Ken Borland

David Warner was able to motor to a commanding century as Australia reached 231 for two at tea against a South African attack that kept chugging in without much luck on the second day of the second Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Tuesday.

Warner celebrated the considerable milestone of making a century in his 100^th Test, becoming just the 11^th player to achieve this landmark, but arguably more important to him was that it was his first hundred in nearly three years.

Together with Steven Smith, he ensured that Australia were already 42 runs ahead on first innings, with eight wickets in hand. Warner had reached 135 not out off 207 balls at tea, while Smith stuck to his task well against plenty of testing bowling as he reached the break on 60 not out off 129 deliveries.

Although the only wicket South Africa had claimed on Tuesday came through a run out, the Proteas bowlers generally stuck to their task well. Anrich Nortje was especially impressive, running in tirelessly and delivering 150km/h thunderbolts, and he troubled the left-handed Warner in particular, several inside-edges narrowly avoiding the stumps.

Left-armer Marco Jansen was also probing and he had Smith dropped on nine, gloving a hook down the leg-side, wicketkeeper Kyle Verreynne spilling a tough, diving chance.

Australia had resumed on 45 for one in pursuit of South Africa’s poor first innings of just 189, and made a bright start as Warner and Marnus Labuschagne took their stand to 54.

Warner had been particularly busy and intense, always looking for the extra run. His enthusiasm proved to be Labuschagne’s downfall, however, as he called his partner through for a second run on an overthrow, but the South African had run through the crease scampering what was a quick single in the first place, and, after trying to send Warner back, Labuschagne was run out at the bowler’s end for 14.

Keshav Maharaj had thrown the ball to Nortje, who had done well to transfer the throw on to the stumps from a couple of metres away.

But Warner and Smith have since added 156. This Australian batting line-up spares nobody when they get the bit between their teeth, and on a lovely batting pitch on a sweltering day in Melbourne, South Africa’s bowlers are once again in for plenty of toil after another dismal failure by their batsmen.

The Proteas have much to ponder ahead of the second T20 against India in Guwahati on Sunday, following their dismal batting performance in the first match that saw their top-order utterly fail, sinking to 9-5.

While the fight shown by Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram and Wayne Parnell with the bat was pleasing, setting a target of just 107 for victory was never going to give India much pause for thought, even on a pitch which was made to look like a minefield by the South African top-order.

While there are some injury doubts over wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock after he needed on-field treatment for a blow to the fingers while trying to take a leg-side wide from fast bowler Anrich Nortje, whether the formerly prolific left-hander should be in the team even if fit is also starting to cause debate.

De Kock has scored just 137 runs in his last 12 T20 innings for the Proteas, and is striking at just 103.78.

Amongst all the other worries about the batting, the loss of form of their talismanic opener is the last thing the Proteas need.

While the South Africans were still trying to digest their batting display, Indian spearhead Jasprit Bumrah received the awful news that he probably has a stress fracture of the back and has been withdrawn from the series and is likely to miss the T20 World Cup.

The fact that the Proteas were reduced to 9-5 by India’s second-choice new-ball pairing of Arshdeep Singh and Deepak Chahar, with Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar not even playing, makes their batting effort even more terrible.

With their captain, Temba Bavuma, under immense pressure to score runs, they have now got themselves into a pickle with the skipper getting a duck in the first match. Interestingly, Bavuma has actually scored 237 runs in his last 12 T20 innings for South Africa, at a strike-rate of 111.26.

So De Kock, with a hundred runs less and an inferior run-rate, should certainly be in the conversation when it comes to changes. It would be an awfully big step for the selectors to make, but it is a shocking waste of form to see the prolific Reeza Hendricks not playing.

But bringing in Hendricks for De Kock would necessitate another change with Heinrich Klaasen needing to come in and keep wicket, unless the gloves are entrusted to Tristan Stubbs, who is very much a part-timer.

It’s a dreadful mess the selectors have got themselves into.

A much-changed South African batting line-up was all geared up to bat first in testing conditions at The Oval on Thursday, but they never had the chance as rain returned shortly after the toss and washed out the entire opening day’s play of the third and decisive Test against England.

