Left handers right on top again

The dateline might have changed but there wasn't too much difference in the look of the scoreline as openers Justin Langer and Matthew Hayden combined to hand Australia early command of the Third Test against South Africa in Sydney today.

Exactly as they had been through the final five months of 2001, Langer (126) and Hayden (105) were emphatically on song at the start of 2002, hoisting Australia toward a mark of 5/308 by stumps on the match's opening day.

In adding 219 for the opening wicket after captain Steve Waugh had won the toss on another warm morning in hazy, bushfire-charred Sydney, the pair remarkably raised a fourth double century stand for the summer. It now means that no opening pairing in the annals of Test cricket has registered more partnerships in excess of the 200 mark. And there certainly hasn't been any in history that has scored as many within the space of just nine appearances as a combination.

The home team's position was weakened nonetheless when a hard-working attack hit back to claim all five of the day's wickets in the final session.

It was in that period that Hayden edged a Shaun Pollock (2/64) delivery to slip and Langer played off bat and pad to silly point fieldsman Neil McKenzie from the bowling of the sparingly used Nicky Boje (1/25). In between those dismissals, Ricky Ponting (14) - not the first time in this series - was run out after Langer had pushed a ball to cover and set off the stroke. Later, Steve Waugh (30) also succumbed, beaten as he played outside the line of a Pollock off cutter with the second new ball. And Mark Waugh (19) then complicated matters in the very last over, perishing as he cut errantly at Allan Donald (1/64) and edged a catch to wicketkeeper Mark Boucher.

Yet Langer and Hayden's efforts ensured that this was again a day largely owned by Australia.

There was a nervous period for the twin left handers through the opening half-hour as both Pollock and Donald extracted notable seam movement with the new ball. Langer's outside edge, in particular, was beaten more than once and he later played two shots over the slips cordon and one through it in the air.

Accordingly, it wasn't an opening partnership based on the sort of total domination of the attack that has characterised some of their previous efforts. But it was pretty darn impressive all the same.

Langer's 12th Test century - and an astonishing fourth for the 2001-02 summer alone - was typically full of well-crafted strokes, many of them released from off the back foot.

For its part, Hayden's seventh Test century - also a fourth for the season - was raised more slowly and its arrival was not accompanied by quite the same degree of exuberance. But it was similarly punctuated by a series of powerful strokes, with one crunching cover driven boundary off Donald before tea even staking claim to be classed as the shot of the entire Test summer.

Through a wretched middle session, the South Africans' woes were further compounded as Boeta Dippenaar's penchant in this series for ending on the wrong side of catches continued. With the total at 168, Dippenaar dropped a comfortable waist-high offering at square leg as Hayden (on 68) miscued a sweep at Claude Henderson (0/28). Therein it extended a run of misfortune that has seen the young South African spill three chances in the series and fall to three barely conceivable catches when it has come his own turn to hit balls in the air.

Worse was to come just before tea when Boucher failed to grasp an outside edge as Langer - on 102 - pressed half-forward at Boje.

Confirmation from national selector Graeme Pollock on ABC Radio that the team originally chosen to play in the match was vetoed overnight by the United Cricket Board of South Africa (UCBSA) failed to ease the sense of calamity either.

The UCBSA adopts a policy that at least one coloured player should always be part of its eleven, and accordingly chose to supplement Herschelle Gibbs' presence with the inclusion of young all-rounder Justin Ontong in the side ahead of batsman Jacques Rudolph.

But it still represented something of a shock move, albeit that Ontong was by no means the Proteas' worst player on a day when he bowled two tidy overs and orchestrated the departure of Ponting.