South Africa v Australia: first men’s cricket Test, day four – as it happened

Australia’s day in the field was all about The Quartet, those four absurdly credentialled bowlers who are still going strong. Here’s my piece from yesterday.

Hello world. It’s day four! Hooray. Well, it’s really kind of day three, because we’ve had about 220 overs rather than the 270 we should have had, given that bad light has called us off early each day. And it probably will again. If only there had been some way of knowing what time the sun goes down in a particular place at a particular time of year. “South African schedulers shocked to discover it is night time!” That’s my newspaper headline.

Anyways, the point of the thing is that we’re a fair way into a match, and we’re hoping there’s time for a conclusion. Australia lead by 139, they’re 33 without loss, and they have a lead to try to grow. South Africa have some good chasing memories from the World Test Championship final, but some bad batting memories from the first innings here. They really need to wrap up Australia for 150ish, I’d say, which is a tough ask but far from impossible.