Deja vu happening all over again

Two years ago, when Shane Warne coaxed the impossible from a previously dull test match in Adelaide to effectively grab The Ashes back from the mother country, I quoted Yogi Berra's famous quote about decades of New York Yankee success against the Boston Red Sox. He said "Don't worry; we;ve been beating these guys for eighty years".

When I heard about what happened last night I was disappointed I hadn't seen it live (I was Christmas shopping with Rose), but I wasn't surprised. When it comes to test match cricket against South Africa, someone always seems to pop their head up.

Whether it is Mark Waugh's heroics in Port Elizabeth or 12 months later in Adelaide, or Ian Healy's towering six, or Stuart MacGill bowling out the Proteas in Sydney, or Stuart Clark's incredible debut series, someone from the Australian side always seems to deliver the goods.

With Australia 3/15 on the first morning, you could forgive the South Africans for having visions on bowling the Aussies out for less than 200. But after sending Ponting and Hussey back to the pavillion for no score, Simon Katich, along with the next three batsmen in, combined to score 248 runs between them.

And then that most pesky of Australian traits reared its head: the tailed wagged. Perhaps the most underplayed aspect of Australia's decade long dominance in the longer form of the game is the ability of batsmen 8-11 in the order to produce runs. This has frustrated many oppositions, and South Africa were no exception. Lee, Krejza, Johnson and Siddle scored exactly 100 between them, with no one scoring less than 18. It turned a modest, if defendable, total into a healthy one.

Yet none of the South Africans could kick on in reply. Smith 48, Amla 47, Kallis and de Villiers 63 each. The rest of the batting order looks like binary code, with lots of 0s and 1s.

But the story was that it was Mitchell Johnson who was destined to be the player to step up on this occasion. Johnson's record before yesterday was modest: 61 wickets at a shade under 30. With Lee averaging about the same, and newcomers Siddle and Krejza in support, Johnson produced an incredible spell of 5-2 in 21 balls, removing de Villiers, Kallis, debutant Duminy, Morkel and Harris. South Africa now find themselves 132 runs behind with 2 wickets in hand. Expect Australia to achieve a 100 run 1st Innings lead.

From here it will be up to Australia to bat well and set the South Africans 350-400 to chase in about five sessions. It will be interesting to see if the Australians can succeed in almost the same position in which they failed three years ago against the Proteas in the corresponding Perth test match, but it would be a brave soul indeed to suggest they couldn't.