First Test: Australian bats push on

“When they bowl short, he gets up high on his toes and he doesn’t square cut, he drives the ball off the back foot through the covers”. Lat year in England, he was once again hit by Toby Roland-Jones and then went on to score his 8th Test century.

De Kock and Morne Morkel survived nine overs in ever-deteriorating light against Smith and Nathan Lyon before the umpires took the players off five minutes before the scheduled close.

Australia comprehensively won the first of the four-match Test series by 118 runs against South Africa and began the tour on a winning note.

“He gets a chance tomorrow now”.

Australia’s leading bowler Mitchell Starc dominated South Africa in the first test and clinched the victory against Hosts. De Villiers was run out after he was sent back by Markram after they aimed for a single at square leg initially.

Australia squad: Steve Smith (c), David Warner (vc), Cameron Bancroft, Pat Cummins, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Jon Holland, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Shaun Marsh, Tim Paine, Jhye Richardson, Chadd Sayers, Mitchell Starc. There was spin there for him, but fortune was not on his side, with South Africa largely playing him well out of the rough.

“South Africa captain Faf du Plessis was disappointed with his side’s performance, and said: “[Always behind on first innings?] Spot on, they posted 50 runs too many, that’s credit to the way they batted, their tail added vital runs. We just thought if we got one wicket, the way Starc bowls to the tail, it will happen very quickly. The character of the batters who got runs.

The additional bonus is that we are treated to a series of four Tests, which are not common place these days in an era where schedules are being devised with the intention to decrease the amount of Test cricket.

Paine’s ploy to stand up to Marsh was a masterstroke. “Both teams were 160 for 5 in all four innings, so it shows the learning we can take is to be more ruthless with their tail”.

Paine agreed Starc was sacked up in the middle session.

Michael Holding suggested Starc could become the best fast bowler in the world whenever Dale Steyn retires. South Africa, meanwhile, know that they need to find a solution to Starc against a reverse swinging ball. AB de Villiers looked untroubled throughout his innings, Quinton de Kock found his touch and even Theunis de Bruyn showed glimpses that seemed to indicate he has the game to prosper at the elite level.

A fired-up Warner had earlier given Proteas counterpart Aiden Markram a huge verbal spray after the rookie batsman was culpable in running out AB de Villiers for a duck.

It comes after dramatic footage emerged on Monday of Warner being restrained by teammates in an off-field confrontation with de Kock during the first Test.

“I’m not sure about that speed gun”.

Lyon was dominant in the first innings and his extraordinary rise over the past 12 months has featured numerous examples of him putting opposition teams to the sword when the match goes on the line.

“Reverse swing played a huge part throughout the game”, said Smith.

The Proteas resumed at 9-293 on the morning of day five of the first Test, having been set an intimidating target of 417 in Durban.

He led by example tremendously on Sunday, although was deflated by his departure.

Throughout his career, Starc has worked assiduously on maintaining an upright wrist position behind the ball to encourage conventional swing with the new ball – with devastating effect when he can get it right – but has always had the fallback of reversing the ball with a lower arm from around the wicket to right-hand batsmen.