Key events
9th over: South Africa 27-1 (Markram 15, Bedingham 12) Bedingham drives the first ball of the day crisply to mid-off. No runs but a promising start.
Time for the action. Pat Cummins has a couple of balls remaining in his first over; David Bedingham is on strike.
Matt Renshaw speaks to Mark Howard
It’s been a long time coming and I probably didn’t think I’d be in this situation. It’s pretty special to be able to help the team out in an important Test match.
I had an opportunity in 2023 and didn’t take that. After that I had a look and went, ‘Yeah I wanna play muy cricket this way’ and not stress about whether I was gonna play for Australia again. I wasn’t really thinking about that, never mind making a Test hundred.
When you open the batting so much, you get used to leaving the ball. With the situation we were in, it was about surviving for as long as I could. I got called boring by Josh Inglis this morning!
[On attacking the spinners] They’ve got two world-class spinners and I tried to put them off their length as much as I could, and trying to get a few boundaries with some safe risks.
“These may be famous last words, but you’d want to bat out here,” says Mark Nicholas on the South African TV coverage. “It looks a superb surface.”
The Durban pitch is expected to turn more and more as the match progresses, so South Africa’s batters will be desperate to cash in today. If they are batting at stumps – well, when bad light forces an early close – all results will be on the table.
Geoff Lemon
Day two report
If the choice to ask Nic Maddinson to open in Durban was a bust, the upside for Australia was that it pushed Matthew Renshaw down to number five. From there, the Queenslander returned from 10 years on the periphery to the centre of the spotlight in the first Test against South Africa, with an innings of 190 that saved Australia from peril, settled them into stability, then lifted them to dominance.
Staunch support from the lower order was the other part of the equation, as Renshaw batted through two extended sessions until he was last man out, just after tea, with Australia’s 390 followed by South Africa’s 27 for one before stumps.
Imagine the likelihood, with the score at 124 for six on the first day, that Renshaw might go on, not just to score his second Test century, but to exceed that career high of 184? His secret was that there was no secret, just the most common formula known to the game: patience, concentration and pacing. Continuing in the style of his unbeaten 46 from day one, Renshaw defended calmly, kept the score moving with singles and picked off the odd poor ball.
Preamble
Rob Smyth
We were promised a slow turner in Durban. So far, as is often the case on such pitches, we’ve had a slow burner. Only 11 wickets fell on the first two days, with the momentum crawling back towards Australia during Matthew Renshaw’s extraordinary innings.
Renshaw’s Test-best, probably career-defining 190 helped Australia recover from 124 for 6 to 390 all out, with South Africa reaching 27 for 1 before bad light intervened. It means we have a big day ahead at Kingsmead – one that should shape the match, and could shape the entire series.