Carey's 74, Bosch's Four and a Potchefstroom Downpour: Australia Take the Last Word, South Africa Keep the Series

The weather had the first word in Potchefstroom and, as it turned out, the last one too. A wet ground delayed the start, South Africa won the toss and chose to field, and for a little while you wondered whether a series already settled at the Wanderers had any appetite left for a contest. Mitchell Marsh answered that fairly quickly. By the end of the sixth over he had hit seven fours and a six, and Australia, for the first time on this tour, went on to bat like a side that believed the second half of an innings mattered as much as the first.

Australia 322 for 9. South Africa 145 for 4 in 28 overs, 45 runs behind on DLS when the rain came. Alex Carey made 74 and was Player of the Match, Corbin Bosch took 4 for 60 and then batted through the gloom, and Ryan Rickelton's unbeaten 71 kept South Africa interested without ever quite keeping them level. The rain arrived at around 8.30pm, play was abandoned about an hour later, and Australia had their win. South Africa, who made five changes for this game, have the series 2-1 and will not lose much sleep over the one that got away.

We said after the Wanderers that the top of Australia's order was not the problem and the middle was. So let us be fair and start with the middle. Oliver Peake made 48, Carey 74, Matt Renshaw 30 and Cameron Green 23 from 18 balls. That is 175 runs from numbers four to seven, and the lowest score among Australia's top seven was 23. Nobody made a hundred. Nobody needed to. It was an innings built by committee, and committees are underrated when everybody turns up to the meeting.

The start, of course, was Marsh's. His fifty came from 33 balls, he and Travis Head put on 78 from 53, and Australia were 82 for 1 at the end of the powerplay. Head chopped on to Bosch for 24 from 20, Marsh was lbw to Bjorn Fortuin for 56 from 42 with Australia's review struck down, and at 94 for 2 in the 14th over the familiar question hung in the air. When Gerald Coetzee bowled Cooper Connolly to make it 118 for 3, this was precisely the stage at which Australia had lost their way in Johannesburg.

This time they did not. Carey and Peake added 73 from 84 balls, unhurried and sensible, and Carey survived an lbw decision on review in the 25th over, which is the sort of moment a Player of the Match award tends to have tucked away somewhere. Peake was caught by Fortuin off Bosch at 191, and Carey and Renshaw then put on 66 from 62. Australia were 249 for 4 after 40 overs, and a total of 322 was there for the taking. It was not pretty at the end. The last ten overs produced 73 runs and five wickets, but Green's 23, eleven from six balls by Pat Cummins and an unbeaten 11 from Mitchell Starc got them where they needed to be.

If you make five changes to a winning side, you are telling everyone what the game is for, and South Africa got a fair bit of what they came for. Corbin Bosch was the pick. He bowled Head, had Peake and Carey caught, and had Green caught by Quinton de Kock, finishing with 4 for 60 from nine overs. Coetzee took 2 for 61, and Lizaad Williams picked up two late wickets, bowling Xavier Bartlett and having Cummins caught by Matthew Breetzke. But 20 extras is generous hospitality, and without Keshav Maharaj there was nobody to squeeze the middle of the innings. Fortuin and Aiden Markram bowled 17 overs between them for 92 runs and one wicket. Tidy enough. Not a stranglehold.

The chase of 323 began badly. De Kock was caught by Starc off Bartlett for a five-ball duck with the score on 4, and Markram was lbw to Bartlett for 15 at 30 for 2 in the sixth over. Rickelton and Breetzke rebuilt with 72 from 73 balls, and South Africa were 54 for 2 after the powerplay, 28 behind where Australia had been at the same stage but with the innings taking shape. Then Adam Zampa intervened. Breetzke was stumped by Carey for 25 at 102, Tristan Stubbs was lbw for 14 at 125 with his review struck down, and South Africa were four down in the 22nd over.

Rickelton was still there, and Bosch, having a rather good day, was 13 not out alongside him when the rain came at around 8.30pm. At 145 for 4 after 28 overs, South Africa needed 178 from 22, which is more than eight an over. Not impossible. Not likely either. The DLS sheet had them 45 runs short, and about an hour later play was abandoned.

Three matches in this series, and the side batting first has won all three. More curiously, the captain who won the toss has chosen to chase in each of the last two games and has lost both, Australia at the Wanderers and South Africa here. There is a lesson in that somewhere, though I suspect the rain would like some of the credit for this one.

The more telling comparison is the shape of the two innings. Australia took 82 from their powerplay for one wicket, then 167 for 3 between overs 11 and 40. South Africa's powerplay was 54 for 2, and they lost two more to Zampa in the middle. When a chase is going to be cut short, wickets in hand are the currency, and South Africa had spent four of them by the 22nd over. Cummins' five overs for 17 did not take a wicket, but they bought time for those who did.

Carey's 74 will not make anyone's highlights reel run long. Four fours, two sixes, a fifty from 68 balls, 74 from 88 in the end. But consider when he walked in. Australia were 118 for 3 in the 18th over, the fast start already spent, and twice already on this tour a good start had come apart in the overs that followed. Carey stayed for the stands of 73 with Peake and 66 with Renshaw, and by the time Bosch had him caught by Williams, Australia were past the point where things could unravel.

Then he put the gloves on and stumped Breetzke off Zampa to break the one partnership that was giving South Africa hope. Glue with the bat, sharp behind the stumps, and an lbw review survived along the way. It is not the loudest way to win a match award, but ask any captain which kind of innings he would rather have at number five, and I think you know the answer.

Let us mark our own homework honestly. Our preview leaned towards South Africa, arguing that momentum, home advantage and squad depth made them favourites even with rotation. Australia won by 45 runs on DLS. That is the headline call, and we got it wrong. What we did get right was the rotation itself: we said South Africa might rest Keshav Maharaj and use the game as a development opportunity, and they made five changes, with Maharaj, the Player of the Series, not playing.

Our players to watch fared worse than our verdict. We named Jack Edwards for Australia after his five-wicket haul at the Wanderers; he was not in Australia's XI. We named Duan Jansen for South Africa; he does not feature in the bowling figures or among the six batters who got to the crease. It is hard to watch players who are not on the scorecard. We also said Marsh and Head needed to turn their eighties into hundreds. They made 56 and 24, and it was the middle order, which we did not back, that won the game.

Two smaller points. We framed Australia's trouble against Maharaj's spin as the tactical question of the night, and with Maharaj absent it simply was not asked; Fortuin took 1 for 50 and Markram went wicketless. And we suggested this could be the most competitive match of the series. With the rain ending things after 28 overs of the chase, that is one we will never be able to settle either way.

South Africa have the series 2-1, sealed at the Wanderers, and Maharaj's six wickets in the first two games earned him the series award without his needing to bowl a ball in Potchefstroom. They also leave with Bosch's 4 for 60 and Rickelton's 71 not out in the notebook, which is a decent return from a night they lost.

For Australia, attention turns to the Test series, which starts next week in Durban, and the news there is mixed. Six members of the Test squad played this game. Cameron Green took a blow while batting, did not field or bowl, and is in doubt for the first Test with an abdominal injury. Renshaw took a blow on the wrist and left the field, but has been cleared. Josh Inglis has been ruled out of the Test squad with a fractured finger, and Nic Maddinson and the uncapped wicketkeeper Sam Harper have been added. Marsh, who gave this innings its start, is not in the Test squad at all. And Zampa, whose nine overs cost 77 without a wicket in Johannesburg, signed off with 2 for 34. A consolation win, then, but one with a few useful things packed inside it.