Australia's tour of South Africa squelched soggily to a halt in Potchefstroom on Monday with only 36 overs play possible on the second day of the three-day match against South Africa `A'. When play was abandoned for the day at 4.30pm, the tourists had lifted their overnight score from 218 for three to 351 for eight.

The good news for Australia, though, was a century for Ricky Ponting and an unbeaten 91 for captain Steve Waugh. Given the conditions, this was probably about as much as the tourists could have hoped for ahead of the first Test match which starts at the Wanderers on Friday.

There may be a chance for the Australian bowlers to have a run on Tuesday's final day, provided the weather holds off. Ideally, Australia would have liked the chance for their attack to reacquaint themselves with the Highveld bounce, but in the circumstances it was obviously more important for their batsmen to spend time in the middle.

Ponting spent most of it on Sunday, but he moved quickly to his hundred on Monday morning with a couple of cracking boundaries and then a single off Andre Nel, put on standby for Shaun Pollock in the Test squad.

Ponting moved on to 120 before he fell, caught at the wicket cutting at left-arm wrist-spinner Gulam Bodi at 271 for four and Damien Martyn went soon afterwards for 1, top-edging a sweep against Claude Henderson.

Adam Gilchrist could, perhaps, have done with runs ahead of the Test match, but he made only 16 before Andrew Hall had him caught at slip. Hall had taken the first two wickets to fall on Sunday and he proceeded to make it five for the innings by trapping Shane Warne leg before for a duck as he shouldered arms and then having Brett Lee caught at slip for 6.

Lee's wicket fell during a brief nine-over interlude after lunch and when the rain started falling again, the players disappeared for the rest of the afternoon.

It has been a frustrating couple of days at one of South Africa's best-equipped venues. There could still be time enough on the final day for the Australian bowlers to stretch themselves and, from a South African point of view, for the likes of Daryll Cullinan, Jacques Rudolph and Graeme Smith to make a point to the selectors. Any such point might be too late for the first Test, but it is a racing certainty that the 11 chosen by South Africa for first Test will not go unchanged throughout the series.