Batting in the morning was about staying out of trouble. In the afternoon it was no trouble.
Telford Vice | Cape Town
ON a clear day in Rawalpindi you can see all the way to the foothills of the mighty Himalayas. Thursday was, for the most part, not a clear day. It was grey and drippy, and the wall of gloom that dominated the sky kept a respectful distance until tea, when it soaked the scene.
South Africa would be forgiven for being quietly relieved at not having to endure a third session. After a hurtling start in which they removed Pakistan’s top order at the cost of one run across 23 deliveries, they laboured for no reward for the next 43.1 overs.
Given the start they made the South Africans would have been justified in thinking the day would offer them opportunities for more success. But a pitch that spat with spin in the dampness of a dewy morning smiled ever more broadly on batters as the day lengthened. The outfield was as slick as an ice rink throughout, adding value to almost all strokes. “With the newish ball and moisture, the ball sort of sticks in the wicket a bit more,” Keshav Maharaj told reporters. “We saw that, as the day went on and the moisture seeped away from the surface, the turn was minimised substantially … Everyone was a bit confused as to what to expect but it seems pretty hard. The moisture might bind it together come tomorrow. At the end of the day tomorrow we’ll probably have a clearer idea and understanding as to how the wicket’s going to deteriorate, if it is going to deteriorate.”
Babar Azam and Fawad Alam made hay whether or not the sun was shining, adding 123. They remain so focused on forging ahead on Friday that neither was made available at the post-play press conference. Babar’s textbook technique dazzled in his driving through the covers. Fawad’s extraordinary unorthodoxy didn’t get in the way of his off drive. They were the embodiment of the sacred and the profane. As Maharaj said, “They absorbed pressure nicely and bided their time, and after lunch it seemed to get a little bit easier to bat on the wicket.”
It was indeed a tale of two sessions. Whereas batting in the morning was an exercise in staying out of trouble, in the afternoon it was all about not being given any trouble — neither by the surface nor by the bowlers. Babar and Fawad looked as if they were making themselves comfortable to watch the steady scoring of runs, not as if they would to have to score those runs themselves. Batting isn’t easy at this level, but they made it seem so.
It was anything but when Maharaj was introduced in the eighth over. His first delivery bounced and jagged away from Imran Butt, who pushed forward defensively and steered a healthy edge to the single slip, Temba Bavuma — who dropped an eminently takeable catch. That cost Maharaj a single. It was the only run he conceded from his first 28 balls, in which he had Butt caught behind and trapped Azhar Ali in front for a duck. The most impressive aspect of Maharaj’s bowling wasn’t that he turned the ball on a turning pitch — anything else would have been grounds for concern — but that he realised the value of his quicker, straighter delivery even in those circumstances. He used it to great effect.
And here we need to pause. Criticism of Quinton de Kock’s captaincy is not difficult to find, and some of it is warranted. He was found wanting in the first Test in Karachi in the key areas of referring umpiring decisions and making bowling changes. The sensitivity of the subject is perhaps why South Africa’s team management has taken issue with reports that Mark Boucher has confirmed that the Rawalpindi Test would be De Kock’s last at the helm. Boucher told a press conference on Wednesday: “When we get back after this tour we’ve got a bit of time before our next Test series. So we can sit down and make a good, solid call on who can take over from him and release him from that burden, and try and get the best out of him.” De Kock was appointed until the end of the season. With Australia pulling out of their series in March over fears of South Africa’s Covid-19 infection rate, the end of the Test season is, as things stand, the end of this match. Management says Boucher’s words have been “misinterpreted”. It is difficult to understand how.
But the point of interrupting the narrative is not to brew an argument. It is to make sure De Kock is given the credit for tossing the ball to Maharaj so early in the match. Only one other South Africa slow bowler has taken two wickets in the first 15 overs of a Test — Reggie Schwarz, whose googly was his stock ball, opened the bowling with another wrist spinner, Aubrey Faulkner, against England at the Old Wanderers in Johannesburg in January 1906. Schwarz dismissed Plum Warner and Lucky Denton with only six runs scored.
Whether De Kock knows any of that doesn’t matter. What does is that he summed up the conditions and the situation and made what proved to be the right decision for his team. That’s what captains do. Good ones, at any rate. When South Africa choose their next Test captain, they should remember this moment — especially if De Kock adds more like it to his curriculum vitae.
Back to the real world of Rawalpindi, where Maharaj’s consistent quality from one end was complemented by a single flash of brilliance from the other an hour before lunch. Anrich Nortjé speared a delivery at Abid Ali, who edged it onto his body. Lurking like a 1.85-metre hawk at short leg, Aiden Markram flung himself rightward and took a fine catch low to the ground and far from where he had crouched.
Babar was joined by Fawad, and Maharaj was proved human after all when Babar hit the last two balls of the next over through cover point and fine leg for four. Fawad clipped the first delivery of the next over, bowled by Nortjé, through Markram’s legs for another boundary. Five overs passed, none of them scoreless. In the context of what had gone before, you could feel the fulcrum tilting and the advantage sliding the other way.
Then George Linde, in his second over, sent down six spotless deliveries to Fawad.
Would he wrestle the match back into South Africa’s corner? No. Babar hammered Linde down the ground in his next over. Before the ball reached the outfield it hit the little finger on Linde’s bowling hand — which he clutched as he ran off, blood spattering onto his whites as he went. He did not return.
South Africa picked all three spinners they have in their squad for the Karachi Test, only for Tabraiz Shamsi to suffer a back spasm 20 minutes before the toss. Doubt about Shamsi’s readiness took him out of the equation for Rawalpindi, but there was no doubt both Maharaj and Linde would play. Now the visitors were down to Maharaj, not counting part-timers like Dean Elgar and Markram. Linde’s finger was stitched and bandaged, and X-rays did not reveal a fracture. “It’s fine,” he could be seen saying, with a dismissive shake of his head, on the sidelines on Thursday while holding a ball and going through the motions of his bowling action. “I was concerned for his well-being, but I’m glad to know that he’s feeling a lot better,” Maharaj said. “If all goes well he should take the field at some stage tomorrow.”
Maharaj himself started the match with an injury: “I was bowling on Tuesday and I felt a really sharp pain in my abdominal rib cage area. I was a bit concerned and it’s still there, but our medical staff sorted me out and made sure I was ready to play this Test match.” On the evidence of the 25 overs he bowled on Thursday, some of them rasping with threats, most of them immaculate, Maharaj will get through this test in one piece. And through this Test with several more wickets. You can see that happening, clearly.
First published by Cricbuzz.
Bulletproof Truth 