AUS_RSA_T3_PREMATCH_25MAR94

Border gives Australia incentive - By John Woodcock in Durban

After meeting each other on and off for nearly four months, there is nothing to separate South Africa and Australia as they go into the last Test match here today. Of the five Tests they have played three in Australia and two in South Africa each have won two and the other, in Melbourne, was ruined by rain; of the ten one-day internationals, they have won five apiece.

Because any side with Warne or Ambrose or Wasim Akram or Waqar Younis in it at the moment has an advantage, Australia started favourites to take the line honours. They will also be expecting to win, which helps, and the fact that they will almost certainly be playing under Allan Border for the last time is an added incentive. No captain was ever more loyal to his players than Border and they will be keen to repay him.

Both captains have their worries. Hughes has yet to recover his best form since a knee operation last autumn and Mark Waugh's last seven Test innings have yielded only 109 runs. Allan Donald has also been labouring for South Africa. In his own words, he is feeling "absolutely drained". His guru, from their seasons together with Warwickshire, is Bob Woolmer, who has been coaching in the Cape this winter and has been brought up to Durban by the South African Board to run his eye over the doings of Donald.

Although Border will be 40 in July, he is batting well enough to carry on for a year or so; but he has a job lined up for him with the Australian Cricket Board and it would probably suit them if he were to retire now. They have a tour to Sri Lanka and Pakistan in September and October, which would provide a chance to blood Border's successor, who is expected to be Mark Taylor, before they set about retaining the Ashes at the end of November.

Border could make a pair in today's match and still finish with a Test average of 50 with 15 runs spare. Considering that 59 of his 263 Test innings have been against West Indies, with the emphasis squarely on intimidation, this is a wonderful record. He is one of the sporting world's great survivors, as tough as old boots and just as hard to do without.

The pitch for today, which has been prepared by Phil Russell, the former Derbyshire stalwart, is grassier than those for the first two Test matches. Depending to the extent they do on fast bowling, South Africa will be looking to the groundsman to have made something with a bit of life and movement in it. This, by the way, will be the fourteenth Test match of 1994, and it was not until the thirteenth, between New Zealand and India in Hamilton earlier this week, that there was a draw. That is remarkable.

The last time South Africa and Australia met at Kingsmead, in 1969-70, the batting of Graeme Pollock (274) and Barry Richards (140) was just about as good as anybody can have seen. South Africa won in four days. On the other hand, it was also here, in 1938-39, that the last and most notorious timeless Test took place. After ten days it had to be abandoned as a draw, so that the England side could get to Cape Town before their ship sailed for home.

Needing 696 to win, England were 654 for five at the time, although Wally Hammond told me that England could have tried harder than they did to beat the clock on the last day. They decided not to as a protest against the torpor of timeless Tests. He was captain at the time, so he should have known.