Maharaj scored his career-best 84 to ensure Bangladesh were pinned on the mat.
Mark Boucher wasn’t happy. “There’s no rhythm,” he said more than once, lacing his gripe with the odd expletive, as he conducted cordon catching practice between innings at St George’s Park on Saturday. “Let’s get some rhythm going!” And that’s an order, he didn’t have to say.
The sturdy figure of South Africa’s coach looked like a dark and stormy night in his navy blue team tracksuit, complete with matching cap and black sunglasses. He wore a catcher’s mitt on his left hand and held a bat in his right, and hit balls towards Rivash Gobind kneeling several metres away. Gobind guided catches behind him to Kyle Verreynne and Sarel Erwee – lightweight pads for his role as the short leg fielder snug under his whites – and Wiaan Mulder, who were lined up near the boundary at the Park Drive End.
Presently, Mulder left the scene to join the bowlers, who were gathered on an unused pitch in the middle. He was replaced by Keegan Petersen, who had hardly stepped into the breach when he leapt left, lithe as you like, to snare a fine catch. Most of Gobind’s fire was trained on Erwee, whose palms resounded with meaty slaps that were followed by his yelps of polite protest. He stuck it out for a good long while before giving way to Simon Harmer, who made an eager entrance and took his catches – as he did at Kingsmead – by using most of his body to envelope the ball, like a human baseball glove.
Maybe there wasn’t much rhythm, what with all the moving parts involved. But there was intensity. You could feel the electric snap, crackle, pop of anticipation rising from ground level. It’s in these moments, when players are preparing to give of their best, when they are fully focused but have nothing to gain if they do something special and nothing to lose if they get it wrong, when no-one’s counting runs and wickets and umpires aren’t watching, that the beauty of cricket is revealed.
But the bubble had to burst, and soon everyone was watching the real thing. And there they were: Verreynne with Erwee, Harmer and Mulder in a jagged line next to him, this time closer to the Duck Pond End, and Petersen in the gully. Something had to happen quickly otherwise the tension would surely swallow all concerned.
Mercifully, it did. With the fifth delivery of the innings, a ball that left Mahmudul Hasan Joy as he offered at it, Duanne Olivier found the outside edge. Erwee took the catch with a slap but not a yelp. In the sixth over, Lizaad Williams induced an iffy stroke from Najmal Hossain Shanto – iffy enough for the ball to plop to earth short of Erwee.
Spin was introduced after nine overs in the shape of Harmer, and in his second over Tamim Iqbal squirted what might have been a catch past Petersen at slip. Immediately, Mulder was installed alongside Petersen. Four overs later, Tamim again got it wrong to Harmer. This time the ball flew wide of Mulder. Keshav Maharaj was in his third over when Mominul Haque opened the face as he defended, but even Petersen couldn’t claim the dipping catch.
By then, one of the day’s two transformative performances by South Africans was underway. Mulder, who had waited until the 108th over of Bangladesh’s first innings, when they had only three wickets standing, to be given a bowl, waited only 20 overs this time. With his fifth delivery, he trapped Tamim in front with an inswinger that would have nailed leg stump. Mulder still hadn’t conceded a run when he did for Najmal in a similar fashion. When another inswinger evaded Mominul’s bat and rapped the pads, Mulder had taken 3/5 in 30 balls.
Mulder spent much of the rest of the afternoon, when he wasn’t bowling, pulling off a decent impression of a trapeze artist as he flew this way and that to unerringly come up with the ball from close fielding positions. Walking back to his bowling mark he shows the classic symptoms of the over-thinker: downcast, furrowed brow; short, stubby, apparently uncertain steps. See him tear into the crease or turn something close to a somersault to intercept what may or may or not be a catch, and the contrast is shocking. It’s the difference between a penguin on land and in water.
The other performance that shaped the day for South Africa started midway through the morning session, when Maharaj took guard. Herewith ends the rumination of the subtleties of cricket, as attempted above. A cleaner, more ambitious hitter would be difficult to find, but sometimes his ambitions outstrip his abilities. This wasn’t one of those times. It took him five deliveries to sort himself out, and then he was off to the races with a flying cut off Khaled Ahmed for four. He hit four four and three sixes in reaching 50 off as many balls, getting there with an arching drive off Mehidy Hasan that boomed over the long-on boundary.
Maharaj’s 95-ball 84, his career-best score, shimmered with aggression in the gloom of a blustery autumnal day. It was ended when he took a swipe across the line to Taijul Islam to earn the lion-hearted left-arm spinner the fifth of his six wickets. “I think about scoring a Test century every time I go out to bat,” Maharaj said about his fourth half-century.
Soon South Africa were dismissed for 453, their second-highest total in their last 19 Tests. It was a strange-looking scorecard, what with four scores of more than 50, no centuries, and with only Lizaad Williams and Duanne Olivier, numbers 10 and 11, not reaching 20. Only four times before in Test history have nine players made it to 20 in one innings, and not since 1979.
By stumps Bangladesh had lost half their wickets but were still 314 behind. The forecast for significant rain in the match has improved, and with Maharaj, Harmer and Mulder on song, South Africa would seem to have all their bowling bases covered. As for the conditions, as Maharaj said, “This pitch is turning more viciously than the one at Kingsmead.” With the wind now blowing from the east, bringing moisture from the sea, it’s also offering swing and seam movement. Unless you bat like Maharaj did, which the visitors haven’t shown much aptitude for so far, runs do not come easily.
In short, Mark Boucher should be happy now.
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