“Temba should have done it. Graeme Smith did it. That should tell you that the captain does not only think of himself. He thinks of the team.” – Makhaya Ntini
Telford Vice / Centurion
WHERE was the captain? He had last been on the field during play on Tuesday, in the 20th over of the first Test. He left with a hamstring strain; not the same one he hurt during the World Cup, so let’s not stoke theories about him playing injured. But, surely, by all that it means to lead, he should have been padded up and in the dugout when South Africa’s ninth wicket fell at Centurion on Thursday.
He wasn’t, and so Marco Jansen had to leave behind the finest innings of his Test career a bittersweet 16 runs shy of a first century. So what? It’s a team game, remember? Indeed, it is: the captain’s team were forced to abandon runs on a pitch that would have remained good for batting for the rest of the third day’s play — runs they left India to score instead, which could have impacted the course of the match.
It didn’t. The home side’s fast bowlers produced a vintage performance, even by their towering standards, to clinch victory inside three days — South Africa’s first win by an innings over India since December 2010. Where? At fortress Centurion, where they have been beaten only three times in 29 Tests; including by India in December 2021.
The second and last Test at Newlands starts on Wednesday. Even if India win they will go home defeated. Their final frontier, a series triumph in this country, remains a looming edifice that has yet to be breached.
There was much for South Africa to celebrate, but not everything. Their captain’s hamstring, for instance, and what that might mean for Cape Town. Shukri Conrad confirmed Bavuma was out of the second Test and would have his injury assessed in two weeks’ time to find out whether he will be fit for the SA20, which starts on January 10. Dean Elgar, who had stepped into the breach had Bavuma left and followed that by scoring a fluent 185, would captain the team in his final Test. Zubayr Hamza had been called up to the squad to replace Bavuma.
Finally, straight answers were had. But not before the vacuum around Bavuma’s status had been filled by all manner of conjecture. His detractors — racist haters, many of them — need no second invitation to board the Bavuma bashing bandwagon at the best of times. They had more than enough opportunity to do that in this instance, and for once they had a decent argument.
Centurion’s surface had sweated under the covers for 40 hours while 51 millimetres of rain fell in the 36 hours before the scheduled start of the game. Then two days of significant cloud cover added to the already stiff challenge of batting on the Highveld. Thursday dawned bright and almost clear, and the sun did its bit to flatten the pitch into its best state for batting. But from Friday, on the evidence of previous Centurion Tests, the bounce would have become unreliable.
Only eight of the other 28 completed Tests at this ground reached the fourth innings. Six were won by the team batting last, but they had to score 150 or more runs on the last day — or what became the last day — just twice.
Bavuma had played nine first-class matches in Centurion before Tuesday, six of them Tests. He would have known all of the above, and more. So why hadn’t he been carried, if required, down the 48 stairs that lead from the players’ balcony to the boundary? If that had happened, and once Nandré Burger had been undone and yorked by the shimmering brilliance of Jasprit Bumrah in the ninth over after lunch, Bavuma could have been helped all the way to the non-striker’s end. All he had to do in the cause was stand there.
Because that’s what captains do. It’s what Graeme Smith did, famously, with a broken hand and an injured elbow at the SCG in January 2009. And that, mind, in an ultimately failed attempt to draw a match in a series South Africa had already won. Smith walked out in Jacques Kallis’ whites because his own had been packed away — he was not supposed to have batted in the second innings. Why was it too much to ask this time? The teammate Smith joined in the middle that day in Sydney almost 15 years ago had a similar question.
“Temba should have done it,” Makhaya Ntini told Cricbuzz. “Graeme Smith did it. That should tell you that the captain does not only think of himself. He thinks of the team. If Jansen had got into the 90s, Temba should have batted. The most important thing is to show that you appreciate what the other guys are doing. If Temba had done that he would have been a hero. He could have come and stood at one end and let Jansen do his job. I have no idea why that didn’t happen.”
Neither did anyone else, and not for want of trying to find out. Team management told reporters on Tuesday that scans had revealed the strain and that Bavuma would “undergo daily medical evaluations to determine his participation in the match”.
Despite several attempts by the press and SuperSport, CSA’s rights-holders, to obtain updates, none more were forthcoming until after tea on Thursday — after Ntini had spoken — when management said: “Following continuous medical assessments, it was determined there was too much of a risk of aggravating his injury had he gone out to bat at this stage of the game. The medical team are managing him to give him the best chance to bat should he be required in the fourth innings.”
Why had that taken so long to come out? It seems the information blackout was part of the gameplan. “Temba is not in a great physical state,” Conrad said. “He was ready to bat at every turn, and we kept monitoring it. You put something out there … I don’t know if the opposition pick up on it … certain things are tactical.
“When we reached what we reached [a lead of 163], and not because we felt that was enough, we felt that if we sent him out then there was a potential risk that he could aggravate the injury even further.
“We are constantly giving ourselves maximum time so we can give the right information. Sometimes, if you put things out there prematurely, people run away with certain stories. This was all about monitoring it throughout the day.
“If we lost wickets early, he probably would have walked in at some stage. But things went really well for us. We even got a message out to Marco and Nandré to take every run. Because the talk last night was to get 150 ahead. Then we could boss the game. We got there, and then I felt it wasn’t necessary to risk Temba. That was my call entirely.”
And it was justified, as it turned out. India crumbled to 131 all out in 34.1 overs in the face of the pace onslaught as the afternoon’s drama unfolded under a roiling mass of building dark clouds.
The Indians failed to establish a single partnership that endured for more runs or more balls than the 39 Shubman Gill and Virat Kohli shared off 51, and that despite three catches going down in the cordon. All that stood between the visitors and a bigger hiding was Kohli’s class and determination. But even he had a breaking point, and it was reached with nine down when he hoisted Burger down the ground and into the gloom.
Kagiso Rabada made many metres from long-on, dived and held on to complete the fearless, fiery Burger’s fourth wicket and dismiss Kohli for 76. Elgar, converging on the same spot from long-off but beaten to the ball by the supreme athlete, was the first to celebrate the catch and the victory with Rabada.
Behind their backs, the most vocal section of the crowd, where the brass band had serenaded Elgar with a stirring rendition of Forever Young after his throw from the deep to Rabada had run out Bumrah to reduce India to 113/8, erupted with joy.
All hung back to allow Elgar, souvenir stump in hand, to scale those 48 stairs first. Already his century seemed wrapped in glory. Already the fairytale of his swansong at Newlands was being written. Bavuma greeted Elgar at the top of the stairs. He was, it can be reported, standing.
Cricbuzz
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