Pat Cummins has admitted his Australian team were “a long way away from our best” after being humiliated at St George’s Park, first razed by 99 by the red-hot South African hosts before then being forced to follow-on and limping to just 295 all out in a brutal loss.
Not often have the modern Aussies looked this lost, with the 13-wicket day the most one of our teams has conceded since a similar woeful outing in Newlands in 2011.
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Just as humiliating, it’s the first time South Africa have been able to force Australia to follow-on since the 1969-70 tour, which was the last time the two international Test sides met before the end of Apartheid.
Sure, Marco Jansen was in top form as he claimed 5-33 and then 1-34, and Kagiso Rabada’s pace tormented the Australians, but it was largely there to be won and wasn’t.
We were a long way away from our best. Across the board, just not enough of us contributed. Ideally, we’d be scoring more runs. The pitch was pretty good,” Cummins said in his sombre post-Test address this morning.
Scotty Boland and Trav [Head] both played their roles really well,” the skipper added, “but it was a fair way to come back from, and it wasn’t quite enough.”
Head and Boland were the lone bright spots in an otherwise insipid — some pundits have called it “gutless” already — batting show. Boland especially did his work well as the nightwatchman, facing 189 balls and bagging 40 runs in the process. Head alongside him ticked up 121, but it was far from enough.
“Disappointing, I think that’s the word that I’d use to sum it up,” Andrew McDonald said before the last day was even finished, pointing to Australia’s batting.
“When you talk about being disappointed, some of the shots that we played in the scenario, we knew we had a lot of work to do at the start of the day, and yeah, I think some of the shots some of the players played, they’d take back.
“We spoke about it before play today at the back of the nets, and yeah, you’re always identifying small moments, the big moments that everyone sees, and this was one of those in terms of how far we were behind.”
The game could still have been won after Day Four, he was quick to add, but his team “weren’t able to seize that… and we put ourselves in this position.”
Questions will now be raised for at least three of the batting corps, especially Marnus Labuschagne, Beau Webster, and fresh opener Nic Maddinson. The latter was out for a duck in the first Gqeberha innings off just four balls, then dished up eight runs in the follow-on; he’s odds-on to be dropped.
Labuschagne should also be nowhere near the starting eleven in what has now become a Test series decider in Cape Town, after he raked in just 14 and 39, while Webster’s 13 and eight have put him squarely in the lights, too.
Only Head, Steve Smith (injured), and Durban hero Matt Renshaw can be considered “safe” from any swinging axes before the next Test starts on October 27.
The attack will also largely stay unchanged, after they did their best at St George’s Park.
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