Australia’s day of milestones as Khawaja, Smith rule SCG

Usman Khawaja's most productive innings of an increasingly bountiful Test career has helped push Australia to a position of dominance despite the best efforts of Sydney's dismal summer to force the final Test against South Africa to a stalemate.

When play on day two was called off due to another burst of rain with 14 overs left to bowl, Khawaja was unbeaten on 195 and eyeing his first Test double-hundred with his team likely to continue batting for a while on resumption with their score on 4-475.

Khawaja was involved in a record stand with Steve Smith who also notched a century, then a blistering partnership late in the day with Travis Head before being joined by Matthew Renshaw who has spent most of the match in highly visible isolation having tested positive to COVID-19.

Renshaw has spent most of the first two days shuttling between a windowless bunker beneath the Noble Stand and a chair situated metres from the Australia team's boundary side bunker, where he has amused himself playing solitaire on a screen and wrestling with an umbrella.

Khawaja surpassed his previous Test best – 174 against New Zealand at Brisbane in 2015 – and seemed poised to overtake his career-high first-class tally of 214 until another Sydney downpour put paid to the day with 14 overs still to be bowled.

Given the evening session had been played under constant threat of rain and, at times, steady drizzle there was little chance Australia would consider declaring before stumps and have their new ball become waterlogged for the sake of a few late overs.

But with more wet weather forecast for Sydney tomorrow, Australia's conundrum might be the timing of any declaration knowing they need to claim 20 South Africa wickets on a pitch that has yielded just four across the first two days.

During his 530-minute stay at the crease, Khawaja has absorbed 368 deliveries and hit 19 of them for four, clubbed one six and copped a stinging blow to his left forearm when struck by a short delivery from Anrich Nortje.

The counter-intuitively dry SCG pitch was perhaps responsible for that injury scare because, despite Nortje's natural pace, Khawaja was through his attempted pull shot by the ball slammed into his bottom arm.

It might also have been a square-up from Nortje who had himself been hit earlier in the day, when Khawaja slapped a delivery from Kagiso Rabada to backward point where the Proteas fast bowler lost sight of the catch headed his way and felt it strike him near the left knee.

Khawaja was on 119 at that point, and the visitors’ subsequent fortunes might have been vastly different had the offering been accepted.

From there, Khawaja and Smith lifted their partnership to 209 which is the highest third-wicket stand Australia has realised at the SCG, overtaking the 196 put together by Smith and Shane Watson against India in 2015.

But for all the pain inflicted by the pair who mixed watchful defence with occasional bursts of extravagance against the Proteas' ineffective spin, it was the barnstorming finish to the day from Head that proved most demoralising.

Head might have been dismissed on six when he stretched forward to try and smother the spin of Simon Harmer and edged a ball that turned away from him past the waiting glove of keeper Kyle Verreynne only to see it fall short of slip.

Realising that defending posed a fraught risk, Head instead embraced his natural game and launched into an array of strokes both square of the wicket and down the ground as he reduced Khawaja to a virtual spectator.

The left-hander reached a half-century – his fifth score of 50-plus from as many Tests this summer – from 47 balls with a deft dab past slip off Harmer as light rain drifted across the SCG.

South Africa's frustrations at being made to chase increasingly damp leather in decreasingly pleasant weather were compounded as Head flicked into a higher gear, belting consecutive boundaries off Rabada and launching Harmer into the sightscreen before holing out to deep mid-wicket.

The left-hander looked aggrieved when substitute fielder Rassie van der Dussen held a tough catch low to his left just inside the boundary rope, to the obvious disbelief of the parochial crowd seated behind him.

But in plundering 70 from 59 balls and contributing a lions share of the 112-run stand with Khawaja (who added 41) he had again put his team into a position where they can push for a win, if the weather finally clears.

After day one was plagued by bad light and occasional rain that claimed 43 of the scheduled 90 overs, day two began in similarly foreboding circumstances with just 12 minutes played before the first shower scudded through to send both teams scurrying for shelter.

But it proved an exception to yesterday's rule, with a mere 16 minutes lost and the contest continuing uninterrupted until tea when another rain squall hit.

Between those dampeners, Australia's dominance continued unabated as Khawaja and Smith pushed their partnership beyond 200 and their team into a position where it seems only Sydney's grim weather can prevent them completing a series clean sweep.

Khawaja foreshadowed Australia's plans to step up their attack against the spin pair of Keshav Maharaj and Simon Harmer when he lifted the first ball of the former's second over of the day beyond the boundary at long-off.

Smith had been contrastingly conservative as he tweaked his notoriously idiosyncratic batting technique to counter the occasional reverse swing produced by left-armer Marco Jansen, but having put on 54 from 16 overs before the day's first drinks break the runs and milestones began to flow.

Khawaja was first to celebrate, reaching his 13th Test century – and his fifth since returning to the Australia line-up a year ago – after pulling Kagiso Rabada to deep backward square and belying his 36 years of age by scampering back for a tight second run.

With his family and innumerable friends in attendance at a ground where he began his first-class journey for New South Wales in 2008, Khawaja launched into an elaborate celebration that included first pumps, a leap of not-quite-Warner-esque proportions, and a few improvised dance steps.

In the next over, Smith reached 50 (off 95 balls faced) and the pair notched their century stand with the only looming impediment to their irresistible progress being the second new ball barely three overs away.

But no sooner had pace pair Rabada and Nortje got their hands on the fresh hope in the shadows of lunch than Harmer was recalled to the attack, and promptly dispatched into the crowd by Smith who had cast off his earlier circumspection.

In the hour after lunch, the former skipper added 33 from 55 deliveries to reach the day's middle drinks break two boundaries shy of a 30th Test hundred.

However, South Africa slowed his charge and it took Smith a further 21 balls to find the eight runs needed to over Don Bradman's tally of Test tons, to draw equal with Matthew Hayden on that elite list and further close the gap to Steve Waugh (32) and Ricky Ponting (41), the only Australia men ahead of him.

Smith also unleashed a new-look celebration upon reaching the milestone with a swivel-pull to the boundary off Nortje, simulating someone starting a lawnmower with a rip-cord as he beamed towards teammates in the dressing room.

If any of them were bewildered by the gesture they had an opportunity to gain clarification three balls later when Smith surrendered his wicket to a tame caught and bowled catch presented to the long-suffering Maharaj.

South Africa's premier spinner clutched the chance to his chest with more relief than glee, given it was his sole wicket of the tour to that point and finally gave him a bowling average for the series, albeit one that had blown out to 260 by day's end.

However, the joy that breakthrough brought was short lived as Head went to the wicket and – against a backdrop of mizzling rain and sinking South African spirits – landed a series of knockout blows squarely on the already punch-drunk visitors.

Men's NRMA Insurance Test Series v South Africa

First Test: Australia won by six wickets

Second Test: Australia won by an innings and 182 runs

Jan 4-8: Third Test, SCG, 10.30am AEDT

Australia squad: Pat Cummins (c), Ashton Agar, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Marcus Harris, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Lance Morris, Nathan Lyon, Matthew Renshaw, Steve Smith, David Warner

South Africa squad: Dean Elgar (c), Temba Bavuma, Gerald Coetzee, Theunis de Bruyn, Sarel Eree, Simon Harmer, Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj, Heinrich Klaasen, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortje, Kagiso Rabada, Rassie van der Dussen, Kyle Verreynne, Lizaad Williams, Khaya Zondo

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