In one of the most anticipated non-Ashes Tests in history, Australia return to South African shores hoping to bury infamous memories of 2018 as the Proteas look to inflict more scars.
For the first time since the sandpaper scandal shook Australian cricket to its core, South Africa will host Pat Cummins’ side in a rare home series.
The Proteas will be without star Kagiso Rabada but will be favourites against an unsettled Australian batting line-up and question marks over their aging side.
Recap the action below.
That’s that
Bad light brings play to an end in the midst of Australia’s best patch of the day.
Another top-order batting collapse has them in all sorts of trouble with the Porteas facing batting in the best conditions should they get early wickets tomorrow.
We’ll be back on Saturday for day two!
Stumps
Play has been called off for the day as the covers come out onto the ground.
Australia end the day on 6-187 with Matthew Renshaw on 46 and Pat Cummins 33.
We may catch up some overs tomorrow with an earlier start.
While we wait
This series is Australia’s highly anticipated return to South Africa for their first Test series since Sandpapergate.
In 2018, cricket in this country was shook by the team cheating by tampering with the ball in Cape Town.
Getting darker
The light has gotten worse since the teams both went off.
Durban is known for this and that’s why the start time is half an hour earlier than normal.
Still not enough!
Hovering
The umpires are hovering around in the middle but there’s no real movement.
It’s very hard for conditions to change once bad light is called but we still have an hour of play.
Bad light!
The umpires are doing a check for light and the players are being pulled off the ground as Nortje fires up.
There is a new rule in place that if both teams agree to change to a pink ball we can continue, but given Australia’s troubles with the red ball, I doubt they will be very keen.
AUS 6-187
Great partnership
Renshaw and Cummins and have taken their partnership past 50.
And they are showing how much easy it is to bat if you can survive until the ball gets soft.
This pitch will be very good for batting in the next few days.
Spin will end up being the biggest danger.
AUS 6-187
Nortje back
South Africa have turned back to the enforcer as grey clouds begin to cover Kingsmead.
The Proteas want to break this partnership with Renshaw and Cummins slowly but surely edging Australia towards 200.
The ball is getting soft now so he may need to change his approach awat from the short ball.
AUS 6-173
Risky but runs
Harmer has started well again after the break and Cummins has decided to sweep with a leg slip coming in.
It gets the top edge but it lands safe for two.
Harmer answers by opening up covers and asking the Aussie skipper to drive against the spin.
Might be worth a couple of half volleys to lull him.
AUS 6-161
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