South Africa v Australia: second men’s cricket Test, day three – live

You can email me anytime during the day – an OBO tradition. Thoughts, prayers, threats, curses, incantations.

Another point of interest is how Josh Hazlewood pulls up today, after being off the field crook yesterday. He and umpire Chris Gaffaney. Did they have a quiet dinner at an unvetted seafood joint?

You heard right. Cricket, like love, never runs on time. Or at least if often runs late. But today, at least, it’s running early. We’ll get that early start (by 15 minutes? What’s that going to get us, two overs?) and if the skies stay clear we can play late like we did yesterday. It won’t necessarily make up overs, in terms of the 450 scheduled for the match, given how slowly modern teams bowl their overs, but it will make up a few of the overs lost to rain the last two days. And every over we get back gets us closer to a result.

As to which way that result goes, Australia are in the better spot, but there’s so much riding on this current partnership and on Temba Bavuma specifically. We saw in Durban how lower order batting can define a match, and South Africa still have the opportunity to define this one. Bavuma has a great record as captain, though he’s often the supporting player – today he needs to be at the forefront, and get some help from Mulder, Jansen, and Harmer, primarily.

Can he get through the early burst from the Australians and build his way into the day? It all rides on that.

After a couple of days filled with rain interruptions that have only allowed a total of 43 overs, the skies have cleared and the sun is shining in Gqeberha with the mercury expected to hit 20C. Play will resume 15 minutes earlier than originally planned with first ball now at 9.45am local/6.45pm AEDT/8.45am BST and South Africa back at the crease.

Geoff Lemon will be with us shortly for a proper introduction, but for now catch up on his report from day two.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Scott Boland had to wait a long time. Scott Boland took a wicket as soon as he got a chance. It was the same story on day two of the second Test at Gqeberha as it had been on day one, with rain delaying play, this time until deep into the afternoon. When a wet outfield had finally dried enough to allow play to resume in African sunshine, South Africa lost three more wickets to finish on 97 for 5.