Test.”

Which will raise the pressure on Harmer, when it’s South Africa’s turn to bowl a second time. He said he was disappointed by his performance in the second Test in Gqeberha, but that lessons had been learned - albeit conditions in Cape Town are very different.

“I think there’s going to be a lot more on offer from the wicket’s perspective. And there’s a lot more on the line in terms of the result of the series being at 1-1. It’s going to boil down to getting the ball in the right area the most amount of times - just trying to keep it as simple as possible. Understand the occasion, enjoy it, enjoy the pressure and hopefully do something spectacular,” he said.