Johnson emulates Imran, and Haddin's 600

Stats highlights from the third day's play between South Africa and Australia at St George's Park, Port Elizabeth

22-Feb-2014

Hashim Amla ended what was a lean patch by his standards, with a stroke-filled unbeaten 93 in South Africa's second innings.  •  Associated Press

South Africa lead Australia by 369 runs with six wickets in hand. They are comfortably placed in this Test, considering that teams have averaged 29 runs for every wicket in the fourth of innings of the last ten chases on this ground. The highest a team has scored in the fourth innings at St George's Park is 273, by the hosts against New Zealand in 1962 and the highest a team has scored in the fourth innings to win a Test here is 271 for 8, by Australia in 1997.

Brad Haddin reached a personal landmark with AB de Villiers' dismissal in South Africa's second innings. De Villiers was Haddin's 600th first-class dismissal as a wicketkeeper. Haddin has taken 563 catches and effected 37 stumpings in 170 first-class matches. Click here for a list of wicketkeepers with most dismissals in first-class cricket.

Mitchell Johnson scored a quick-fire 27 before he was bowled by JP Duminy. During his innings, he completed 200 runs in the 2013-14 season. He is only the sixth allrounder in Tests to take 50 or more wickets and score 200 or more runs in a season. There have been only nine such instances in Tests. The last such instance was also by Johnson, in 2008-09. Johnson is also only the third player, after Imran Khan and Malcolm Marshall, to do this twice in his career.

Nightwatchman Nathan Lyon was bowled by Morne Morkel in the first session after he hung around for 42 deliveries, in Australia's first innings. This was the first time he was dismissed in his last nine innings. The last time he got out in Tests was against England in Chester-le-Street in August last year. Since then, he had totally scored 64 runs without getting out in eight Test innings. West Indies' Alf Valentine and New Zealand's Ewen Chatfield had similar such run of eight unbeaten innings.

The longest any team has batted at this venue in the fourth innings of a Test is 144 overs - the hosts against New Zealand in 1962. In recent times, the longest a team has survived in the fourth innings of a Test on this ground is 96.2 overs - when Deep Dasgupta and Rahul Dravid batted for over five hours to see India to a draw against the hosts in 2001.

The 177-run lead that Australia conceded in their first innings is their fourth-highest first-innings deficit ever when fielding first against South Africa. The last time they conceded a higher such lead came back in 1970 at Kingsmead when they trailed South Africa by 465 runs at the end of their first innings.

Hashim Amla made use of the improved batting conditions at St George's Park and batted himself into form with his first fifty-plus score in eight innings. In his last seven Test innings, Amla had scored 105 runs at 15.00. Should he complete his century in this innings, he will be the fifth South Africa batsman with five Test hundreds against Australia and the second batsman to achieve that in this Test after AB de Villiers.

Unlike South Africa in the first innings, who got to bat in sluggish conditions and could score only at a run rate of 2.8 an over, Australia scored rapidly in their first innings: their scoring rate of 4.31 runs an over was the highest in the first innings of a team in Tests at St George's Park.

South Africa also found conditions easier to bat in and scored fairly quickly during most of their innings today. Their third- and fourth-wicket partnerships scored at 5.06 and 4.92 runs an over respectively - South Africa's second-fastest and third-fastest fifty-plus partnerships at this venue in Tests.

Johnson dismissed Graeme Smith for the eighth time in Tests, in South Africa's second innings. Johnson joins Chris Martin as the bowlers to have dismissed the South Africa captain most often in Test cricket. Johnson has dismissed Smith on nine occasions in international cricket. Only Zaheer Khan and James Anderson have dismissed Smith more often. Smith, who averages nearly 49 in Tests, scores almost ten runs less when facing up to left-arm fast bowlers.

Hashim Amla Mitchell Johnson Brad Haddin Nathan Lyon Graeme Smith Australia South Africa South Africa vs Australia Australia tour of South Africa

Shiva Jayaraman is a sub-editor (stats) at ESPNcricinfo.com