There is no Test cricket sound at once so rousing and so depressing as the echo of bat on ball. It means the shot has been sweetly struck, but also that the arena is nearly empty. This was how it was when Australia played in Cape Town in the astonishing 47 all-out match in 2011, and even more so when it hit back to win a thriller in Johannesburg a week later.

It was, you imagine, how it was in Durban in the recent Boxing Day Test between South Africa and India. It was the great Jacques Kallis' valedictory Test, and he made a hundred, yet the aggregate crowd for the five days was fewer than for the least attended single day of the contemporaneous Ashes Test at the MCG. There were many booming echoes in Durban that week.

Crowds flock to the Boxing Day Test at the MCG, but it's a different story for Test cricket in South Africa. Credit:Justin McManus

On Wednesday, Australia takes up cudgels against South Africa again. Notionally, it is a series that sells itself: the entrenched No.1 team in the world hosting an Australian team still on a high after the miracle of the Ashes, now playing to displace India at No.2. Temperamentally alike, their contests are always furiously fought.

Yet two weeks ago, South African captain Graeme Smith was impelled to tweet: ''I understand people are back at work/school but really hope people turn out in droves and put their weight behind SA cricket next month!'' His post was retweeted 260 times and favourited 94 times, which hardly amounts to a clamour up and down the republic to bring it on.