South Africa v Australia: World Test Championship final cricket, day four – live | World Test Championship

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66th over: South Africa 233-3 (Markram 115, Stubbs 5) Time for spin, Lyon from the Pavilion End. Has Stubbs playing carefully for five balls, but gets the last one to turn big. Stubbs gets a lucky run, stabbing the ball away through square.

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65th over: South Africa 232-3 (Markram 115, Stubbs 4) Cummins with a bit of seam movement inward, and Stubbs drives it reasonably nicely but hits the opposite set of stumps. Then punches one well but straight to cover. What’s the plan for Australia? Can they slow things down so much that a second new ball comes into play? That’s 15 overs away, it seems unlikely. Does Stubbs need to cut loose? Make 20 quickly and you’ve pretty well broken the game. He gets off strike with a leg bye, Cummins appealing but that ball was going down leg. Wasn’t it? Cummins reviews.

It’s very similar to the one that got Verreyne in the first innings, on leg stump and not moving a long way towards the leg side, but I think it’s a centimetre further over and will be shown to miss. Yep. Yellow on impact, green on the woodwork.

Oh, and there’s a boost for South Africa. Cummins tries the short ball, Markram wallops it for four! Crisp pull shot. Deep backward square is out, but it goes squarer than him.

That leaves 50 to win. Seven wickets to take.

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Updated at 12.19 CEST

64th over: South Africa 227-3 (Markram 111, Stubbs 4) Hazlewood continuing, hasn’t broken through yet. Markram is immaculate in defence to start the over, but Hazlewood gets one to jump nastily at him, a bit of seam inward as well, and again Markram is flinching into the shot to make sure he gets some bat in line. Even this chunk of his innings today has been excellent, never mind the hundred yesterday. A second maiden over for Hazlewood.

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63rd over: South Africa 227-3 (Markram 111, Stubbs 4) Oh, so close! Cummins again gets the ball to seam away, and Stubbs has no idea about that. Whips his head around as the ball zips past his edge, the bat pushing forward with no intention or knowledge. But it keeps going South Africa’s way, Stubbs able to work a couple of runs through midwicket two balls later. That makes it 55 to win.

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62nd over: South Africa 225-3 (Markram 111, Stubbs 2) Hazlewood with the chance to work at Stubbs some more. Gets the inside half of the bat, false shot. But gets his first run the next ball, straight bat and a steer past the cordon to Lyon in the deep. Windy day at Lord’s, stiff breeze coming north to south. Hazlewood squares up Markram, arrowing in straight, the batter desperate to keep it out of his pads with a fend. Gets a single next ball, jammed into the leg side. So the runs keep coming, only 58 to get. Not getting becalmed is the most important bit, and Stubbs does his part with a second single, dinked wide of mid on.

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Updated at 12.03 CEST

61st over: South Africa 222-3 (Markram 110, Stubbs 0) Great crowd in today, again. Not sure if it’s free entry? Certainly huge lines of people were waiting to get in, even as the first ball neared. Not sure if there was some delay in the queues. Another wicket will make things very interesting… and Markram nearly provides it! Booms the drive at Cummins, but the ball decks too far, past the edge instead of taking it. Millimetres in that. It doesn’t discourage Markram though when the next one is wider still, and he slaps it off a length with an angled bat. So well hit in front of point that the deep backward fielder can’t make up the few metres in time.

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60th over: South Africa 218-3 (Markram 106, Stubbs 0) So it is Tristan Stubbs to the middle. Starts at the non-striker’s end, but immediately gets strike as Markram guides a single. Lots of pressure on Stubbs, more a white-ball player but one of huge talent, who Shukri Conrad has backed in this team. Small target, plenty of time, and in a short-form game he might knock off these last 64 runs in five overs. But this is different. Hit on the pad early, Hazlewood appealing but it’s going down leg. Two slips and a gully, but the second slip is Webster and the gully is Green, so effectively four slips and two gullies. Cover, mid off, mid on, midwicket up closer. Deep point and deep backward square saving boundaries. Stubbs defends his first five balls.

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Updated at 11.49 CEST

WICKET! Bavuma c Carey b Cummins 66 (South Africa 214-3)

59th over: South Africa 217-3 (Markram 105) Oh, there it is! The first tremor? South Africa’s captain battled through the pain yesterday and has put his team in a winning position, but can’t see that win through. The over starts with another ball that stays low, Cummins this time getting it to burrow. Markram keeps it out, and remains confident enough to follow up by playing a quality straight drive for three. Positivity was the key to innings yesterday, so it’s good to see him starting the same way. But after the rotation of strike, from the last ball of the over, Cummins gets one seaming away, down the hill from the Nursery End, and it takes the edge of the defensive push, a little too wide to play. Straightforward for Carey.

Australia’s Pat Cummins celebrates with Cameron Green after taking the wicket of Temba Bavuma. Photograph: Andrew Boyers/Action Images/ReutersShare

Updated at 12.20 CEST

58th over: South Africa 214-2 (Markram 105, Bavuma 66) Hazlewood from the Pavilion End, and immediately asking questions. One ball past the edge, another keeping low. Bavuma is very watchful through that over, acknowledging the threat. No run. It tells you something about South Africa’s approach that Australia’s quicks didn’t bowl a single maiden over between them yesterday. That’s the first in the innings, aside from a few by Lyon.

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Updated at 11.43 CEST

57th over: South Africa 214-2 (Markram 102, Bavuma 66) We are ready to begin. Bavuma must have that leg strapped to high heaven, but he’s still hobbling as he pokes the first run of the day from Cummins into the off side.

Blue skies above Lord’s on Saturday. Photograph: Andrew Boyers/Action Images/ReutersShare

Updated at 12.20 CEST

Who’s nervous? I’m nervous, on their behalf. The batters in next will have spent the evening telling themselves that they’re relaxed, but I’m sure there are thoughts flittering around, mostly that they would all really like to not be required. Australia need to turn that screw right away to have a chance.

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Then there was Andy Bull, who pondered the slips and the turn of fate that saw Steve Smith’s horrible hand injury.

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I was drawn to the idea last night of inevitability, and how it seemed to exist in one direction until it existed in another.

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In some promising news that Simon Burnton has snuffled out, the next three WTC finals might not all go to India, where there would be less interest in neutral contests, and might instead stay at Lord’s.

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Let us begin with the match report of what happened yesterday, via Ali Martin.

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Preamble

Geoff Lemon

Yesterday, we said there wouldn’t be a Day 4. Cricket decided differently. Australia’s tenth-wicket defiance pushed us all the way up to lunch, only to be countered by South Africa’s polish and confidence as Aiden Markram and Temba Bavuma changed the game.

Now, South Africa are so close to doing what they have never done: winning a major international trophy. Not one of the World Cups that have caused them so much heartache over the decades, but the newer World Test Championship.

The opportunity is there. They need 69 more runs, with eight wickets in hand. But if ever there was a team whose history could make its supporters nervous about that kind of equation, South Africa is the one. Nobody will relax until the job is done, and if the Australians take a wicket or two early, the nerves will blossom.

If the overnight pair can add a few without alarm, it will make all the difference. This is Australia’s last chance to turn the game, and defend their WTC title.

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