Australia have removed the two most important bricks in South Africa’s stonewall and need three wickets in the final session of the third Test to claim a series win.

At tea on day five in Cape Town, the world No.1 Test team were 7-201 and clinging to hope they could survive a further 33 overs and avoid a first Test series loss in five years.

JP Duminy (22 not out), Vernon Philander (16 not out), Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel are all that stand between Australia and their greatest achievement under Michael Clarke’s captaincy.

Ryan Harris’ astute use of the second new ball and the part-time legspin of Steve Smith were the catalyst for the key scalps of AB de Villiers and Faf du Plessis in Wednesday’s second session.

Harris was handed the shiny ball straight after lunch, and in his third over after the break tempted de Villiers into playing at one he could have left.

It was an understandable mistake to make for the 30-year-old, who had been at the crease for almost five and a half hours and played out 205 dot balls at a sparsely populated Newlands.

Du Plessis put the same high price on his wicket that he did in Adelaide 16 months ago, when the right-hander famously batted for almost eight hours to secure a draw on Test debut.

But the 29-year-old, who was hounded by the Australians for his colourful remarks to the media two days ago, eventually misread a dipping ball from Smith and it thumped into his pad.

Du Plessis reviewed the lbw decision, but TV replays confirmed it to be plumb and his 109-ball resistance was over.

Duminy and Philander finished the second session with a handful of boundaries, but it won’t disappoint Clarke given the hosts gave up on victory in Graeme Smith’s swansong when they were set a historically impossible target of 511 runs.

Australia resumed on day five needing six more wickets to seal a 2-1 series win.

Clarke crowded the bat and attacked first with his three pacemen then spin at both ends, but it wasn’t until James Pattinson returned to bowl the 26th over of the day that he finally had something to cheer about.

Nightwatchman Kyle Abbott added 94 minutes to his overnight vigil, only to have his offstump uprooted while shouldering arms to the first ball of Pattinson’s second spell.

The Cape Town clash had followed a remarkably similar to script to the famous draw at Adelaide Oval in 2012 until du Plessis’ departure.