Test set up for boy wonder Rabada

26 January 2016 - 02:12 By Telford Vice

Kagiso Rabada, South Africa's new boy wonder, holds the key to a face-saving win for his team in the fourth Test against England in Centurion today. The home side is seven wickets away from beating England, who need to bat all day to draw or find 330 more runs to win the fourth Test. Rabada, given his form in this match, with seven wickets in the first innings and two so far in the second, looks likely to feature prominently in the outcome.Perhaps the visitors don't give a damn, considering they've already won the series and zombied about the place yesterday like they had turned their thoughts to the one-day series starting next week.Things couldn't be more different on the South African side of the fence. Having gone eight Tests without victory - their longest winless streak in the 227 Tests they have played since readmission in 1991 - South Africa will take any win they can get; even one as illusory as this threatens to be.The truth is South Africa have been well beaten in the series by a team who weren't better than them, but who performed far better than they did.South Africa's selectors have done them few favours and key injuries and poor form, as well as uncertain leadership on and off the field, have cost them dearly.If the home side do pull one back today the series score line should not read 2-1. Instead, it should be revised to 2-half.Hashim Amla and Temba Bavuma put South Africa in their strong position with a stand of 117.Amla, who scored 109 in the first innings, fell four runs short of making a century in both innings for the second time in his career.Bavuma was his terrier-like self for his unbeaten 78.All good. But the last time a South African captain suffered a pair in a Test, news of an iceberg making the Titanic an offer it couldn't refuse probably had yet to reach Papua New Guinea.Yesterday South Africa's captain was trapped in front second ball by a banana-like inswinger from James Anderson.In the first innings, AB de Villiers reached out and touched a veering away swinger from Stuart Broad and was taken at second slip, also second ball.As Nasser Hussain might have asked: "Whatshisname?"Call him AB duck Villiers.In fact, in his four innings as captain, De Villiers has thrice been sent back to the hut runless...

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