Scorecard<\/a><\/p>\nFor much of Monday it appeared rain would deny any meaningful play taking place on day two of the second Test between South Africa and Australia.<\/p>\n
In the end, the hosts may have wished that remained the case as their top-order frailties were exposed once again in Gqeberha. <\/p>\n
With the Proteas 97-5 at the close, the balance of power in the series remains firmly with Australia.<\/p>\n
It took Australia’s metronome Scott Boland only seven deliveries to add to his two wickets taken amid the rain on day one.<\/p>\n
Relentless in his line and lengths, the 37-year-old found the perfect length to drag debutant Marques Ackerman onto the front foot.<\/p>\n
Ackerman defended nicely for 38 balls but here he neither defended nor unleashed a drive. <\/p>\n
Instead, he stumbled forward and became the 85th victim of Boland’s 20-Test career as he nicked through to wicketkeeper Alex Carey.<\/p>\n
Boland ended the day with 4-31 as he, once again, emphatically pushed his case.<\/p>\n
That Ackerman, one of two batting changes from their first-Test defeat, was opening the batting against the red ball for the first time in his career pointed to the issues South Africa face.<\/p>\n
The other new face, Matthew Breetzke, was brought in on the back of his white-ball form after Tristan Stubbs played two poor strokes in the first Test. <\/p>\n
Breetzke’s feet barely moved in making four from 17. He was eventually dismissed trying to force Mitchell Starc loosely through the covers off the back foot.<\/p>\n
A result of Ackerman’s selection was Ryan Rickelton, another fine white-ball player with a modest red-ball record, being moved from opener to number six and wicketkeeper. <\/p>\n
After top-edging a pull last week, he was worked over by Pat Cummins’ bouncers late on day two. <\/p>\n
He had already been hit on the body and dropped on 26 by Marnus Labuschagne when, stuck on the crease, he edged Boland while pushing tentatively outside off stump.<\/p>\n
On another day the ball would have found the turf but Matt Renshaw stuck out a right hand at first slip and somehow scooped the ball up above the ground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Second Test, Gqeberha (day two of five) South Africa 97-5: Bavuma 41*; Boland 4-31 Australia: Yet to bat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-635531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}