Perth — To the list of people from whom much will be expected if the first Test between Australia and SA in Perth is to live up to its billing, add that of Matt Page. Who? Like the Australians who had not a clue who Dane Vilas was when SA’s reserve wicketkeeper was introduced to the crowd at the launch of the series on Sunday, South Africans would be forgiven for not knowing a thing about Page. But he is an important part of the first Test equation as the groundsman at the Waca — the venue once famed and feared as the place fast bowlers’ preferred to heaven itself. Bouncers at the Waca do not boom quite as high and handsome as they did when Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson unleashed them in the days when there were as few restrictions on bowlers as there were on the size of their moustaches. Those conditions have ebbed, and they reached a low there in November, when Australia declared on 559/9 and New Zealand replied with 624 in a Test that seemed doomed to be drawn from the first hou...
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