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Match factsNovember 24-28, 2016 Start time 1400 local (0330 GMT)Big PictureRemember back in April, when South Africas players were reluctant to accept a day-night Adelaide Test? It could be a series decider, they said, and there could be a No.1 ranking on the line. What quaint, innocent times they were. This series was decided when Australia capitulated in Hobart, and indeed there is a Test ranking up for grabs for the winner of this match, but it is No.4. Still, what both teams wouldnt have given for the pink-ball day-night factor to be the primary focus of this past week. Instead, all anyone has cared about is what South Africas captain sucked in Hobart, and why Australia sucked in Hobart. As for the day-night Test, both teams will just suck it and see.In the end, for all the argy-bargy - both verbal and physical - around the ball-tampering issue, South Africa will have Faf du Plessis available in Adelaide and may or may not change their XI. As for Australia? They will be unrecognisable - and not just to the public. Three debutants - opener Matt Renshaw and middle-order batsmen Peter Handscomb and Nic Maddinson - have been confirmed. Smith even revealed that prior to this week, he had never so much as set eyes on Renshaw. In his column on Cricket Australias website, Smith wrote of the squad convening in Adelaide: I had to quietly ask a couple of the guys who had met Matt beforehand to make sure they pointed him out to me if he happened to walk past.It is a remarkable situation in which the Australians find themselves. Three debutant batsmen in Australias Test top six is exceptionally rare. It last happened during the World Series Cricket divide, and before that in 1946 in the first Test following a six-year hiatus due to World War II. But to find the last occasion that was not caused by external circumstances we must go all the way back to 1936 and Don Bradmans first Test as captain. Even that instance is debatable - it occurred only when the batting order was tweaked in the second innings. Not since 1924 and the shared debut of Bill Ponsford, Victor Richardson and Arthur Richardson has it happened in the first innings.All of this just highlights how extraordinary Australias selection sweep has been this week. South Africas week, too, has been far from normal. But now the focus can shift to the pink-ball day-night Test, the third in the games history. Should South Africa win, they will move to No.4 on the Test rankings and Australia - No.1 earlier this year - will fall to fifth. Then there is the small matter of a possible clean sweep: never in Australias history have they lost every Test of a home series of three or more matches. Never has a dead rubber felt so alive.Form guide(last five completed matches, most recent first) ? Australia: LLLLL South Africa: WWWDWIn the spotlightOne of the most debatable of Australias selection decisions this week was the axing of Peter Nevill, considered the countrys best gloveman and a batsman who had fought in vain for a draw in Perth, and the recall of Matthew Wade. Australias selectors believe that Wades wicketkeeping has improved since he last played a Test in March 2013 and his batting record - two fighting centuries in a 12-Test career - is encouraging. But it also appears that Wades yappy nature behind the stumps is a desired trait, and that Nevill was simply perceived as too quiet. It is also worth noting that Wade is colour blind, yet has been called up for a day-night Test. However, this may be less of a problem than some people think: in his four day-night Sheffield Shield games, Wade has scored 55, 30, 41*, 78 and 26.The leading run scorer in the series, Quinton de Kock has been a constant barrier between Australias bowlers and their hopes of running through the South African lower order. He has piled up 252 at 84.00 from just three Test innings on this trip, and clearly has no problems against the pink ball, having blasted 122 against a Cricket Australia XI in the day-night warm-up game before the first Test. In fact, such has been de Kocks consistency in recent times that if he reaches a half-century in his first innigs in Adelaide, he will join Jacques Kallis and Alan Melville as the only South Africans in history to have passed fifty in six consecutive Test innings.Team newsAustralia confirmed their XI on the eve of the match, with Chadd Sayers named 12th man and Jackson Bird included. It means five changes from their Hobart XI: Matt Renshaw, Peter Handscomb, Nic Maddinson, Matthew Wade and Bird have come in at the expense of Joe Burns, Adam Voges, Callum Ferguson, Peter Nevill and Joe Mennie.Australia 1 David Warner, 2 Matt Renshaw, 3 Usman Khawaja, 4 Steven Smith (capt), 5 Peter Handscomb, 6 Nic Maddinson, 7 Matthew Wade (wk), 8 Mitchell Starc, 9 Josh Hazlewood, 10 Nathan Lyon, 11 Jackson Bird.There is a school of thought that Tabraiz Shamsi, the left-arm wrist-spinner, might come in for this Test due to the difficulty for batsmen in seeing the seam on the pink ball, and therefore picking a wrist-spinners