Labuschagne\u2019s hold on a place in the side is tenuous<\/a> given his continued form struggles though if Smith cannot play he would be extremely unlikely to be omitted.<\/p>\n![\"Australia's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/2b2d9a8c52449da3babb29f5d1787be8.jpeg\")
Australia’s Steven Smith walks back to the pavilion after his dismissal by South Africa’s Wiaan Mulder on day four of the second Test match between South Africa and Australia at St Georges Park in Gqeberha on October 21, 2026. (Photo by Marco Longari \/ AFP)Source: AFP<\/p>\n
Inglis, 31, has played five Tests to date and if Australia does reshuffle the order for the Test at Newlands he is hopeful of making an impact.<\/p>\n
He said he took inspiration from the performance of Matthew Renshaw, who looks likely to resume his spot at the top of the order after facing the red ball in nets sessions this week.<\/p>\n
The Queenslander proved a match winner in the opening Test in Durban when batting at No.5 by producing a magnificent century.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve learnt Test cricket is bloody hard, especially as a batter,\u201d Inglis told The Unplayable podcast.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems like a lot of the wickets are sort of against you nowadays. I think we\u2019ve had some pretty decent wickets here for the first two games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve played a lot more white-ball cricket so I find it more difficult playing red-ball cricket now because when I do, it\u2019s sporadic and you don\u2019t have the rhythm of red ball cricket.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just need to be really well planned, really well prepared, and just have a game plan that you\u2019re going to stick to and do it over and over and over again. I think we saw that with what \u2018Renners\u2019 (Matthew Renshaw) did in the first Test.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could see his method, and it was working, and he stuck to it \u2013 and just batted for long periods. So hopefully, if I\u2019m given him the nod, I\u2019ll look to do the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maddinson batted in the nets on Sunday in Cape Town, while Harper was fielding in the outfield.<\/p>\n
Australian selector George Bailey said the pair would not be discarded and were encouraged to find their form again in the Sheffield Shield.<\/p>\n
Harper was flown to South Africa as a reserve wicketkeeper in place of Inglis, but with the Western Australian now fit to play, he will head back to represent Victoria. <\/p>\n
Test Recall? Konstas smashes 149 | 03:43<\/p>\n
\u201cWould you like more runs in it? Yes, so that\u2019s okay. Did it allow us to set the rest of the team up the way that we wanted to whilst we\u2019re working with the group we have? Yes,\u201d Bailey said, as reported in The Age. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe always talk about what do we see when we see player\u2019s at their best. I think you saw a glimpse of that in the second innings in Durban.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith him going home, it was wanting to be clear to him it wasn\u2019t a stopgap and that\u2019s it, and it\u2019s a discard. The same reasons that and process we work through to get him to be on the table for here, and ultimately to play.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ll be the same questions that we\u2019ll ask across the home summer to India as well. So, just being clear with he and Harps that, yeah, they were here for the right reasons, but yeah, more runs.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Australians will train later on Monday in Cape Town, with captain Pat Cummins due to speak at 2pm local time (11pm AEDT) in a pre-Test press conference.<\/p>\n
The third Test gets underway at 7pm AEDT on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Josh Inglis has conceded Test cricket is \u201cbloody tough\u201d as he forms for a return to the Australian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":941430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,85],"class_list":["post-941429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941429","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=941429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/941430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=941429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=941429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}