Australia vs South Africa | 2nd Test | Melbourne

Who could have ever predicted that at the end of the 3rd day's play at the MCG, it would be Australia that would be trailing! Fascinating Test Cricket again - even after the 1st Test of the series turned on its head in the final quarter of the match only last week, no one expected this. Yesterday evening, Rickey Ponting must have been a satisfied captain - a lead of over 200 runs, and 7 South African wickets back in the pavillion already. The match looked well and truly in the bag.

Day 2 in the Boxing Day Test began with the overnight batsmen Duminy and Harris beginning cautiously - the runs never came at a brisk pace, but the important thing was that the final three wickets didn't fall in hurry. Duminy was brilliant, playing with the last three - Harris gave him good company to settle the mood for the day, and then Steyn hung on - not without ample support from the Aussie fielders. When the final South African wicket fell, the scorecard read 459 - a healthy lead of 65 runs. Duminy was the last batsman to fall, not before compiling a brilliant 166.

While the match is still alive and evenly poised, South Africa have already dented the Aussie spirit like no other visiting team has in the past so many years. The visitors are already 1-0 up in the series, and the onus is completely on Australia to try and set up a win from here, and it is in that Aussie hurry to win that South Africa will see their chances of going up 2-0. Now when was the last time you saw that kind of a scenario against Australia, in Australia? So don't miss live action tomorrow and the day after.