South Africa v Australia: third men’s cricket Test, day four – live

56th over: South Africa 158-4 (Breetzke 24, Rickelton 21) Lyon with four fielders in a star formation around the right-handed Breetzke, and you sense that Lyon is where the persistent menace will be. Big turn, and a few little yelps and murmurs from the fielders as Breetzke isn’t far from popping one up.

55th over: South Africa 157-4 (Breetzke 24, Rickelton 20) Hazlewood on for a jam roll. Rickelton doesn’t play him badly, tries to go as gently at the ball as possible, so when an edge is found, it rolls away for a couple of runs. The South African have been good this morning, haven’t tried to force the pace like their top order did yesterday to the team’s detriment.

54th over: South Africa 154-4 (Breetzke 24, Rickelton 17) The left-hander keeps chopping Lyon behind point, a run there, then Breetzke plays tip-and-run to mid on. Umpire Illingworth scolds him for running down the middle of the pitch, but it was a tight one, he might have been out had be detoured to the side. Not that you’re allowed to traipse up and down the centre of the strip all day, even with that excuse. You get leeway on one of those, then probably a warning on the next.

Match calculations here are easy: South Africa’s lead is their score minus 100. They lead by 54.

53rd over: South Africa 151-4 (Breetzke 23, Rickelton 15) Starc goes around the wicket to Breetzke, and is going at him. The batter is getting drawn into the conflict, a bit of lip flying back and forth. Starc is bowling rapidly, and that angle into the right hander can be difficult. Breetzke negotiates the over, defending and ducking where he can, but Starc looks dangerous. No runs.

52nd over: South Africa 151-4 (Breetzke 23, Rickelton 15) There they go! Rickelton gets a ball from Lyon that is not exactly short, but the batter gets back and leans away to make the length and the width he wants, cuts behind point for four. One good partnership and this could very much be South Africa’s day.

“Morning Geoff. Fire up the CRUCIAL FIRST SESSION machine, this really will decide the match. I’m wondering, do you think South Africa missed a trick with only one frontline spinner here? Given the turn and it only getting more exaggerated through the game, Lyon is backed up by Connolly and Renshaw? Coetzee hasn’t really fired - yet - so you wonder what Maharaj could’ve done here...”

Morning, Guy Hornsby. I think they got burned by two spinners at Durban and were never going to return to it here. But with enough runs, Harmer should be able to do most of the job alone, and Markram can support if necessary.

51st over: South Africa 147-4 (Breetzke 23, Rickelton 11) Starc off his long, long run, turning on the advertising cloths that are pegged to the turf. Length ball, bouncer, then Rickelton gets a thick outside edge to deep point and is able to take a run. Breetzke carries on defending from the crease, then hops about, thinks about picking up the ball. Don’t do it, Matthew. There’s a fair bit of chat going on out there too, Starc with that broad smile he uses when he’s needling somebody. He’s quite an innocuous chat merchant usually, doesn’t have that particular dog in him.

50th over: South Africa 146-4 (Breetzke 23, Rickelton 10) Breetzke has to dive into his ground going through for a single, after getting in a tangle with Lyon as the batter set off from the non-striker’s end. That could have been an interesting one, had the throw hit the stumps. Probably home. Rickelton gets that run, Breetzke adds a couple more, but the top-edged sweep is not a sustainable method against this bowler.

49th over: South Africa 143-4 (Breetzke 21, Rickelton 9) Lyon and Starc will be the opening combo. Starc took 6-72 in the first innings, and has 2-29 so far this time around. He only had a couple of 10-wicket matches in a long career until recently, then added two more within the past 12 months. Another one is in the frame if he’s good enough.

Breetzke scrambles a semblance of a shot against a short ball, deflecting a single from a tangle of gloves. Rickelton plays with more elan, steering to backward point in the deep.

48th over: South Africa 141-4 (Breetzke 20, Rickelton 8) It will be Nathan Lyon to start things off, from the end where he knocked over Bavuma in the second-last over last night. Early single to Breetzke, and Lyon comes around the wicket to the left-handed Rickelton, with three catchers on the off side! You don’t often see that. Two slips and a silly mid-off. Defensively played.

This is juicy, this is tasty, and this is coming out of the oven morning-hot and fresh to your table. Let’s eat.

As ever, send me an email if you want to chat, or muse, or opine, or scold me that I don’t understand the true nuances of cricket.

The forecast is clear and sunny all day, at least the part of it that is relevant to cricket. Some clouds coming in tonight, but that’s it.

And what of yesterday? It was another belter, shifting back and forth, but so much rests on South Africa’s captain, and while he was there, the hosts were in the best spot. Until the very late hour, the day’s final passage of play… here’s the match report.

If Temba Bavuma was decisive for South Africa as he batted through day after day in Gqeberha, his fall in the shadow of stumps on the third day might prove as decisive at Cape Town. Bowled by a Nathan Lyon classic with eight balls to go, he saw his team reach stumps at 140 for 4, with a lead of just 40 to build on.

Hello, sport fiends. It is your season. Once again, as has been our good fortune through this Test match, we approach a new day of it with intrigue in the air and with any option possible. South Africa will resume their third innings four wickets down with a lead of just 40. In the next session, so much will be decided. Wickets, and Australia press home their advantage and set themselves up for a manageable chase. But it won’t take too many runs to become a big problem for the visitors. Another hundred and the game is alive, and two hundred and the game is snarling and destroying its cage.

Because it ain’t the easiest to bat out there, the pitch is wearing and offering more turn to the spinners, while still some lift for the quicks, even though batters can still play shots on it with true bounce. It might be a surface that rewards judicious aggression today, and South Africa have Breetzke, Rickleton, Mulder, Jansen, and Harmer to come, who can all meet that brief.

The whole series is genuinely in the balance as of ball one.