The only bit of action in the middle all day: we just had a pitch invader. Fully clothed. Trotted to the middle, waved to the 500 or so people who are still here, and got cheered off as security collared him. Seems like a waste of five grand, honestly. At least he was wearing his thematically appropriate pink shirt. Maybe they can donate the fine.

Byron Ellis writes in. “The attendance in Perth always seemed better when the matches were held at the WACA (might be to do with the more appropriate 24,000 capacity seating vs 60,000 at Optus). The drop in at Optus is rarely an interesting pitch, curators must have lost their mojo being south of the river. Bring back the WACA for Test cricket and the canyon-like cracks down the wicket. The state government is in the process of building a new inner city swimming pool at the ground which will be a huge attraction for summertime pleasure-seekers.”

I’d say “seemed” is the word, because WACA attendances were rarely very high, and it was a horrible ground to be a spectator in terms of facilities and comfort. But if the renovations could address that, and you could watch from the pool, then great. The casino stadium is definitely so big that it swallows crowds when it’s less than half full. The drop-in pitch there was great in 2018 for the India match and has been a run-fest since.

Not for long, but it did.

The sun just came out.

“Excellent suggestion from Mr Williamson,” writes Patrick O’Brien. “The only possible flaw is that Mullumbimby pitches tend to be a tad, um, green.”

Time to get out the Kookaburra Blaze and beat Lara’s record with a fast 420.

Matt Harris has also picked up on Sydney’s dry month being July. “Maybe it’s time for the winter Test. Or to stick with the Sydney test’s previous branding, the (financial) new year Test.”

EOFY ticket sale on now.

The air looks clear at the moment. The umpires have wandered out for a look with their umbrellas, which they always carry during rain breaks even when it’s not raining. They’re moving with the slow serene inevitability of umpires everywhere, who are speed-locked at no more than two kilometres per hour, any faster and Dennis Hopper makes them explode.

Never mind, it’s raining again.

I doubt this means we’ll actually get play, because the ground will be so wet. But it’s a chance.

As we often say in these situations, why not do it Sri Lanka style and tarp the whole field? They get back on in no time after monsoon rain. Admittedly they have about 300 workers to do it, but still.

Cheers! As the sun flickers out for a second, and the ground staff emerge. Poor old Renshaw is still patrolling the boundary rope with his umbrella. What a sad and forlorn figure he is. The rain has stopped and the radar says that maybe, maybe, in this pocket of Sydney, we’re safe from here.

Blake Williamson has made us an offer that is very difficult to turn down.

“On behalf of the Brunswick Heads-Mullumbimby Bobsledders Cricket Club (and the under 12’s in particular) I would like to extend an invitation to Cricket Australia to move the current Sydney Test to Brunswick Heads. The Alby Lofts Oval is in great shape with a traditionally bouncy Northern Rivers wicket and tiered seating able to accommodate at least 200 patrons. The Bowling Club over the road will be happy to provide food and bar facilities and there is ample parking available. Consider the possibility of starting a great tradition of any batsman scoring 100 or any bowler taking a 5-for to be ceremoniously turfed off the bridge and into nearby Simpsons Creek in celebration at the close of play (tidal conditions permitting). Weather here early next week is mostly sunny and 20 to 26 degrees, and with the woodchopping and fishing festival (Fish’n’Chip) also happening next week, the sponsorship and media opportunities to tie it all together are boundless. Let’s make this happen.”

I cannot see a single flaw in this. Anyone?

David Lawrence is affronted to the point of grumbling onomatopoeia, which makes me very fond of him.

“I know the crowds for the Perth test were disappointing (I took a day off work and gave my 12 year old a day off school for day one, my conscience is clear!) but what kind of crowds do people honestly think would have been drawn to Adelaide or Brisbane to watch Aus play WI on a weekday in November? A bit sick of all the negativity around last year’s Perth test. Harumph!”

Well, yes, I understand the tendency to man the garrison. But the Adelaide match was only a few days later on a Thursday and got about 25,000 on day one. Perth gets low Test crowds – there’s no moral judgement but it’s true.

