Proteas to flex their muscles

“MAYBE we just don’t like to throw the first punch,” was the most telling thing Graeme Smith said yesterday ahead of today’s second Test against Australia at St George’s Park. SA threw precious few punches in the first Test in Centurion. If the match had been a prize fight Australia would have won by TKO after two days, when SA were 257 runs behind with just four wickets standing.  For the Aussies, Ryan Harris snapped sniping jabs, Peter Siddle’s straight right was trusty and Nathan Lyon parried and held on effectively. But the vicious uppercuts and left hooks came from Mitchell Johnson, who took 12/127. SA covered up and sagged on the ropes, and the rumble in the concrete jungle was won by Australia by 281 runs inside four days. Will the second Test be SA’s spark in the park, or the visitors’ walk in the park? Smith was trying not to think too hard about all that. “I can go and watch video-tapes of myself scoring hundreds against Mitchell, which I’ve done,” he said with reference to the two Test centuries he has scored when Johnson has been among the Australian bowlers. Both times, Smith went to his century...