Du Plessis and de Villiers keep stonewalling

Lunch South Africa 388 and 4 for 126 (du Plessis 49*, de Villiers 31*) need another 304 runs to beat Australia 550 and 8 for 267 dec

Twice Michael Clarke drew lbw decisions against Faf du Plessis that were overturned on review

Faf du Plessis and AB de Villiers gave South Africa hope of salvaging a draw at Adelaide Oval, where they stone-walled until lunch on the fifth day and left Australia needing six wickets in the final two sessions. Runs were of little consequence for South Africa, who on the fourth afternoon had given up any hope of chasing the target of 430, but wickets were the key and Australia did not manage to take one before lunch.

There were a number of close calls, including two lbw decisions in which Billy Bowden sent du Plessis on his way off the bowling of Clarke, only to have both overturned on review. On 33, du Plessis thrust his pad out and offered no shot to a Clarke delivery that turned and would have hit the stumps, but the replays showed that the angle - Clarke was bowling over the wicket - meant the ball had pitched just a fraction outside leg stump.

Du Plessis was much more confident in asking for a review of the second decision, which involved Clarke coming around the wicket and darting a fullish delivery in towards the off stump. Du Plessis jammed the bat down on the ball and Bowden appeared to have been convinced by hearing two noises, but replays showed the ball had touched bat only, not pad or foot, and du Plessis, on 37, was reprieved again.

The Australians also used up their final review shortly before lunch when du Plessis, on 49, offered no shot to a Nathan Lyon delivery that pitched and struck him outside the line of off stump but was turning enough to interest Clarke. However, Eagle Eye suggested the ball would have bounced over the top of the stumps, and Clarke was left to consider how he would find six wickets in two sessions with no further reviews available.

Clarke and Lyon had created plenty of pressure bowling in tandem with men all around the bat, but du Plessis and de Villiers were up to the challenge. The debutant du Plessis was slightly more interested in runs than his partner and at lunch was on 49 from 177 deliveries, while de Villiers was on 31 from 207 balls, and the total had moved on to 4 for 126.

De Villiers was batting with the kind of occupying intent that Trevor Bailey famously did at the Gabba in 1958, and at lunch his strike-rate of 14.97 was even lower than the 15.92 per hundred deliveries that Bailey scored at on that occasion. The South Africans had added only 49 runs during the session but the most important thing was that du Plessis and de Villiers remained, and with Jacques Kallis the next man in, Australia needed to come up with some wicket-taking strategies over the lunch break.

Brydon Coverdale is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. He tweets here

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