England won the toss, which had been delayed by half-an-hour due to morning showers, and elected to bowl first, ensuring that the spotlight – and the pressure – will be firmly on a Proteas batting line-up that has not had much to shout about lately.

For the match at The Oval, two changes to the batting line-up have been made, with the inexperienced duo of Ryan Rickelton and Khaya Zondo coming in for the injured Rassie van der Dussen and the dropped Aiden Markram.

The 26-year-old Rickelton returns after playing two Tests against Bangladesh at the end of last summer and scoring 114 runs at an average of 38. Zondo made his Test debut on the last day of that series as a Covid substitute and did not bat, but he is a 32-year-old domestic stalwart who has more than 6000 first-class runs to his name.

Rickelton is a St Stithians product, as is bowling spearhead Kagiso Rabada, and the prestigious Randburg school gained a third player in the XI when all-rounder Wiaan Mulder was selected due to Lungi Ngidi’s hamstring niggle.

Mulder was initially only called into the squad last week as the replacement for Van der Dussen, and has been in fine form with the bat for Leicestershire in county cricket.

South Africa made a fourth change when paceman and handy lower-order batsman Marco Jansen was selected instead of second spinner Simon Harmer. Given the weather conditions, the Proteas are likely to get more buck for their rand from Jansen’s left-arm seam than Harmer’s off-spin.

But first of all their batsmen will have a mountain to climb, with captain Dean Elgar saying at the toss that they are “going to have to knuckle down and start well, runs are key, taking 20 wickets is covered”.

Sarel Erwee does not get too fazed by much – not dropping a simple catch in the first over of the day, not the unique conditions at Lord’s nor the tricky pitch he had to bat on on the second day of the first Test against England on Thursday.

Erwee handled all of that and the England attack with a well-controlled, highly-composed innings of 73 that laid the foundation for South Africa’s first innings total of 289/7 at stumps and a lead of 124.

Erwee was at first slip when he juggled and dropped a catch given by England’s top-scorer Ollie Pope off Kagiso Rabada. The spearhead of the attack also bounced back from that disappointment, removing Pope for 73 five overs later.

The left-handed opener, playing just his fifth Test, then had to come in and handle the famous slope at Lord’s, as well as a capacity crowd and the famous pair of Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad on a pitch that was giving the new ball plenty of assistance.

“The spilt catch certainly wasn’t planned, but that’s cricket. It can happen, especially in the UK where the ball wobbles a bit,” Erwee said phlegmatically at the end of the second day.

“My primary job is as a batsman and trying to get my team off to a decent start with the skipper.” [He succeeded with an excellent opening stand of 85 with Dean Elgar].

“Visualisation is quite important for me to get used to the environment, especially at a place like Lord’s which can be quite overwhelming. I try and gather what type of energies the crowd will give off and the bowlers I’m going to face.

“So I watch a lot of videos, quiet my mind and take it all in. It’s working nicely but I mustn’t get ahead of myself. The most important thing is to just watch each ball at a time. You can get caught up, but if you stay in the moment then things generally go well,” Erwee said.

The 32-year-old also used his mental strength to handle the bowler-friendly pitch and the notorious Lord’s slope, which sees the gradient drop 2.5 metres from the north end of the ground to the south .

“Conditions got trickier and the pitch became a bit two-paced, plus the scoring was quite slow after the rain on the first day, there was a heavy outfield.

“But I had to take all of that out of my mind and just watch the ball and play as intensely as possible. The slope does play a role at times too, but we were very fortunate to play our warm-up game in Canterbury, where there is a slope as well.

“That worked in our favour and we were able to figure out what would work at Lord’s, where the slope is even more hectic, and what to line up differently,” Erwee said.

Young Marco Jansen (41*) and the more experienced Keshav Maharaj (41) then added a rollicking 72 for the seventh wicket in 12-and-a-half overs, giving the Proteas renewed energy.

“Watching Kesh and Marco bat gave a bit more energy, the changeroom was buzzing even more,” Erwee said. “We’re in a good position and we’re full of confidence.

“We have prepped well and we take a bit of momentum into the third day with that partnership at the back end of the day.

“If we can bring the same energy tomorrow [Friday], then we’ll stay ahead of the game, I’m sure,” Erwee said.