No change from the wettest place on the planet. We are made of water now. We will rise up and dampen the world.

Lashing down again at the SCG. I just wandered the hallways for a while and overheard one of the TV types on the phone: “No-one’s going to sit there and watch a wide shot of rain!”

Sir, I think that you underestimate – or overestimate? – the Australian sporting public. There are literally thousands of people here at the ground watching rain.

If you’re filling time, I recommend this little documentary interview thing we made about Boxing Day and Scott Boland and the 1868 Aboriginal team that toured England, another contest like Wattle Flat that came well before the first Test. A good rain delay fit at 18 minutes.

Richard is winding back the clock. “Back in the day, matches weren’t always XI vs XI. Maybe the losing side in a match should be allowed an extra player next time out as a handicap system. Feel free to let your fellow readers mock and humiliate me as is the traditional secondary use of the internet.”

Love this. It used to be this way, true. An 18 of Victoria playing 11 Gentlemen of England, that sort of thing. In 1862, you may not know, 22 cricketers of Castlemaine beat the touring English side at Wattle Flat.

The only problem is that Test matches as a format have been defined as evenly contended: that is, 11 versus 11 where both teams can be said to be the best available for their countries.

Yes, it’s still raining.

“Swapsies?” suggests Patrick O’Brien. “Warm and sunny in Melbourne today so how about a swap? Sydney can have the stupid Grand Prix and we’ll have an extra Test.”

Sounds like a good trade. Everything has a carbon footprint, but air-freighting hundreds of cars around the world to race them in a different country each week is on the furthest edge of excess.

Mike Grant is raising the inevitable question. Is it time to remove Sydney from the surface of the earth?

“Yet another Test in Sydney badly affected by rain. Surely it’s time to reschedule future Sydney Tests.”

Well, yeah? I will caveat by saying that this is an extremely wet, cold, unpleasant summer. Even Brisbane was pleasantly cool when we were up there. Melbourne has been arctic and Adelaide not much better.

But the idea of shifting the Sydney Test more broadly isn’t just petty interstate sniping because the record shows we have way more washouts here than anywhere else. When it comes to moving it, the months after January all have higher average rainfall until we get to… July. Not so useful. Rainfall stays down later into the year. November or December have a better outlook than January for playing in Sydney.

But it’s tradition! Australia as the modern nation version being not much more than 100 years old, we have a very flimsy idea of tradition. The whole MCG Boxing Day, Sydney New Year thing has only been going on since the late 1990s. So what. Move it. It’s cool. I’ll bet a Test in Adelaide during school holidays would get great crowds. And Sydney attendances might remain good if people thought they would actually see play instead of sitting around for six hours freezing in a poncho.

As for moving it all to Perth for the weather, that would be great if anyone actually went to the cricket. We got more people in two days in Brisbane than all five in Perth, even in the flash new stadium with free entry on day five to watch the home team win a match.

We’re in another rain lull, I think. That gap on the radar that I’ve been looking at. Then there’s one more chunk and maybe it’s done? Question is whether that will come too late in the day to actually let the ground drain and get us on the field.

Wow, it’s really teeming now. Heaviest rain we’ve had all day.

A couple of emails I’ll respond to on a theme.

Mark Chaimungkalanont: “Rain stopped for half an hour. Lunch break at 1230? 20-thousand odd paying public watching the outfield dry. Wet, not perfect conditions but they’ll be playing in empty stadiums like Karachi.”

Tim Linsell: “What needs to be done to fix cricket’s issue of set times for lunch and tea when considering rain delays? Would hate to see them wait for 12:30, call lunch and have 40mins of sunshine after a washout first session. Common sense must prevail.”

The umpires have managed this fine today. There was a break in rain for a while but it wasn’t long enough to get the ground ready for play. Then it started raining again. And the break times are flexible. It takes at least 40 minutes to get the ground ready. So even if 40 minutes of sunshine breaks out, that only lets the ground staff prepare to play. Taking lunch while it rains is the logical step, the ground crew know what weather is on the way.

