Dean Elgar and AB De Villiers, of course he did, put the fight back in South Africa, before a couple of key wickets from Nathan Lyon gave the edge to Australia in an absorbing Day one of the second Test in Port Elizabeth.
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The match is set for a 10.30 am local time (2 pm IST) start with live coverage on Ten Cricket and Ten HD in India. The action can also be watched via live streaming online in India HERE. Viewers in Africa can catch the action live online HERE. The match can be watched via live streaming in Australia HERE. UK viewers can live stream the match HERE, while US viewers can do the same HERE.
Elgar was asked to open the batting for the Proteas, with Quinton De Kock coming into the lineup for Alviro Petersen, and the batsman, who suffered a major disappointment earlier this week when Cricket South Africa dropped him from the contracted players' list, came out fighting, scoring an impressive 83 to help South Africa to 214 for five at the close of play.
Day 2 will be about De Villiers and Mitchell Johnson, who managed just one wicket on the opening day, albeit the vital one of Hashim Amla, as South Africa look to post a total well beyond 300 and Australia target getting into the tail-enders and letting the left-arm express bowler run through the lower order.
"They are a world-class batting lineup," said Lyon, who picked up the two key wickets of Elgar and Faf Du Plessis, who made 55. "To have them five-down on a pretty slow wicket and pretty flat wicket with an extremely fast outfield is a great effort by the Australian bowlers , and we're pretty happy with where the game is sitting right now.
"We have to come up with the new ball tomorrow [Friday] morning and hopefully there is a little bit more assistance there, either up or down and hopefully we can get the ball moving some way. Then we can hopefully take five wickets and our batters can have a decent crack."
De Villiers is batting on 51, along with JP Duminy (2), and Elgar believes any decent total could be a good one on a Port Elizabeth pitch which is as slow as it has been for a while.
"At one stage, it was like I couldn't get sand in the desert," Elgar said of his travails while batting. "It was hard graft.
Port Elizabeth plays like this -- low and slow. It's a patience game. This is the slowest I've seen Port Elizabeth play in a while but it's also credit to the Australian bowlers. They identified the conditions and adapted."
De Villiers, by crossing the half-century mark, created a record by becoming the first batsman to complete a fifth in 12 consecutive Tests, crossing the mark of 11 set by Vivian Richards, Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir.
"He's a world-class player. Right now he's at the top of his game, and credit to him," Lyon said of the unstoppable South African. "That's a really good record, congrats to him. It's a great challenge for me. I'm loving bowling to him. You always feel in the game even though you're bowling to the number-one batter in the world."
