Ryan Rickelton believes all three results are possible on Day 5 in Cape Town | Cricket

South Africa batter Ryan Rickelton believes the three-Test series against Australia is ready for a grand finish. Batting on day four in the final game of the series at Cape Town, the left-hander scored a brave 101 as the hosts set the Aussies a target of 288. The 30-year-old, who scored his third Test ton in his 18th game, reckons the series, currently tied at 1-1, has been a competitive one, with things going down to the wire.

South Africa's Ryan Rickelton plays a shot on day four. (AP Photo/Halden Krog)"It's win or lose, I guess. No draw tomorrow. If you had to say that it's going down to the third Test, day five, with all three results on the cards or two results on the cards, yeah, I wouldn't have believed it. It's been a special series," the wicketkeeper-batter said on Friday. The stumps were drawn as Wiaan Mulder (115) fell as the last Proteas wicket in their second innings.

The pitch played quite slow on the penultimate day of the game, and on Saturday it might play even slower, so how the Aussies bat against the new ball can impact the outcome in a big way.

"It definitely felt like it was quite slow. And the ball obviously was soft as well, so to beat the infield was quite hard. There might be three results tomorrow. I just think with that new ball, there are obviously runs available, and there are obviously wickets too.

"It has been quite slow. If Australia obviously fancy having a go at it, it might just factor into it. For them to bat at effectively threes [run rate] the whole day will be a big ask, especially on a slower, lower deteriorating wicket," Rickelton said.

Australia assistant coach James Franklin is of the opinion that the Newlands pitch has been on the side of batters so far but on day five, it might get a little tricky owing to a rough outside the right-hander’s eye line. Three of Australia’s main batters — Marnus Labuschagne, first-innings centurion Josh Inglis and Cameron Green — are right-handers.

"We thought that there might have been a little bit more in it on day one. None for 140 at lunch – it was a little bit of a 'take your breath' moment. But we reassessed, and through the second and third sessions on day one, we shifted our tactics a bit, and we obviously picked up 10 wickets through the rest of that day.

"I think the rest of this game has probably played out a little bit more traditionally … days two and three have been pretty good to bat. Today's been pretty good to bat, albeit there's been a little bit of rough outside the right-hander's eye line. So day five, let's see what we get," the New Zealander said.

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