Perth 2012: Days Two and Three

It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that something happened between the lunch break and the tea break at the WACA on Saturday.

Something definitely happened in the morning session, and something was happening right up to the time the players headed off for lunch. At that point we weren't exactly in the game, but we weren't totally out of it either.

Resuming at 2/33 with nightwatchman Lyon protecting Ponting from the tricky last bit of Day One we weren't looking good, but there was always the prospect of a Warner, Ponting, Clarke, Hussey and Wade led revival. That, after all, is what happened in Brisbane and Perth.

I like to think of Test cricket as a scenario where one side gains a bit of dominance and the other tries to wrest it away. We'd been dominant early on Day One, South Africa had clawed it back by Stumps to be on top for the start of Day Two, and it was up to our batting to get us back into the game, assuming they were good enough to do it.

And, possibly, against any other attack they might have been able to do it.

But not against this South African attack on a wicket that had something in it for the bowlers. It was, in short, the sort of demolition the pessimists among us had dreaded since the start of the Gabba Test.

2/33 became 3/34 (Warner), 4/35 (Lyon), 5/43 (Ponting) and 6/45 (Clarke). At that stage we weren't quite gone for all money but it was close. With Hussey and Wade at the crease there was still a glimmer of hope, and when Hussey went at 7/100 it was, as far as I could see, an exercise in sticking around and getting as close as possible to South Africa's 225, then trying to grab early wickets in the second dig.

Straightforward.

Much of the revival had come through Wade, who'd decided to fight fire with fire by riding his luck, bringing up his 50 at just over a run a ball. He went in for lunch on 60 with the score on 7/118 after 36 overs.

But somewhere between then and stumps something intervened to ensure we were off the boil in that remarkable last session when the Proteas went from 0/24 to 2/230.

Maybe it was something that happened in the dressing room, a chance remark, or an unintended slip of the tongue that got interpreted the wrong way, or a disagreement between a couple of members of the Australian camp.

Maybe it was something that happened in the dining room, assuming there's a common area where both teams and the match officials get stuck into the catering, a passing comment from one of the South Africans, or a swagger that suggested hey, we've got this thing won that threw the collective mind off what should have been the game plan.

I'd like to think it was something like that, but there's always the possibility that it was just one of those off days that most teams encounter, or, equally possible, once Smith and Amla got going the ferocity of the assault left us reeling and unable to come up with a counterpunch.

In any case, the middle session on Saturday presented an almost unarguable case for the intellectual deficiencies of the fast bowling fraternity. I had thought wicketkeepers were supposed to be more intelligent than the quicks, but then, thinking back over some of the stumpers I've met maybe I'm not so sure.

In a situation where the South African attack comprised three quicks and a left arm tweaker, with Kallis unable to bowl, you'd have expected Peterson to get plenty of overs, so it should have been a case of holding out the quicks at one end and milking the tweaker without forcing Smith to bring back a quickie at that end.

Do that and you're likely to be able to stick around and, quite possibly, get fairly close to that South African score of 225. Sensible batting should have got us to the tea break somewhere around the 170 mark, hopefully with wickets in hand.

Instead, we lose Wade and Johnston looking like they're trying to hit the spinner out of the attack, which doesn't seem like the optimum approach when you're apparently trying to do it by numbers through injudicious slogs. Then Hastings, for some reason, decides to take on the deep fielder on the straight hit.

Not very bright.

It was a case where it should have been head down and get as many as possible, and use up as much time as possible in the process. Get to tea with wickets in hand, and bat on until, quite possibly, you've passed the target.That would have been somewhere around the sixty over mark, with a good hour and a half before the new ball is due, so you'd reckon there'd be a fair bit more of Peterson unless Smith decided to bring pace on from both ends.

If he did, and it didn't pay off it would have to be back to Peterson or try one of the part timers to use up some overs while you wait for the new ball.

But that's not the way it worked out, and with six overs between the change of innings and the tea break you're supposed to be looking at two goes at the openers and a two hour session, then another crack when they have to start again in the morning.

So we go in to tea with them 0/24, which isn't too bad, but thirty-four overs in the last session yield 206 runs, and it's goodnight nurse.

Now, I know we're not that good, but at the same time I don't think we're that bad either. Certainly you'd expect a little more fight out of the dog, which is what makes me suspect something happened.

We'll never know, of course, and but if it did it can be identified and steps taken to ensure we don't get caught that way again.

On the other hand, the assault that came in that final session would have been enough to derail most bowling attacks. Amla came in in the sixth over and came off on 99 after thirty-eight. Admittedly there was an extra half hour tacked on, but it was an innings that was as remarkable, in its own way, as Dougie Walters' century in a session in 1974 or the assault Roy Fredericks launched on Australia's pace attack the following year.

Smith's 84 was a decent knock as well, but, seriously, we should have been able to limit them to somewhere between 80 and 150 for the extended session.

There was obviously a bit of regrouping overnight, though Matthew Wade's comments reported here could only be described as optimistic to the point of being delusional.

Had things gone the way they should, and quite possibly could, have done, we'd have been heading towards the end of day Three with the Proteas scratching their heads and wondering whether they were far enough ahead to declare, or should they bat on for another forty-five minutes today just to be sure.

Still, Day Three was a much better performance in the Sticking to the Guns department, and the fact that Johnston and Starc finished up with the ten between them could see both headed off to Bellerive to deal with Sri Lanka, though you'd fancy Siddle and Hilfenhaus will be back on Hilfie's home ground.

From here, of course, there's no way we're going to score the 592 runs needed to win, and with that South African attack facing what could be two days in the field there's a chance for everyone in the top order to get among the runs, possibly sending Punter off with a ton but, more importantly, sorting things out as far as the top three are concerned and ensuring that Khawaja, Ferguson, Hughes or Doolan (the most likely candidates, I can't see the selectors going for Cosgrove, Rogers has been tried before and Henriques may have to wait for Watto's next injury) slot into a top order that's got a bit of form behind it.