Aiden Markram fired the embers and for the better part of the fourth day looked like he would stoke the fires for an unlikely result. Australia’s Mitchells — Starc and Marsh — again combined for an unexpected but telling double play in their stronger and weaker suits to leave Australia a wicket short of the Test win. SA are on a precarious 293/9, making the 124 runs academic but subjecting their visitors to a night of restless sleep they could have avoided if Nathan Lyon and Steven Smith had removed Quinton de Kock and Morné Morkel in what looked like the twilight stage of a day-night Test. Marsh is the lesser bowler but he snared the crucial wicket of Markram (143), whose third Test ton was SA’s high batting point of a shambolic display. The fortitude displayed by Markram, Theunis de Bruyn (36) and De Kock (81*) in many ways more than made up for SA’s top order capitulating to Australia’s pace attack. It also put the abject first innings in perspective, in which SA was dismissed fo...
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