Michael Clarke

The seventh day of this riveting series found the old patterns reasserting themselves at last. Australia dominated a nervy South Africa from the start of play, first extending their own score to an imposing 394, and then discovering a potential star in the chunky fast bowler Peter Siddle.

With Brett Lee looking increasingly short of confidence, speed and form, the Australian selectors must already be considering possible replacements.

And Siddle certainly fits the bill. Thundering in like an angry buffalo, he bowled fast enough on Saturday to have the 40,000 fans at the MCG scenting blood.

Figures of three for 24 might not sound overly impressive, but the quality of Siddle’s performance was obvious to all. He twice hit off-stump, beating Neil McKenzie and AB de Villiers for pure pace. In between, he captured an even bigger scalp when Graeme Smith, the South African captain, went chasing a wide half-volley.

Like the short balls he likes to unleash at the batsman’s nose, Siddle seems to have come out of nowhere. He is 24 years old, and has just 15 first-class matches to his name — only four more than his Victoria teammate Darren Pattinson had played before making that controversial debut for England last summer.

A fine all-round athlete, Siddle grew up winning wood-chopping contests in West Gippsville, a rural area to the east of Melbourne.

In other words, he is a bolter from the bush.

The same could once have been said of Jeff Thomson, who had played five games for New South Wales when the selectors pitched him into his first Test, recognising his unique potential as a shock-and-awe fast bowler.

Siddle may not be quite as dangerously quick as Thomson, who really was a one-off, but the former Australian paceman Jason Gillespie has compared him to Rodney Hogg, another ‘nasty fastie’ of the same era, whose 41 wickets in the 1978-79 series represent the second-best haul by a fast bowler in the history of the Ashes.

“Like Hogg, Siddle has a very simple and efficient style,” said Gillespie. “If you’re facing him, he won’t rant and swear at you, but he might give you a bit of a stare before he walks back to his mark. In some ways that’s worse, because it tells you the guy just wants to keep bowling.”

It was also a good day for recalled off-spinner Nathan Hauritz, who captured the wickets of South Africa’s two veterans, Jacques Kallis and Mark Boucher. Both men fell sweeping, and will probably feel that they could have sold their wickets more dearly.

The score was 198 for seven at the close.