SA to resume on 20/2 on Monday

It didn’t take long for Scott Boland, to breach the defences and get into the heads of the Proteas batters in the second Test at St George’s Park.

With his 10th delivery he flattened Aiden Markram’s middle stump. With his 11th, he had David Bedingham poking at a ball, the Proteas no.3 should have left alone - but whose mind was still muddled by what he’d seen happen with his teammate the previous delivery.

There were also the nine deliveries before Markram was bowled. All on a good length, all testing the South African opener’s movement, his balance and understanding of where his off-stump was.

This is what Boland does. His 12th ball, the hat-trick delivery to Temba Bavuma, wrapped the Proteas captain on the pad, having drawn him forward, but Australia’s appeal was stifled owing to an inside edge.

Bavuma looked as uncomfortable as Markram and Bedingham before him and his only runs resulted from an outside edge through the gully region.

“You leave some training sessions shaking your head at how that bloke is [not] in your first XI,” Australian captain Pat Cummins said of 37 year old Boland. With 82 wickets from his 19 Tests before this one, Cummins’ bewilderment is understandable.

Boland was roped into Australia’s starting XI in place of off-spinner Nathan Lyon, because of the conditions and with the tourists anticipating a shortened match. More rain is being forecast for Monday.

Which will leave the South Africans facing another difficult day of batting. Nothing was easy and when rain brought relief for the home team, at 1.53pm, only 12.2 overs had been bowled in an hour of play, with SA on 20/2. Two and a half hours later with rain still falling in Gqeberha, the umpires - including debutant Arno Jacobs - called an end to the first day’s play.

Jacobs played 144 first class matches and was a late call up to stand alongside the expereinced Richard Illingworth after New Zealand official, Chris Gaffney, fell ill on the eve of the match.

Under the circumstances, dark clouds overhead and a lush covering of grass on the pitch, debutant Marques Ackerman’s survival is worthy of some praise. With the exception of one wild drive at Boland - which he thankfully missed - Ackerman has looked assured. He has left the ball positively, defended solidly and shown a presence at the crease, looking like he belongs at Test level.

He has five and will undoubtedly be aware that plenty of hard work awaits on Monday.

There was a lovely moment when Ackerman waved and smiled at his son, moments after scoring his first Test runs, when the first rain interruption took the players to lunch after just 27 minutes of play in the first session.

At that point, the pitch certainly wasn’t displaying any kind of troubles, with Mitchell Starc struggling for rhythm.

Starc allowed Markram to leave the ball often and was constantly fiddling with the landing area on the crease, clearly unhappy about sliding on the surface. It was a similar story for his new ball partner Josh Hazlewood, although he bowled more accurately at Ackerman.

The Proteas made three changes to the team that was beaten in the first Test in Durban, with Ackerman slotting in at the top of the order, while Matthew Breetzke, is playing his third Test, as a replacement for Tristan Stubbs, who was dropped.

Ryan Rickelton will keep instead of Kyle Verreynne, while the biggest surprise was the retention of Simon Harmer ahead of Keshav Maharaj as the frontline spinner, with Kagiso Rabada, now recovered from his hamstring injury, playing his first Test since October last year in Rawalpindi.

Although conditions on Sunday certainly weren’t favorable towards spin, if the ‘Windy City’ lives up to his reputation and the sun does come out from day three onwards - as has been forecast - there may be a role for the off-spinner. SA is looking to combat the five left-hand batters in the Australian line-up.

It is nevertheless surprising that the Proteas have dropped Maharaj, who has taken 220 Test wickets and has long been the frontline spinner. The last time he was excluded from the starting line-up - when not injured - was the Boxing Day Test against Pakistan in 2024, when SA played an all-pace attack.