{"id":943780,"date":"2026-10-28T09:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T09:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/943780\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T09:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T09:22:10","slug":"australia-vs-south-africa-2026-live-cricket-scores-third-test-day-2-highlights-results-latest-updates-new-openers-start-steady-after-disgraceful-proteas-collapse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/943780\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia vs South Africa 2026 LIVE cricket scores: Third Test, Day 2 highlights, results, latest updates; New openers start steady after \u2018disgraceful\u2019 Proteas collapse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s an air of mystery surrounding Steve Smith.<\/p>\n<p>The 37-year-old struggled with a neck injury in the second Test, but all signs pointed towards him taking his place for the series finale.<\/p>\n<p>But when the team was unveiled by skipper Pat Cummins on Tuesday night (AEDT), Smith wasn\u2019t there and it forced more changes to the side.<\/p>\n<p>News Corp reported after the toss that Smith made the call to withdraw himself from the XI, despite physios clearing him to face the Proteas.<\/p>\n<p>SEN\u2019s Gerard Whateley believes the vice-captain\u2019s decision didn\u2019t go down well with Cummins, who opted to win the toss and bowl in Cape Town.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAustralia expected Smith to play, and then he couldn\u2019t get up, or he didn\u2019t get up. He made the decision not to play,\u201d Whately said. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI reckon it was a bit undisguised in what Pat Cummins said at the toss. I think in a pique of anger, he went \u2018bugger it\u2019. He doesn\u2019t believe in the batting group, there\u2019s enough evidence of that &#8230; and he thought we [bowling group] will handle it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/9c5817a603bad71934f0cb0b47934898ae138a5b.jpeg\"  width=\"100%\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"_0b53bae146db0b62 _7475dd3391ee1518\" style=\"--text-color:var(--color-text-secondary)\">Steve Smith on the final day of the second Test.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s an air of mystery surrounding Steve Smith. The 37-year-old struggled with a neck injury in the second&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":943781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-943780","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\/943780","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=943780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/943781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=943780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=943780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=943780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}