• Updates from the series decider at Newlands

  • First ball in Cape Town is 10.30am local/7.30pm AEDT/8.30am GMT

  • Any thoughts? Get in touch with an email

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Fri 30 Oct 2026 08.30 GMTFirst published on Fri 30 Oct 2026 08.05 GMT
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Travis Head and Josh Hazlewood inspect the ball as South Africa host Australia on day four of the third Test at Newlands in Cape Town
Travis Head and Josh Hazlewood inspect the ball as South Africa host Australia on day four of the third Test at Newlands in Cape Town. Follow for live scores and cricket updates from SA vs Aus. Play start time is 10.30am local/7.30pm AEDT/8.30am GMT. Photograph: Halden Krog/AP
Travis Head and Josh Hazlewood inspect the ball as South Africa host Australia on day four of the third Test at Newlands in Cape Town. Follow for live scores and cricket updates from SA vs Aus. Play start time is 10.30am local/7.30pm AEDT/8.30am GMT. Photograph: Halden Krog/AP
Key events

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.

Australia gain edge in Test decider after late Bavuma blow hurts South Africa
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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.

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