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Match Report:

Scorecard

Hazlewood fires revamped Aussies

Du Plessis makes a fine hundred and declares after hosts' quicks dominate with the ball

In a familiar setting but facing a totally alien format, South Africa captain Faf du Plessis led his team with an inspirational first-day century as they embraced day-night Test cricket with both hands.

Four years after he played a match-defining innings at Adelaide Oval, du Plessis was the steel in the spine of the Proteas' first innings of 9(dec)-259, the largest pink ball total of the two Test matches thus far played under floodlights in Australia.

Australia’s makeshift opening combination of Matthew Renshaw (on debut) and Usman Khawaja (on assignment) then survived a trying 12-over stint under full floodlights against a new ball to post 14 without loss.

Quick Single: Timely declaration catches Warner short

With 20-year-old Renshaw showing composure beyond his years in his maiden innings, even if it did take him a nerve-jangling 19 deliveries before he could claim his first Test run.

It’s a not dissimilar match scenario from the historic first day of pink-ball Test cricket a year ago when New Zealand were bowled out for 202 on the opening evening and Australia finished the night 2-54.

Before going on to claim that low-scoring game by three wickets inside three days.

Du Plessis’s innings was a triumph of will, having entered the Test under the harsh glare of the ball shining controversy and the field of play to a ringing round of booing from unimpressed Adelaide Oval fans.

 

Du Plessis posts defiant hundred

But despite never having played Test cricket with a pink ball and with his team in a parlous position after a clatter of early wickets, the 32-year-old looked every inch the captain an increasing number of cricket watchers believe he should be.

Even when his best mate and incumbent skipper AB de Villiers returns from injury.

Not only was his 118 not out his first Test hundred in almost two years, it represented his highest Test score since 2013.

And it was clearly fuelled by not only the deep sense of injustice that burns within him after being found guilty of breaching the ICC’s Code of Conduct, but of an even stronger belief.

Highlights: Day one, first session

That he can lead his team to an unprecedented 3-0 whitewash of Australia on home soil and return home next week as one of the great Test combinations to have visited these shores.

It wasn’t only that he was able to find timing on a challenging pitch that tested – and largely defeated – most other batsmen across the day.

But he found a means by which to counter some of the best bowling that Australia has turned on in this series.

Particularly Josh Hazlewood, who added to embryonic claims that he is the most accomplished exponent with the pink ball in world cricket with another four-wicket haul, and Mitchell Starc who was ever threatening if occasionally a little off target.

Hazlewood helps himself to another bag

And Nathan Lyon found encouragement that has been so scarce of late on a surface from which he gained demonstrable turn and – most poignantly – the wicket that had eluded him through more than 110 first-class overs during a frustratingly fruitless period.

Wade stumping breaks Lyon's wicket drought

Which might have brought a smile to the opposition’s dressing room, given South Africa’s decision to include uncapped left-arm wrist spinner Tabraiz Shamsi in place of orthodox tweaker Keshav Maharaj.

With the Proteas knowing from their own limited practice sessions that Shamsi is almost impossible to pick with pink ball in hand, which will send chills through an Australia batting line-up so regularly tormented by left-arm spin in Sri Lanka.

The only move that might have rivalled du Plessis’s ton for ‘play of the day’ was his calculated decision to declare his team’s innings closed with a dozen overs remaining in the day.

Timing that caught the Australians on the hop given their opener and vice-captain David Warner was unable to bat come the start of the innings because he had spent time off the field tending a shoulder injury sustained when fielding earlier in the final session.

Which meant debutant opener Renshaw began his Test career in partnership with Khawaja, who had never before opened in his 19-Test career to that point.

But new beginnings has been something of a theme in Australian cricket over an eventful past week.

With a freshly minted line-up and a collective sense that a new era beckoned, the Australians could scarcely have made a less auspicious start to the final Test of a series already lost.

Du Plessis again called correctly at the coin toss, the sixth consecutive time that Steve Smith has ended up on the wrong side which is only one florin flip short of the worst run by an Australia skipper at the start of a game.

