Smith\u2019s neck injury forced a fourth change on match morning<\/a>, with Beau Webster, Scott Boland and Nic Maddinson also making way for Josh Inglis, Cameron Green, Cooper Connolly and Nathan Lyon.<\/p>\nReports on Test eve revealed Boland was set to make way for the returning Lyon, despite his five-wicket haul and defiant 40 with the bat to be one of few Australians to excel in a disastrous second Test loss in Gqeberha.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the eighth time in a career just shy of five years old that the Victorian has been axed, despite a stunning record featuring 87 wickets from 20 Tests at an average of just 18.44.<\/p>\n
But Boland was reduced to holding the tape measure for Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood at Newlands on match morning, as the pace trio marked out their run-ups.<\/p>\n
Confirming Boland\u2019s omission at the coin toss, captain Pat Cummins said the call was \u201cvery hard\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s such a class player,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs it was hard to leave out Nathan Lyon last week. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a good problem to have, but you could consider him very unlucky.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the Fox Cricket studio, former great Mark Waugh spoke for many when he said he was \u201creally surprised\u201d by the call – especially with Cummins winning the toss and electing to bowl first for the second straight match.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would have snuck him in there somewhere, especially when you\u2019re bowling first,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just would have played Boland. I know it would have been very tough on either Hazlewood or Starc, but to me, he was our best bowler by a long way (in the second Test). <\/p>\n
\u201cForget about his batting – he was actually our best batsman too in the second innings!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a tricky one, but I think when someone\u2019s in really good form, you should play them.\u201d<\/p>\n
“Got a couple of years left in me!” | 02:43<\/p>\n
When pushed by co-panellists David Warner, Kerry O\u2019Keeffe and Brendon Julian as to who he\u2019d have left out, Waugh nominated Starc as the likeliest candidate to make way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think Mitchell Starc\u2019s bowling as well as he has done for a while, but that\u2019s a tough call on him. I definitely would have played Boland,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Keeffe, though, questioned the choice to recall Lyon, with Cummins revealing at the toss Australia\u2019s belief the pitch had \u201cmoisture\u201d to exploit early on.<\/p>\n
A similar line of thinking saw the team go with Boland as a fourth seamer in the second Test, though Lyon\u2019s control was badly missed in the later stages of the Proteas\u2019 long first innings.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf your intention when you won the toss was to bowl, why do you play Nathan Lyon instead of Boland? If that was your mindset?\u201d O\u2019Keeffe wondered.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s their thinking \u2013 if the ball gets soft and it flattens out, then Boland is expendable. But we haven\u2019t seen it yet, his numbers don\u2019t suggest he is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Warner, meanwhile, questioned Cooper Connolly\u2019s recall in the middle order, with Beau Webster making way.<\/p>\n
Australia set to announce three changes | 02:03<\/p>\n
Webster had served as an extra seamer to start the series, with the former Australian opener surprised that Connolly\u2019s part-time spin has been preferred, with the returning Cameron Green unlikely to bowl.<\/p>\n
\u201cWould you not have kept Webster there as an extra fast bowler?\u201d Warner asked. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve brought in Connolly as a spinner, if you\u2019re going to bowl first and you know you\u2019re going to bowl first. <\/p>\n
\u201cI know we\u2019re short of runs, but do you need that extra fast bowler?\u201d <\/p>\n
However, despite pumping for Boland to be retained, Waugh admitted that Australia\u2019s chances of winning the match and the series are unlikely to be decided by the make-up of the bowling attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, whichever quick they didn\u2019t play is probably not going to lose this Test match – our batting is,\u201d he told Fox Cricket.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to bat so much better. (It was) inexcusable the way we batted in that last Test, to lose 14 wickets on one day on a pretty good batting wicket.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we bat like that again it doesn\u2019t matter who bowls, we\u2019ll get beat again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former greats David Warner and Mark Waugh have questioned the make-up of Australia\u2019s Test team, after Pat Cummins…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":942953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,85,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-942952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942952","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=942952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/942953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=942952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=942952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=942952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}