Australia v South Africa: third Test, day four – live

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I’m just a boy, standing in a front of a ground, asking it to please stop being festively damp.

Strangely there are only a few wisps on the radar. We must be wearing one of them, but it has to disappear soon. Doesn’t it?

It’s properly raining again at the ground. The full covers are back on.

“Is there a stat about which Test grounds have suffered the most rain delays over the past 10 years and if so where does Sydney show?” asks Julian.

Not a stat about delays, but Ric Finlay’s tally of full days lost has been getting a workout. You can add a 26th day to this list for yesterday.

The SCG Trust boss Tony Shepherd was speaking on SEN this morning, and Gerard Whateley asked some questions about the problems in Sydney.

On moving the Test from early January: “I don’t think so. This is the tradition, and we just have to live with the climate.”

But more flexible on tweaking the format.

“We can make it a pink-ball Test. One of our directors, Jane, said why don’t we do that and sell the balls afterwards for the McGrath Foundation. The alternative is if you had that bad light issue at the end of the day, have a bag of pink balls there, worn ones, and finish the game that way. The show must go on, and we should do everything in our power to make sure [the first day light problem] doesn’t happen again. We could do a day-nighter or we can just use the pink ball the whole game.”

It’s drizzling again. Boo. Booooooo. I am not saying Joe Boo-urns. I don’t think that he would help at this stage.

Still no official start time, by the way. We’ll have a pitch inspection by the umpires in 25 minutes from now, which is 10:45am local time. Then they’ll announce a start time or a time for another inspection.

My favourite thing about yesterday was that I had a chat to Glenn McGrath and some of his foundation workers and family members late in the day, and they were all so upbeat despite the rain. Their fundraising went really well regardless, where a few years ago the structure of the fundraising style would have meant the effort was badly hit. More power to them all, they’re doing a great thing.

The pitch cover is coming off! Like a saucily unrolled stocking in a 1960s movie. Stop it, you nitrate diva.

Angus wants to know what it means for South Africa if this match is a draw. “Could they still qualify for the World Test Championship final if they beat the Windies at home and the Aussies muster a series win in India? Would the Saffas even want to qualify for another drubbing on neutral turf?”

To answer the last first, of course – you can’t win the games behind you but you can still turn things around in the game ahead. And yes – I’m not a natural arithmetician but I think they could qualify by winning their next couple, except they would also need Australia to take a lot of paint off India over there. Which is unlikely but possible.

Here are the current standings if you want to figure it out for me.

We had some bids for replacement venues for the Sydney Test yesterday. Tommy from Terrigal thinks that his town is the spot, even if it’s only up near Gosford. Does the rain not get that far north?

“Mat wicket so always plays consistent,” he says. “Six and ocean is out. Cooling off water for fast bowlers and David Warner on hot hot days. Perfect venue.”

A lot of people out in the middle at the moment, players warming up, running around, looking at the wicket square, chatting idly. After such a quiet day yesterday its a hive of activity. We won’t start on time at 10am but it’s in the works.

What happened yesterday? Not much on the field, but that does influence how the rest of the match might be played, and plenty happened off the field with Pink Day raising funds at the ground. Here’s my round-up.

The better news is that they’re running the sopper machine around and trying to soak up the water, and the rain at the Moore Park precinct specifically has stopped. The process begins to get ready.

Preamble

Hey there, you crazy kids. What’s that? You loved reading about the rain for hours yesterday and you want to do it again today? Well then. Do I have the live blog for you. (It’s this one.)

You know the sound that car tyres make on the roads when everything is wet, compared to dry? That kind of hissing whoosh sound. That was the first sound I heard waking up this morning. You know even from bed if it’s still raining out there. The puddles are twitching, the city is soaked.

But – I know I said this yesterday at times – the radar looks promising and hopefully it’s just morning rain that goes off to do something else.