Late wicket for Rabada makes for perfect day for Proteas

Temba Bavuma’s best work with the bat for the Proteas has often come when situations have been precarious.

For his, now previous, highest Test score - 172 against West Indies at the Wanderers - he arrived at the crease in the second innings with his side 8/2, a position that worsened to 103/5.

In Wellington in 2017 against New Zealand, Bavuma started batting with SA 79/5. They finished with a first innings total of 359.

There was a knock of 74 at Hobart in 2016, that came with SA 79/4 and helped guide them to a total of 326.

In all three cases SA ended up winning those Tests.

The Proteas captain thrives in a crisis. Four of his now five Test hundreds have been made with the team in dire straits. In fact a strong argument can be made that his historic maiden Test hundred almost 11 years ago, was the easiest.

The circumstances surrounding Bavuma’s masterful performance at St George’s Park, were about as difficult as anything he’s encountered in his career and certainly the toughest he has faced as captain.

With the first Test lost and justifiable questions being asked of SA’s batting, twin personal failures in Durban and Australia cock-a-hoop, the last thing he needed was to come to the crease on day one in the drizzle, to face a hat-trick ball from a bloke who hits the top of off-stump in his sleep.

That was 20/2. He was back at crease the next day, five hours after the scheduled start of play, to face two hours from Australia, and halfway through that session his side sunk to 40/4.

Half an hour into the third day’s play, South Africa slipped to 110/6, when Wiaan Mulder succumbed to a vicious short ball from Mitchell Starc. At that stage 250 looked like a good first innings score.

The situation was critical. Bavuma knew from experience how to manage himself. He’d been leaving the ball well throughout and when he chose to play it, whether defending or looking to score, he did so late, meeting the ball underneath his eyeline.

There was one big moment of aggression, when he hooked Pat Cummins for a six that briefly halted the home-bound Gqeberha traffic on Monday afternoon, but for the most part, his was an innings free of flashiness.

What he needed was assistance at the other end. Marco Jansen was the first to step to the fore, playing what Bavuma later described as a “brave” innings. “He threw a couple of punches,” said Bavuma.

Jansen scored 85, the first 50 of which came off 43 balls, with the tall all-rounder, driving fluently and taking the attack to the Australians, thereby changing the momentum of the innings. Suddenly Cummins was forced into using defensive fields, which suited Bavuma, who was able to comfortably put the balls into gaps for singles and twos.

The pair built a partnership worth 132 runs, as Australia’s attack, missing Josh Hazlewood , who wasn’t allowed to bowl in the first session, suddenly looked impotent.

Bavuma was unrelenting - much like Scott Boland had been on the first two days - and the South African captain began taking advantage of an ever growing number of errors from the touring bowlers, with loose balls elegantly driven through the covers while a couple of stylish on-drives made for pretty pictures.

After Jansen, there was Simon Harmer, less flamboyant than his lanky teammate, but technically sound. He was there when Bavuma reached his century, and with the Australians tiring he too unleashed some awesome strokes to allow his skipper room to just bat without the need to rush. Harmer made 82, sharing a new record eighth wicket partnership of 183.

The composure from Bavuma was exemplary. The clarity of thought that accompanied each decision, would have filtered through to his teammates, as they watched him turn around a match and a series and clean up a mess of their creation.

Having talked about ensuring they extend periods of pressure when batting, Bavuma lived it on Tuesday. In total he spent nine hours and seven minutes at the crease, starting under dark clouds, and raising his bat in the sunshine.

From 110/6 SA batted for another 77.1 overs, scoring a further 315 runs. Bavuma’s 179, now his highest Test score, is also his best innings. It is very much in keeping with a habit he’s developed throughout his Test career.

“I know from experience how to play in these situations, but they’re usually only ended up with 50s and 60s. What was nice was to take it even further today and make it really count,” he said.