All over the bar shouting

Times Media - February 15, 2014

TELFORD VICE, Centurion

Mitchell Johnson and his lead pipe of a left arm mugged SA for all they were worth in the fearful dark alley outside the pub that Centurion became yesterday.

Then the hair-triggered David Warner started punching the home side’s lights out as they stepped inside and tried to buy themselves a drink, or at least a few wickets.

Alex Doolan batted with the cynicism of the teetotalling barman, interested in neither entertaining nor dominating but only in squeezing out as much profit as possible.

Had a jukebox been on hand it would have played - on repeat - the country and western song the first test has become for SA, who will stagger into the fourth day 479 runs in the red.

If Graeme Smith’s team had been civilians, they could have called the police. Instead, all they could do was absorb the punishment from an Australian team that played as if they had murder in mind.

The marauding Johnson took 7/68, in the process passing Richie Benaud’s total of 248 test wickets and settling one victim short of becoming the seventh Australian with the blood of 250 on his hands.

“You can’t show weakness against him,” AB de Villiers, the only SA batsman to look remotely comfortable against the speed demon and rewarded with a fine 91, said.

“You’ve got to be prepared to get hurt. Once you get over that fear you play better. He doesn’t often bowl you a peach of a delivery - you get yourself out.”

Warner drilled 64 of his 115 in fours and sixes. A pitbull in a bantam’s body, he seemed to fetch strokes from some deep inner anger. Even though debutant Doolan scored 54 of his 89 in boundaries, he was more conventional and less emphatic. The stand of 205 Warner and Doolan shared helped take Australia to stumps on 288/3.

SA wasted four opportunities to evict Warner, dropping him on 26, 27 and 51, and missing a runout chance when he was 106.

When last had he been given so many lives in a single innings?

“Probably in backyard cricket,” Warner said.

It was that kind of day for SA, whose ground fielding was also far below the standard they have set. Overall, they seemed content to let Australia take the game to them.

“The fielding after lunch made me feel almost embarrassed,” De Villiers said. “There was no intensity, also with our bowling.”

That Warner was dismissed by a dead straight delivery from Robin Peterson, which he somehow edged to slip, only made the squandered chances sting more. Doolan was also gently undone, caught behind off JP Duminy.

Perhaps when SA took the field they were still reeling from Johnson’s brazen assault, which saw them dismissed 40 minutes before lunch for 206.

They resumed on 140/6 and the only remaining wicket that escaped Johnson was that of Philander, who was trapped in front by Nathan Lyon.

Johnson’s fourth ball of the day almost decapitated Peterson in taking the edge and flying to second slip. The innings ended in the flurry of another brutal Johnson bouncer, to Morkel, who was caught behind.

The wicket that fell between those two was the one that mattered most to SA and, probably, to Johnson.

From the start of SA’s innings on Thursday, the only man who came to terms with Johnson’s pornographic pace and lurid bounce was De Villiers. Where other flailed he flowered, and delivered an innings of grace and power that in different circumstances would have changed the game.

Not this game. When De Villiers failed to clear mid-off and was out nine runs short of a century, a beer had been knocked over. That was SA’s last meaningful glug, and the Australians soon refilled the glass with something stronger.

Or, as Warner put it, “We’ve been told to play with our cojones.”

That they did, and well. But what did that mean for Warner himself?

“Not going out and punching blokes in the pub sums it up.”

Yeah, right.