Quick Wrap: South Africa six wickets away

In the enforced absence of wounded strike bowler Dale Steyn, South Africa needed the next generation of heroes to step up and claim a first Test victory that they deserve to complete tomorrow.

But those who have penned and championed the Rainbow Nation’s affirmative action policies designed to ensure work places, sports teams and broader society better reflects the complex country’s racial profile could scarcely have scripted a more poignant chapter.

As the poster boys for black Africans in the Proteas line-up – diminutive batsman Temba Bavuma and exciting fast bowler Kagiso Rabada – carried their team to the cusp of a remarkable win in the first Commonwealth Bank Test against Australia.

Quick Single: Passionate Rabada leads by example

Bavuma with an act of fielding magician-ship that would have left Colin Bland and Jonty Rhodes gasping, and Rabada with the other three crucial wickets to assert the mantle of leader of the South Africa attack in the likely long-term absence of Steyn due to his shoulder fracture.

On the back of Rabada’s late double-strike, where he knocked over Australia captain Steve Smith and veteran Adam Voges in consecutive overs of exemplary, mature pace bowling, South Africa is six wickets away from victory heading into the final day.

Rabada's superb over claims Voges

While the Australians sit a yawning, impossible 370 runs away from their target and needing their flaky lower order to survive a full 90-over day to steal a draw after being set a victory target (539) that has never been achieved and rarely been contemplated in Test cricket’s 139-year history.

With under-scrutiny pair Usman Khawaja (58no) and Mitchell Marsh (15no) the final recognised batsmen remaining to mount that fight.

For all the speculation wafting through broadcast and social media as to when the South Africans should declare their innings closed in the morning session, they were never going to consider such a move if the Australians were unable to bowl them out.

Even if they had a fit Dale Steyn in their armoury and weren’t forced to rely on the parklands calibre medium-pace of opener Stephen Cook as a third seam option, the Proteas had no reason to get their opponents back into bat early.

De Kock hammers another half-century

With zero threat of rain forecast between lunch time Sunday and stumps time Monday, and with each passing hour of wear and tear and sunshine widening the cracks and boosting the degree of batting difficulty, making haste slowly was a sensible strategy.

Not to mention the attritional value of keeping Australia’s bowlers at their task for another hour or two, wearying their limbs and darkening their collective mood in the knowledge the second Test in Hobart was but a week away from starting.

Perth pitch playing tricks on Khawaja

If the threat posed by the Australian attack in today’s morning session provided an accurate guide, then that ploy of keeping them out there paid off handsomely.

Rarely has a touring team’s number seven and eight batters, facing a fourth-day pitch and one of the world’s higher-ranked Test bowling line-ups, negotiated a full session with so few moments of alarm.

Vernon Philander on song with the bat

The only moments of concern for wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock and seamer Vernon Philander as they added an additional 118 runs from 31 overs between resumption and luncheon were the dismissals signalled by umpires Aleem Dar and Nigel Llong in turn.

Quick Single: De Kock 'the closest to Gilchrist' we've seen

An appeal for a legside catch from Josh Hazlewood and an lbw shout from Nathan Lyon, both against de Kock and both overturned upon the batsman immediately asking for a second opinion.

Of course, de Kock should not have made it to the batting crease on day four having been missed (on one) the previous evening when a miscued pull shot fell between the desperately outstretched hands of a diving Adam Voges.

Quick Single: The records Australia must break to win

One of what became a triumvirate of missed high balls after Josh Hazlewood got his footwork and hand placement all wrong as he skirted the fine leg rope, and gifted Philander (then 29, eventually 73) six runs instead of hauling in the generous offering from Starc’s bowling.

Luck eludes Australia early on day four

The employment of Voges’ left-arm spin and Steve Smith leggies either side of the lunch break seemed to indicate that the Australians, like the global television audience, felt the time had arrived for the pin to be pulled.

However, there was one final frolic to be had as de Kock, Philander and reed-thin left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj piled salt into the suppurating wounds opened during two days of relentless South African dominance by taking the long handle.

Back-to-back maximums to Maharaj

And, effectively, the mickey.

Adding 32 from three overs as they piled into Lyon who finished with 0-146 – his least productive spell as a Test bowler – before du Plessis waved them in upon Philander’s dismissal with the lead a towering 538.

First session, D4, Australia v South Africa

Which, if Australia was to entertain in a moment of reduced lucidity, was going to take an even heftier opening stand than the 158 that David Warner and Shaun Marsh built in the first innings before the match turned rapidly and indelibly on its head.

Contrastingly, the South Africans were doubtless hopeful an early act of inspiration might pave the way for their third consecutive Test win at a venue where they’re now unlikely to be drawn to play at again.

But nobody from either camp could have foreseen just how incandescent that moment might be, when it arrived in the form of a gravity defying, logic challenging run out executed by Bavuma.

Anticipating that the soft push Warner made to the off-side from deep in his crease, and then sensing that the fleet-footed opener might have left himself a little skinny with his immediate call for a single, Bavuma summed up the significance of the situation in a blink.

Bavuma brilliance catches Warner short

Attacking the ball at an angle that allowed him to get away a shy at the bowler’s end stumps, but which was so unnatural that he had no choice but to execute the throw while airborne and parallel to the turf, his act of genius caught Warner almost unaware.

As well as a crucial breadth short of safety, conjuring a breakthrough where none rightly deserved to exist.

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And which, in the increasingly familiar pattern of Australia’s batting wobbles, immediately brought another when Marsh edged Rabada to second slip three balls later.

The freefall of batsmen that so changed the complexion of this match on Friday afternoon looked likely to repeat when Khawaja was deemed caught behind the very next delivery.

Classy Khawaja hits crucial half-century

Only for a temporary stay to be granted when the number three’s instinctive call to review found no evidence his bat was near the ball.

Thus completing a day that was forgettable for the on-field officials, but nowhere near as abject as it was for the home team.

Whose admittedly unrealistic hopes of dragging out a draw in defiance of history, odds and recent batting form all but disappeared when the "wickets in clumps" curse returned to curtail Smith and Voges’ involvement in a game where too few Australians have exerted a presence.

Clarke's insight to Proteas success

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