The rain is intensifying. This is settling into becoming a really significant loss of time. On most grounds you’re generally at least an hour from resuming after serious rain, so that would take us past the scheduled lunch break. And on this ground, the outfield got so soaked that we lost several extra hours on day two even in the sunshine.

“Whilst you’re pondering the weather perhaps you could work on an Edges of Maddinson’s County zinger,” writes Patrick O’Brien. “Actually, does he even use a County? Ah well, carry on.”

Maddinson uses a DSC. He has played a little bit of county, for Durham. Didn’t go so well.

“Crisis? What crisis?” asks Rowan Sweeney. “The thing that sets Australian cricket apart is the shared commitment between fans, staff and players to achieve excellence. Case in point - yesterday morning Head and Boland were ready to greet the first ball, and they’re here again for more today.”

Must be a fairly rare occurrence. I would claim a reasonably advanced stat-search capability, but not sure it’s good enough to look that one up.

We just did another round of the cover dance. Covers off, revised session times, players warm up, rain returns, covers on.

“At risk of overcooking the Shield chat,” writes Eamonn Maloney, “you don’t have to select from a bunch of mediocrities averaging 35 when it’s early in the season and the small sample size is inflating averages. Made a big ton? In you go son!”

If they had more than four days between matches, you might be right, the emergency calls may be going out. Though on the other hand, the current regime is happy to ignore Shield cricket completely when they feel the vibe is more compelling: Maddinson, Connolly.

Assuming that Green is fit for Cape Town, then somebody has to go: you’d assume Maddinson, Webster, or Labuschagne. And if Inglis is fit and firing, he’s a calm head they they like, so the changes might be dual.

That said, Labuschagne ‘failing’ in the high 30s is not the worst problem a cricketer can have. And I think they’ve botched Webster’s career by making him peripheral, batting seven and bowling the odd over, rather than backing him at six as part of the top-tier batting unit. He had such a good start but has faded badly in recent matches, and I’d point at least one finger at a lack of clarity about what his job is.

Scratch that, now the covers are coming back. We’re whittling down the overs that Australia has to face, but the unclear timings would also increase the uncertainty in that dressing room.

It sounds like we might get play 15 minutes from now.

Pondering that, there may indeed be some layoffs from this Australian team if they lose here and need to win in Cape Town to take the series.

I see the Australian team situation as having been the same for a while. A very good bowling attack, whatever their age, but suspect batting. Mostly the bowling is good enough that the batting only has to scrape enough runs together – see Durban, see Mackay. On the occasions when the bowlers don’t dominate, which no group of bowlers always will, the batting can’t cope. See Darwin, see Gqeberha.

“Our Test team is late-stage capitalism,” writes an unnamed Australian correspondent. “Spurts of comforting nostalgic old reliables coming good (Smith, Lyon, Boland), some new-tech hopes (Head opening), but really we know its allll crumbling. Even the banks are laying off workers.”

We’re going to have a slightly delayed start because there was some rain this morning. Covers are coming off, at around the scheduled start time. The Australians will of course be very pleased by every over lost.

You can email me, of course, like Simon D has done: “I’m a pom - living in Aberdeen for my sins - I’m not in the slightest bit bothered about the three way hit and giggle fest going on in Pakistan at the minute. But this... this is gripping. I bloody love Test cricket.”

That’s the stuff, Simon. Though I will say the concept of an ODI tri-series is now also sufficiently retro that it almost belongs in the same category. Things to please traditionalists. In fact, there are two ODI tri-series happening simultaneously. England and Sri Lanka are in Pakistan, as you say, while Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe are up to the final of their own version in the UAE.

There’s also an Ireland-Namibia ODI series, India are playing all formats in New Zealand and are halfway through a T20 right now, and Australia’s women are playing New Zealand’s women in a T20 starting any minute.

But here, we’ve got the real quiz.

Weather! We’ll have some of it. Allegedly the good kind. Mild day with some sunshine, says the prognostication. Good day for batting, if one can keep at it.

Early start by 15 minutes, extended finish by “until it gets dark”.

Want to know what happened on day four of the second Test? Luckily, I know a guy who has a good source for match reports.

There it was, another entry in Australia’s hall of infamy against South Africa. There was 47 all out, in the innocent days when the 2011 Test was the worst humiliation in Cape Town. There was 85 all out in Hobart, 2016, that led to half the side being sacked. Now there is 99 all out in Gqeberha, one day after the home team blew past 400, only for the visitors to follow on halfway through day four.