South Africa vs Australia 2018, 4th Test, Day 4: 5 Talking points
Riding on a fantastic ton from skipper Faf du Plessis, a fighting 81 from Dean Elgar and a couple of unbeaten 30s from Temba Bavuma and Vernon Philander helped South Africa stretch their lead to 612.
With a mammoth target in front of them, Australia began well as the openers Matt Renshaw and Joe Burns fought hard for 12 overs before Morne Morkel came back from injury and picked up both openers to give South Africa an opening.
Meanwhile, Khawaja was out to a controversial decision as the Australian No. 3 tried to play a belated shot and the umpire deemed it no shot offered and was given out LBW.
With Australia three down, they face an uphill task of batting out the entire day tomorrow and eking out a draw.
#5 A delayed start, but South Africa continue with the same approach as Day 3
In the final session, South Africa had shown grit and patience. With the pitch misbehaving, they didn’t look for quick runs, instead, they were content in defending displaying great patience.
Resuming at 134/3, one expected them to get on with things and score quickly. However, nothing of that sort happened as South Africa continued their approach that they followed on the third day. They were patient and waited for the bad deliveries. It was only at the introduction of spin that Faf du Plessis tried to attack and be aggressive.
On the other hand, Dean Elgar continued to fight hard. He remained on his overnight score of 39 almost for an hour. He scored his first run of the day off the 25th delivery he faced today. The crowd greeted it with cheers. Elgar sported a smile too as he drove a Chadd Sayers delivery to cover for a couple of runs.
South Africa scored 68 runs in 20 overs in a truncated first session and the declaration was nowhere in sight.