Congratulations to South Africa. Australia profoundly outplayed in this series. If SA can do a clean-sweep in Sydney they'll take number one spot on the ICC Test Rankings. Ricky Ponting is surely one Test, at most, away from retiring, or being retired, from the captaincy. Matty Hayden and Roy should start loading that fishing boat tonight.

With the early finish to the day, Graeme Smith gets two points in today's The Kepler-Wessels count, with Neil McKenzie grabbing one.

My thoughts on South Africa's brilliant First Test victory over Australia still to come, but here are my The Kepler-Wessels BoG points for days three through five:

Day Three (Friday December 19)
3 pts: Paul Harris (South Africa)
2 pts: Dale Steyn (South Africa)
1 pt: Jason Krejza (Australia)

Day Four (Saturday December 20)
3 pts: Graeme Smith (South Africa)
2 pts: Brad Haddin (Australia)
1 pt: Hashim Amla (South Africa)

In the tradition of the Midwinter-Midwinter I today launch the rickeyre.com BoG (Best On Ground) award for the 2008-09 Australia v South Africa Test Series and its reciprocal follow-up in 2009.

How it works? On each day of each Test I award points on a 3-2-1 basis to the BoGs (Best Players on Ground). At the end of the series, the player with the most points is the winner.

The signs were ominous. Firstly, the news that Penny Wong was not going to take Australia's emissions targets to COP 14 in Poznan last week, but would announce them on December 15, after the UN meeting was over.

Secondly, on Friday, the very day that COP 14 was wrapping up in Poland, Kevin Rudd announced, as part of a $4.7 billion "nation building package", an investment of $1.2 billion in the Australian Rail Track Corporation to "more than double the amount of coal being transported to export markets".