variations.South Africa (possible) 1 Stephen Cook, 2 Dean Elgar, 3 Hashim Amla, 4 JP Duminy, 5 Faf du Plessis (capt), 6 Temba Bavuma, 7 Quinton de Kock (wk), 8 Vernon Philander, 9 Kyle Abbott, 10 Kagiso Rabada, 11 Keshav Maharaj / Tabraiz Shamsi.Pitch and conditionsAn extra two millimetres of grass will be shaved off the Adelaide Oval pitch this year compared to last years inaugural day-night Test in an effort to even up the contest between bat and ball. Still, there should be plenty of seam movement and batsmen will need to work hard both against the new ball, and during the dusk period when the lights first come on. No rain is anticipated over the course of the match.Stats and triviaThis will be Steven Smiths 17th Test as captain, and will take his tally to 28 players used in those Tests. By comparison, Steve Waugh used only 28 players in his entire 57-Test captaincy careerThis will be the 12th consecutive Test in which Australia have used a different XI from their previous matchLast time a team whitewashed Australia in Australia was 1887, when England did it in a two-Test series. It has never happened in a series of three or more TestsPeter Handscomb is the leading run scorer in day-night Sheffield Shield games, with 480 at 60.00. His record at Adelaide Oval is also extremely strong: 479 first-class runs at 68.42QuotesVery important. You want to be part of creating history. Weve played some really good cricket and weve got something going. I dont know how many pink-ball Tests will be played. This could be our first or last. Faf du Plessis, South Africas stand-in captain, on the importance of the matchNike Air Max Sale Outlet Ireland . Gerald Green and Miles Plumlee? Green had bounced around the NBA when he wasnt playing overseas. The Pacers gave up on Plumlee after just one season. Now Green and Plumlee are key cogs in the Suns surprising breakout season. Wholesale Air Max Ireland . - Chris Tierney snapped a tie with a power-play goal late in the third period as the London Knights rallied from a 3-0 deficit to beat the Erie Otters 5-3 in Ontario Hockey League action on Wednesday. http://www.airmaxcheapireland.com/ . Jon Montgomerys gold medal in skeleton at the Whistler Sliding Centre and his subsequent auctioning off of a pitcher of beer in the village square elevated him to folk-hero status. Nike Air Max Ireland Sale . Duchene scored two goals and had an assist, helping the Colorado Avalanche beat the Carolina Hurricanes 4-2 on Friday night to match the best 10-game start in team history. Air Max Clearance Ireland . DAmigo scored twice in regulation and added the shootout winner as the Toronto Marlies edged the San Antonio Rampage 5-4 in American Hockey League action.On the final day of the womens boxing nationals at Haridwar, Poonam Bist pondered her next step. Bist didnt have a bout, having been eliminated in the semifinals of the womens flyweight (51kg) division a day ago. Yet by winning a bronze medal, she had won a place in the national camp.Its a great opportunity for the 21-year-old, who only began boxing a little over a year ago. Her hometown, Haldwani in Uttarakhand, has just one boxing ring and few partners. Bist had competed only in a couple of state tournaments before the nationals - her first ever. The bronze was unexpected. At the national camp, she hopes to get better facilities and the chance to spar with the best in the country. Ive told my mother about it but I havent really decided what I need to pack. Going to Delhi is a very big thing for me, she says.There is a similar mood of anticipation tempered with anxiety in the boxing community in India. After four years of administrative chaos, the newly formed federation has managed to conduct the womens boxing nationals. Not counting 2014, when the short-lived Boxing India conducted a tournament which never had official sanction, the Haridwar tournament was the first womens nationals in over three years.Yes, there were a few glitches. The scoring was dodgy for a few bouts. The scoring machines were non-functional for the majority of the tournament, resulting in the judges scoring by hand. There were more than a few dodgy decisions. Each time officials would ask for understanding. We are holding a tournament after a long time. Just have a little patience, was the stock response. Yet the overwhelming feeling is of relief. That finally perhaps Indian boxing, and at least womens boxing - which went from a bronze medal at the 2012 Olympics to no qualifiers in Rio -- may have finally halted its downward slide.Boxing mar hi gayi thi (boxing had died), says Soniya Chahal, who won gold in the 57 kg division. Our coach would say we had to keep training because one day the federation would start functioning once again, and thats the only reason we kept training. Im just happy we can compete in the nationals once more, she says.Others believe the tournament has done even better than they had hoped. It has been above expectations, says Sagar Mal Dhayal. The Dronacharya award-winning coach had feared that the lack of youth and junior tournaments conducted over the past four