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

You heard right. Cricket, like love, never runs on time. Or at least if often runs late. But today, it 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 first 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.