Movement continues. The little soak-up rollers have gone across the pitch cover. The rope is going around. Matthew Renshaw is out there having a poke about, giving him something to do given he’s not allowed inside with anyone else. The pink-clad ground crew are standing to attention… and now they’re unfolding the big cover again. Looks like it’s going back on.

Word from the umpires: lunch will be taken at the scheduled time of 12:30, which is shortly, so nothing would have happened for 40 minutes even if it wasn’t about to rain again. Which it is.

The crowd having some fun with the ground crew as they try to put the tarps away. Boos as they spread out the big cover again. Cheers as they fold it in half to follow. Eventually it is all folded up. Tricky business, like trying to do king-size sheets on your own. The cloud has got gloomier in the meantime, after that lighter patch. The pitch cover is being prepared to get rolled up.

The Prime Minister is wandering about, as has become the habit in Sydney.

They are rolling up the covers from the bowlers’ run-ups though. The radar looks like we’re in a gap in the cloud formation, and the rest of the rain might slide by just to the south if we’re lucky. I suspect we’ll get some more of it later though. The big cover is coming off now.

Yep, there it goes.

A rogue bit of sunshine has even broken out at the ground. I’m sure it will be suppressed in short order.

I think the rain has stopped for now. Covers still on. Lots of wind out there, which would help to dry the ground.

And here come the ground staff! To cheers.

Murray Henman has another question. “What do you reckon are the chances of redemption (aka, return to Test cricket) for Cameron Bancroft?”

Ah, redemption. On the walls of the Richie Benaud Media Centre here they have some decorative newspaper pages, blown up huge, not fully printed but subtly there in washed out black and white. One is a column about how David Warner had redeemed himself… published in January 2014, based on his whitewash Ashes runs after punching Joe Root. Be good at sport, do something shameful, continue being good at sport – redemption!

I have some sympathy for Bancroft, the patsy in the piece and the one who actually lost a Test career over it. But a comeback could happen. He’s just turned 30. There will be two vacancies at the top of the order in the next year or two at most. He’s already peeled off three tons in the Shield half-season we’ve just had.

There are other contenders: Renshaw might be in the box seat given his selection here, Marcus Harris has been the understudy for a long time, Henry Hunt is the future pick, Will Pucovski hasn’t given up hope. But Bancroft is good enough to make his case. Just needs to keep making it.

Still drizzling away out there. We have the Allan Border documentary playing on loop on the press box screens, and the flags fluttering in the breeze outside. Transparent plastic ponchos on the security guards, who look like rice-paper rolls that have sat in the box too long and gone soggy. The cable camera is poised menacingly above the ground, ready to smash any unsuspecting cricketer who steps over the boundary. Still a good bunch of people sitting in their seats, some undercover, some with their umbrellas and raincoats in the elements. Some vigil.

If you’re feeling glum about the weather, this might cheer you up for 58 seconds.

I think the rain has stopped? But there is definitely more coming.

Tony Greig’s Weatherwall: we’re getting periods of deluging rain followed by periods of lighter rain. Chiarroscuro.

Simon Sive writes in. “What are the risks that South African test cricket follows a similar (albeit less pronounced) trajectory to Zim from the late 90s?”

Not that extreme, I would think, given that at least South Africa is not run by a dictator. There is corruption in South Africa, and CSA until recently had a bunch of crooks in powerful positions. But the worst were eventually ousted, there is substantial government oversight, and there is at least a good chance that decent cricket people can outweigh the influence of the self-interested. Very different to how Mugabe’s regime was often actively hostile to cricket, while his mates still wanted to control it and get hold of the incoming ICC revenues.

At the moment CSA is just trying to recover the financial damage from those years, and stay solvent. Test cricket is not the priority because it’s not a revenue spinner for them, given the relative lack of crowds and low value in South Africa of broadcast rights. But that doesn’t mean that it will be dispensed with entirely. I think there is too much pride in that country’s cricket for that.

South Africa had an all-time great batting line-up until a few years ago. They have a very poor one right now. But these things can move in cycles.

