South Africa 266 & 339 (Amla 105, de Villiers 73, Cummins 6-79) lead Australia 296 by 309 runs
Dale Steyn's bold striking for South Africa meant Australia required 310, the largest fourth-innings target to win a Test at the Wanderers, despite a stirring six-wicket haul on debut for the 18-year-old Pat Cummins.
Without Steyn's 41, speckled with three sixes, Australia might have been chasing a target as thin as 250, after the hosts lost 4 for 29 in the morning to be 266 for 7. However, Cummins' remarkable efforts, adding up to one of the most outstanding debuts by an Australian fast bowler in the past 40 years - not to mention his first five-wicket haul in first-class, list A or Twenty20 cricket - prevented South Africa from making the game entirely safe.
Hashim Amla went on to a deserved 105 from his overnight 89, but was involved in a run-out to account for Ashwell Prince and then became Mitchell Johnson's third wicket of the series. Nathan Lyon delivered another useful spell, and was critically denied the wicket of Steyn via the vagaries of the DRS.
Australia needed a rush of wickets on the fourth morning, and Michael Clarke started off with Cummins and Johnson in search of it. Swinging the old ball prodigiously at times, Cummins maintained his rapid progress when he coaxed de Villiers into chasing one that curled away. Clarke held the catch.
Amla completed a century of formidable composure, cuffing Peter Siddle through point to get there, but his insistence on a short single to the right hand of Ricky Ponting resulted in a mix-up with Prince and the left-hander's exit. Johnson, still somewhat out of sorts, was able to produce a handy cutter to touch Amla's outside edge on the way through to Brad Haddin, and suddenly Australia's position was arguably the one preferred by neutrals.
Mark Boucher swatted three boundaries before driving at Lyon and snicking to slip. He loitered at the crease partly because he also hit the ground but also out of recognition that not much batting remained after him. Steyn had made only five, and the lead was only 246, when he was beaten by a Lyon offbreak and nearly lbw. But the umpire Billy Bowden demurred, suspecting an inside edge, and Australia's referral was refused, not for an inside edge but because the ball's projected path was not hitting enough of leg stump.
Steyn then demonstrated the knack for nuisance batting he had famously shown with JP Duminy at the MCG in 2008, and Philander played with the level of skill befitting a No. 8. Clarke tried Michael Hussey before reverting belatedly to the second new ball.
Nearing lunch Steyn swung hard at Johnson and edged through the hands of Clarke, and Siddle moved the ball too much to claim the outside edge the tourists desperately required.
Having rested in the latter part of the morning session, Cummins produced a snorter first ball after lunch to clip the glove of Philander. Bowden hesitated before giving Philander out, but the batsman's referral found just enough circumstantial evidence to ensure the original call was upheld. Next ball Cummins whirred down a yorker to wreck the stumps of Morne Morkel, thus claiming five wickets, and Imran Tahir did well to keep out a hat-trick ball that tailed away.
By surviving the over Tahir allowed Steyn to keep blazing, and lustily struck sixes off Siddle and Cummins, plus a glove down the leg side, added precious runs. Tahir managed one boundary himself, but Steyn eventually touched Cummins behind to conclude yet another transfixing passage of play in this all-too-short series.
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