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No-ball hurts SA as Warner fires

Opener gets an early life and then hammers Proteas bowlers in reply to the tourists' 242

The first step of Australia’s Test cricket renaissance was negotiated with barely a stumble at the outset of the home summer as South Africa surrendered a priceless chance to seize the series initiative on day one.

Notwithstanding the coin toss that Steve Smith surrendered – taking his recent record to four consecutive losses – pretty much everything fell into place for his team from the very first over of the opening Test.

Warner flays Proteas in speedy fifty

A far cry from their disastrous 0-3 whitewash in their previous Test campaign in Sri Lanka.

While pretty much all that the tourists tried came up short, and they face some urgent scrambling to remain in the first of three Commonwealth Bank Tests having been bowled out 242 in just 63.4 overs.

And then found themselves powerless to stop a freewheeling David Warner (73no from 62 balls) and his new opening partner Shaun Marsh (29no) rattle up a century stand for the first wicket in the 21 overs that remained before stumps.

Warner goes flat out at the WACA

If not for a sprightly 84 from 101 deliveries by 23-year-old wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock in his first Test on Australian soil, the Proteas sobering scenario would be considerably more serious.

As it stands, they face the need for not just quick wickets but a pile of them in a hurry tomorrow to stop this one slipping beyond their reach almost before it’s started.

De Kock lifts Proteas with half-century

There were a couple of occasions during the course of a largely one-sided day when the South Africans might have allowed themselves to think they had wriggled themselves back into the contest.

The sixth-wicket stand between Temba Bavuma and de Kock that carried their team (marginally) past 150 after the innings rested on a knife-edge at 5-81.

Brave Bavuma makes fighting fifty

And then the defiant innings of de Kock, whose strokeplay – as fearless as it was crisp – deserved the century he ultimately cost himself when he tried to manipulate the strike in the final overs and perished in an ill-judged attempt to do so.

Quick Single: Pietersen calls for de Kock to open

But ultimately two scores of 50-plus alongside eight contributions of less than 20 succinctly told the Proteas tale of woe after they had the choice to bat first, and failed to make muster on a pitch that offered true bounce and healthy (but even) pace.

Quick Single: Super Starc king of the opening spells

Though not nearly as fast as the expansive outfield that gave up 46 boundaries in the course of less than 85 overs as batters found leaning on the ball and guiding it into gaps delivered maximum return for minimal effort.

Watch all 10 South African wickets

As they gathered in their dressing room, from which none of the current 16-man touring party has ever looked out upon a Test match loss, the visitors must have rued a series of opportunities missed.

With perhaps none more costly than the lbw shout against Warner (when on 17) that was denied on the field, but would have been overturned on appeal had the video evidence not convicted Vernon Philander of a flagrant no-ball thus triggering an immediate mistrial.

Philander no ball saves Warner

South Africa’s decision, contrary to all pre-game soothsaying, to install uncapped left-arm orthodox spinner Keshav Maharaj at the expense of a fourth seamer – Morne Morkel or Kyle Abbott – might well have been influenced by a visual assessment of the WACA pitch.

Specifically the sight of a vein of green grass charting an erratic course along the length of the track.

Not that Maharaj, who recently claimed 13 wickets for the Durban-based Dolphins in a domestic first-class fixture at East London last month, was going to find the jagged sward beneficial to his spin.

'What is that?!'

But the grass was in place to hold together a crack in the surface that – with temperatures expected to push above 30C tomorrow and Saturday – is likely to gape increasingly wide and could make batting problematic come days four and five.

And while that judgement, likely also influenced by the frailties Australia’s batters exhibited against the left-arm spin of Rangana Herath in Sri Lanka, might yet be proved right, it was deeply undermined by the Proteas first couple of hours with the bat.

Aussie quicks trigger top-order collapse

When the visitors opted to bat knowing the pitch would be at is fastest, bounciest and most WACA-ish and then failed utterly to set up the Test by collapsing to five-down in the minutes just after lunch.

The implosion punctuated by a string of dismissals that owed something to the nature of the wicket, but nothing to its most striking green-tinged feature.

The template was penned just four deliveries into the summer when opener Stephen Cook fell in pretty much the same manner and for pretty much the same paucity of runs as he had in last week's tour match in Adelaide, although it did take a blinding gully catch from Mitchell Marsh to render Cook’s previously unproductive tour totally barren.

Marsh snares screamer as Starc strikes early

A contribution matched by Hashim Amla, who was caught on the crease and at second slip as a consequence, before a couple of line-ball decisions fell in the bowling team’s favour.

WATCH: Which Marsh caught it better?

As is so often the case when a side is already engaged in a premature rearguard fight.

Cook’s opening partner Dean Elgar – known as ‘The Bulldog’ within the Proteas group in deference to his liking for a scrap – succumbed meekly when caught in two minds and ultimately failing to successfully withdraw his bat.

Super Starc sizzles in Perth

And was similarly vexed in contemplating a review, which he ultimately opted against only for the video evidence of the edge adjudged by umpire Aleem Dar to appear far from conclusive.

JP Duminy, who seemed to counsel Elgar against sending the decision to a higher authority, invoked the DRS when he was similarly given out by Nigel Llong 12 runs later.

Siddle joins the pre-lunch party

But that lack of definitive proof that the ball had brushed his leg but not his bat was absent and at that point South Africa were eyeing a catastrophe at 4-32 after barely an hour of the series.

Having negotiated safe passage to lunch on the back of captain Faf du Plessis’s counter-punching 37 in almost an hour and a half, the skipper added his entry to the array of loose shots when he aimed an ill-judged back foot punch drive at the sixth ball after the meal break.

And almost got it past first slip, but for Adam Voges’ unerring reach.

Which Marsh flew better?

By that stage the pitch was beginning to flatten out as the ball coincidentally lost its sheen and hardness and South Africa’s lower middle-order was able to fashion a few face-saving partnerships.

The 71 from 94 balls that de Kock fashioned with Bavuma, and which threatened to go bigger after Bavuma reached a patient half century with a clinical cover drive only to pop a half chance to short leg.

Which Shaun Marsh turned into a full dismissal with an intuitive, diving catch at short leg.

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