Which was the seven straight losses endured by Joe Darling in Tests against England stretching between 1899 and 1902.

A far less random event then soured the recast team’s mood further in the day’s third over when Mitchell Starc had out-of-sort opener Stephen Cook trapped dead to rights in front of his stumps with the individual’s and team’s score on four.

No-ball costs Starc an early wicket

Only for television replays to suggest, and third umpire Aleem Dar to confirm, that Starc had failed to keep any part of his right foot behind the crease line and Cook was recalled to continue his battling innings.

Which limped on for a further two hours and an additional 36 runs.

But by the time Cook eventually fell, to a smart slips catch by Smith off a mightily relieved if not fully forgiven Starc, the angst from those couple of early missteps had well subsided.

Debutant Renshaw safe as houses at first slip

Largely due to the work of Starc and Hazlewood while the pink ball was still heavily lacquered, and the additional grass on the pitch delivered the expected ‘nibble’ as well as some disconcerting bounce.

Although that was more of a looping, ‘tennis ball’ bounce which suggested that beneath the coarse thatch of grass the drop in pitch was hard and dry.

Which could well make first innings runs even more valuable.

And which, by midway through the opening day, appeared likely to slipping from the South Africans’ grasp.

Quick Single: Hazlewood continues dominance of Amla

Certainly the loss of previously prolific top-order scorers Dean Elgar, Hashim Amla and JP Duminy (all for five) and then Temba Bavuma (eight) meant the responsibility weighed heavily upon du Plessis and keeper-batsman Quinton de Kock.

Characters of contrasting method but similarly resolute character.

The younger, brasher of the pair revealed his game plan from early in his innings and it was the same blueprint he had carried into Perth and Hobart where he was top scorer in both of the Proteas’ first innings.

Highlights: Day one, second session

And on both prior occasions, as he did from the moment he joined du Plessis this afternoon, went at off-spinner Nathan Lyon as if there some level of personal enmity involved.

No sooner had he lifted the off-spinner within a whisker of the long-on boundary rope than he aimed a brazen slog sweep that skewed from the very toe of his bat and nearly landed in the hands of mid-on.

Australia in safe hands with Wade solid on return

It was therefore understandable that the Australians felt they had paved a way through South Africa’s batting resistance when de Kock was outdone by Hazlewood’s immaculate length and control.

With his broad, usually flashing bat only able to offer a thin edge from a careful defensive push.

But if the Australians sensed they could turn 6-149 to sub-200 all out they had not factored in the defiance and the skill of du Plessis which was so graphically on show at the same ground four years ago, and throughout the past week.

Having started with a rush only to idle past 50 when de Kock was dismissed, du Plessis watched in stoic silence as Vernon Philander was marched on the outcome of a contentious – and immediately reviewed – caught behind ruling.

Philander feather leads to DRS dismissal

He then fashioned a vital 54-run stand with fast bowler Kyle Abbott for the eighth wicket that lifted the tourists beyond 200, and reached his own century shortly after Abbott was dismissed.

A milestone that he greeted more with steely resolve than jubilant celebration as the polite Adelaide Oval applause was punctuated with a steady chorus of jeers.

Not that it fazed the South Africa skipper, who was remained unconquered – as he had on that famous final day four years ago – on 118 as his team ended their first hit-out against the pink ball in international company with the highest total posted in a day-night Test in Australia.

Wade stumping breaks Lyon's wicket drought

Australia: David Warner, Matt Renshaw, Usman Khawaja, Steve Smith (c), Peter Handscomb, Nic Maddinson, Matthew Wade, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon, Jackson Bird

South Africa: Stephen Cook, Dean Elgar, Hashim Amla, JP Duminy, Faf du Plessis (c), Temba Bavuma, Quinton de Kock, Vernon Philander, Kyle Abbott, Kagiso Rabada, Tabraiz Shamsi

Windows 10 Analyser looks at Hazlewood

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