Siddle must bowl faster: Lehmann

Quick Single: Report from day one at Newlands

Peter Siddle was dropped from Australia's Test side for the first time in two and a half years, with Australia coach Darren Lehmann admitting it was purely a matter of pace.

National selectors added James Pattinson to Australia's pace battery for the series decider against South Africa in Cape Town, but Lehmann indicated he had no doubt the Victorian seamer – who was last excluded for form reasons alone more than two years ago – would rediscover his pace and come back into selection calculations in the near future.

“He’s fully fit, we just wanted the extra pace and James (Pattinson) gives us that,” Lehmann said.

“They’re producing wickets which don’t have much grass on them and take reverse so we want the extra pace here and he’s a fresh bowler, which is great.

“He (Pattinson) is as keen as mustard.

“(It’s) unlucky for Sids because he’s done a great job for us over the last few Tests but we’ve gone for the extra pace.

“He (Siddle) would like some more wickets obviously but it’s the pace drop.

“We need him bowling 140 and at the moment he’s averaging 131, 132.

“He knows that, we’ve spoken to him and I’m sure he will be back bigger and stronger.”

The decision to axe Marsh and replace him with Watson was effectively made because of the extra bowling option that the all-rounder provides, though Lehmann conceded Marsh was unfortunate to lose his place just two matches after playing two vitally important innings – including a Test career-best 148 – in the opening match of the series at Centurion.

“We love to have five bowlers (and) Shane (Watson) has pulled up well,” Lehmann said.

“He’s good to go, so it’s nice to have the all-rounder back, which gives us another option.

“We had to make a choice and that’s the difficult job as selectors.

“We have to get 20 wickets to start with and obviously make a lot of runs.

“Shaun is very unlucky.

“(But) at the start of the tour we were probably going to shape up as we have today.”