“I don’t know. It’s not for lack of trying. It’s been eluding us.” – Keegan Petersen on South Africa’s dearth of centuries.
Telford Vice | Newlands
AS of an hour-and-a-half after tea at Newlands on Wednesday, 76 South Africans of varying batting ability had taken guard in Tests since Quinton de Kock made an undefeated 141 in St Lucia in June. None of them scored a century.
Considering De Kock has retired in the format, it’s logical to find the next most recent hundred. By that reckoning Aiden Markram’s 108 in Rawalpindi in February means there are currently 92 degrees of separation between South Africa and a level of security other teams enjoy more frequently.
India, for instance, have celebrated eight centuries during the same period. That Virat Kohli’s team are busy with their 14th Test since Markram’s ton and South Africa only their sixth is a factor. But Sri Lanka have played the same number of Tests as South Africa in that time — against West Indies home and away and Bangladesh at home — and they have scored seven centuries.
Zimbabwe, Australia and Afghanistan have contested fewer Tests than South Africa but have hailed two, four and two centurions. Not all of their opposition has been modest, relatively speaking. Zimbabwe have played Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the Aussies have been in the throes of the Ashes, and the Afghans have been up against Zimbabwe.
Neither can the South Africans blame foreign conditions. Half of their six Tests were played at home and two on the benign pitches of the Caribbean. The remaining match decides the argument: it was the Rawalpindi game in which Markram made 108.
Dissenters will say Dean Elgar’s undefeated 96 at the Wanderers last week is as good as a century, and they would be correct. That’s the point — that he came so close is why, along with Kagiso Rabada’s bowling, South Africa won to level their series against India.
There have been a few near misses since last February, notably De Kock falling four runs short a match later than his 141 in St Lucia, where Rassie van der Dussen earned an extra honourable mention for being 75 not out. Elgar made 77 in the same innings as well as in the first Test of this series at Centurion.
But only six other efforts have passed 50. Three of them belong to Temba Bavuma, two others to Keegan Petersen — who batted for more than four hours and faced 166 balls at Newlands on Wednesday for his gutsy, gritty, gumption galore 72. We know, from his similarly sturdy 62 in Johannesburg, that Petersen belongs at this level. Doubtless there are many more runs in his bat. South Africa’s supporters will hope he produces them in three-figure chunks in future. For now, all they have is a question: where have all the hundreds gone?
KL Rahul’s 123 at Centurion is the only example in this series so far, a nod to the challenges posed by quality quick bowling in Highveld conditions. But they are South African conditions. No matter how good they are, batters who have honed their games on starkly different pitches halfway across the globe shouldn’t be outperforming the locals.
Much of South Africa’s hope of earning a first innings lead at Newlands trudged off with Elgar when he edged Jasprit Bumrah to first slip in the fourth over before stumps on Tuesday. Some of the rest of that precious stuff leaked away with the second ball of Wednesday’s play, when Markram left his off stump exposed in shouldering arms to the peerless Bumrah and was duly bowled.
Both dismissals were body blows for the home side, Elgar’s because he has become even more of a rock in the batting order since being elevated to the captaincy, Markram’s because he is not making anything like the most of his abundant talent. Elgar has nothing left to prove, but Markram is floundering. He hasn’t passed 13 in six of his last seven innings, and when he did he made 31. Elgar and elegance aren’t often used in the same sentence, but he doesn’t need to look good to get the job done. Markram has shambled into the purgatory of invariably looking good but getting nowhere. When one of them fails, it’s a setback. When both fail, it’s the prelude to a major problem. South Africa’s dismissal 13 runs behind on Wednesday was among the latter. By the close India were 70 ahead with a welt of heavyweight batting to come. And in control of the match and thus the series.
It’s the way this cookie crumbles that those who have done better than their teammates are hauled in front of the media to explain others’ actions. On Wednesday, the honour fell to Petersen. “We sold ourselves short with the bat in terms of runs,” he told an online press conference. “If we could have had a bit of a lead we’d be happy.” Part of this unfairness involved asking a player in only his fifth Test to explain his team’s dearth of centuries: “I don’t know. It’s not for lack of trying. It’s been eluding us. I got close and maybe I let the team down by not getting there.”
The problem is captured in the fact that, as South Africa’s No. 3, Petersen has been called to the crease in the first over three times and in the second twice. His longest wait so far was in the second innings at the Wanderers, when he took guard in the 11th. And all that in seven innings. “We’ve two high quality opening batter who are going through a bit of a rough time,” Petersen said. “Dean’s pulled through fast, Aiden’s going through a patch. We all know that he will come good. I’m not fussed.”
He conceded that South Africa were “behind the eight-ball” going into the third day of a match that is hurrying to a conclusion. If there is a way in, it’s to claim the wicket, early, of another player who hasn’t known the feeling of scoring a century for too long. “If we can get him it breaks open an end and, in our minds, we’ll be in the game somehow,” Petersen said of Kohli, who was 14 not out. India’s captain made 79 in the first innings, offering glimpses of the kind of batter he was in his prime to bank his highest score since his 27th and last hundred: 136 against Bangladesh at Eden Gardens in November 2019, or 27 innings ago.
He looked determined to end his three-figure drought as the last overs drained out of Tuesday’s play. So he would know how South Africa’s batters feel. They should know, although they won’t want to, that it has been a lot worse than this.
It took South Africa’s batters their first 157 innings of Test cricket for any of them to reach a century, when Jimmy Sinclair scored 106 against England at Newlands. There have been other lean periods, though none as long. But second prize is all too fresh — the 199 Faf du Plessis made against Sri Lanka at Centurion in December 2020 ended that sorry streak at 151 individual innings.
Nevermind where all South Africa’s hundreds have gone. When will the next one come?
First published by Cricbuzz.
Bulletproof Truth 
Brilliant writing my friend
Thanks mate.