“Interested in your thoughts about the prospect of a draw,” writes Tom Ruggles. “The weather looks reasonable after today but it doesn’t look like we’ll get much play this afternoon. Presuming Australia put on a few more later this afternoon and then declare, if, as normal, SA lose a few quick wickets, do you think they’ll start considering a draw if they haven’t already? Could we see a rare example of Australia enforcing a follow on?”

Definitely. The reason Australia (and most teams) don’t enforce the follow-on is because it’s usually not necessary. If you need to bowl more than about five sessions at the end of the game, your bowlers will be cooked and so you probably won’t win anyway. Hence batting a couple of sessions in the third innings to give them a rest first. Also Tests no longer have rest days, which used to factor into the old-fashioned follow-on era, and there is usually another Test a few days away, where there used to be long breaks.

This is exactly the scenario where a modern team would enforce the follow-on. Last match of the series, nothing immediately after it, and if this day is washed out then they’ll need to bowl back-to-back to have a path to a win. That gives South Africa the incentive of knowing that they just need one good innings out of two, and they can hold the other team at bay.

Ric Finlay back on his signature beat.

Really hosing it down at the SCG now. Even if the rain clears, there will be a lot of clean-up time. My sweepstake entry is… 2pm local time at the soonest. About four hours from now.

“Thank you for the updates through the day!” writes Tim Linsell. My pleasure, chatting through the rain is a delight. “Can you hear the Richies clearly from the press box? Sitting next to them yesterday and their singing wasn’t very clear even to those in the next bay.”

If I can be completely honest, I’ve never found their singing very clear even from the grandstand. The only song that I remember was Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Mitchell Starc the New-Ball King. Which I thought was lyrically pretty good. But that was at the women’s Test at North Sydney Oval, and there were more female singers, so it helped the intelligibility.

I didn’t hear the Richies yesterday, but the press box here is on the top level and quite far away from reality. Symbolic disconnect between The Media and The People. I did see a lot of Richies whenever I wandered around the ground or outside, which I like to do a few times a day.

As for players departing, there are some absurd headlines about Steve Smith this morning because he was asked how long he would go on, and he said he wasn’t sure, he would play as long as he was enjoying it. Non-answer to a non-question.

But there is the question of how well Australia can stagger the exits of Warner, Khawaja, Smith. The latter is a little younger, 33 to the 36 of the others. But if they all went within a year of one another, that means replacing half the batting in a short space of time. They’re still in a much better position than they were during the sandpaper suspensions though, with Labuschagne, Head and Carey all coming on with the bat, and Green looking as promising as he has.

“Mostly emailing you to provide entertainment and amusement,” writes Murray Henman. Bless you. “I hope Khawaja gets his double today, but it’s been a rather disappointing summer of Test cricket here. To provide some mental activity, can you perhaps try to predict when the older members of our team will retire, and who might replace them?”

Firstly, disappointing, yes. From my experience though there are two kinds of Australian summers. One, most of the time, Australia beats everyone and those of us watching grumble about the lack of competitive cricket. Two, occasionally, someone beats Australia and then everyone here loses their minds with red-hot anger and demands a full review and restructure of Australian cricket.

The radar suggests that there is clear air after this rain system, but the system is big. It’s coming from the ocean, moving northwest, but it’ll take at least a couple of hours to pass by. Might be more. I’m not a… weather… reading… guy.

There’s a little movement on the boundary line… why is Jim Maxwell down there making a presentation to Usman Khawaja. Oh! It’s the McGilvray Medal. That is the ABC broadcast’s award for the Test player of the year. They hand this out at the Sydney Test each year. So, nice to see Jim down there in front of the cameras rather than the microphone. And just as well they’ve got it done, because soon afterwards the rain becomes much heavier.

You can email me. And you might as well, considering I have nothing else to do. Try Twitter as well, if they’ve put some more petrol in the tank. Address details are at the top of the page on your phone, or the sidebar on your desktop.

What happened yesterday? We did get some rain, mostly near the end, but plenty of play to deflate the South Africans. Usman Khawaja will be the most anxious to get going again, on 195 not out.

Here’s the detail from our report.