{"id":925235,"date":"2026-10-12T09:02:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T09:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/925235\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T09:02:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T09:02:17","slug":"australia-vs-south-africa-live-first-test-cricket-series-under-way-in-durban-australia-seek-to-extend-first-innings-lead-on-day-four","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/925235\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia vs South Africa LIVE: First Test cricket series under way in Durban; Australia seek to extend first innings lead on day four"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Australia\u2019s commanding position was certainly set up by Matthew Renshaw\u2019s 190. But the bowlers stood tall on day three. Starc (2-63), Hazlewood (2-54), Cummins (3-54) and spinner Lyon (2-58) all played their part. Beau Webster snared one too, taking 1-23. Steve Smith, meanwhile, took four fine catches, including a couple of classics to move ahead of Joe Root (220) for the most catches from an outfielder. <\/p>\n<p>The Proteas were their own worst enemies. Four of the top six got to 30, but none of them passed 50. Kerry O\u2019Keeffe just said on Fox Cricket that \u201cthere are no demons\u201d in this wicket and that\u2019s true. The bounce is consistent, there\u2019s no roaring spin and there was not much swing out there for the quicks either. Instead, Australia\u2019s quicks, led by captain Pat Cummins, relied on pace, line and length. Oh, and some poor batsmanship from South Africa\u2019s batsmen. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Australia\u2019s captain Pat Cummins\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/5a285a10c2ff3eca9c8a8141102d7668aecbf090.jpeg\"  class=\"sc-d34e428-1 ldCIuB\"\/>Australia\u2019s captain Pat CumminsAP Photo\/Themba Hadebe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s commanding position was certainly set up by Matthew Renshaw\u2019s 190. But the bowlers stood tall on day&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":925236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-925235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=925235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/925236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=925235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=925235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=925235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}