years would have caused talent to dry up. Because there were no tournaments being conducted, it was hard to know whether we had any fresh talent coming up. At the national camp, we were seeing the same faces. In Haridwar, I was wondering what kind of talent we would get considering we hadnt held youth and junior national tournaments for the last four years. I thought this sport was finished. But it isnt, he says.Dhayal reckons nearly a quarter of the faces he is seeing at the nationals are boxers he has never seen before. On the day of the final, six of the ten gold medallists were competing in their first national championships.Some states have, however, scripted better survival tales than others. Haryana boxers featured in 8 of the ten finals, with four boxers boxing in their first nationals. Yet the lack of polish was telling in several cases. In the final of the womens 64kg, Jyoti of Haryana suffered a TKO loss in the final round despite twice forcing a standing eight count on her opponent - Simranjeet of Punjab. I should have kept my guard up but I let myself be open. If I had more experience playing big tournaments, I would have kept my cool, said Jyoti, who was also competing in her first senior national championships.Despite the setbacks, Haryana teams coach Jagdish Singh says it was imperative to get new blood into the sport. If we want to target the 2018 Asian and Commonwealth Games aand the 2020 Olympics, we cant count on the boxers we have right now.ddddddddddddTheir careers will not last another four years. The girls who have come up at these nationals are the ones we must groom, says the man who once coached Vijender Singh and Akhil Kumar at Bhiwani.Sarjubala Devi of Manipur, who won the 48kg light flyweight gold - her third national title, says the tournament was important simply to let boxers know where they stand. As a boxer, unless you compete in tournaments, its not possible to know what your level is. You know whether you are performing to your expectations or whether you have to work harder, she says.The womens tournament completed, coach Dhayal says the same must now also be done for the other categories. We have to conduct the mens tournament and also have the youth and junior tournaments as well. The season ends by March, so we need to hold another five tournaments in that time, says Dhayal.That sense of urgency has been appreciated by the federation. We are conducting the mens nationals from December 9th and we will be conducting the youth nationals for both men and women at the end of the month in New Delhi. We plan to host the junior tournaments by February next year, promises Ajai Singh, the president of the BFI. Singh says the federation has taken note of some of the contentious decisions in the Haridwar tournament and is conducting seminars ahead of the mens tournament to help judges come to better grips with the scoring patterns.Meanwhile, the federation will be conducting the national camp for women beginning on December 10. While only the medal-winners are normally considered for selection, this time the net is being cast wider. Apart from the forty medallists at Haridwar, another thirty boxers will also be included. Singh vouches for the quality of the camp, which will also feature 16 coaches - making it the biggest ever organized by any boxing federation in India. They will get the best possible facilities, coaching, scientific practices, masseurs, sports psychologists and nutritionists, he says.During the camp trials will be held to select a team for an international tournament in Russia in January next year. Ajai Singh says it will only be the first of many the federation plans its boxers will participate in. Its very important we dont lose this momentum. We are looking for our boxers to participate in as many tournaments as possible, he says.He promises that the lack of planning which had dogged Indian boxers over the past few years will be no more. Singh claims that a calendar leading up to the 2020 Olympics has been drafted. Singh admits that the federation is racing against time. We have less than a year for the Asian championships and less than a couple of years for the Asian games and commonwealth championships. We have to play catch up after many years. We have to be in a hurry, he says.Dhayal, who also coaches the Railways team puts it more succinctly. We have been stuck at the platform for many years. Now we need to be like a Rajdhani train.Ajai Singh is bullish about the countrys prospects. This isnt rocket science. Theres no reason why we cant get our boxing program going, he says.Bist though, is modest about what the bronze at Haridwar means. For her simply making the national camp is a massive achievement and perhaps the first step to greater success. At the nationals I compared myself to some of the senior boxers and I realized how much my game needs to improve. Im really excited to be taking part in my first national camp. I hope I learn a lot from the senior boxers over there. Perhaps I can turn my bronze into gold the next time we have the nationals, she says. ' ' '