Quiet man Temba Bavuma leading South Africa to their greatest moment

When Temba Bavuma announced his team the day before the game, you had to lean in eagerly to catch his words, so quietly did he speak. Yet this whispering, unassuming, diminutive cricketer retains a glorious chance to do what other giants of the South African game have not done before, which is to win an ICC world event, thus ending the heartbreak that has bedevilled the country since readmission more than three decades ago.

A hobbling Bavuma, suffering with a left hamstring strain that reduced him to running between the wickets Charlie Chaplin-style, was at the heart of a dramatic afternoon, along with Aiden Markram, who was so close to becoming the first South African captain to win a World Cup in the Caribbean last year. That T20 title was in their grasp until their age-old problem of doing a Devon Loch in sight of the winning line revealed itself, hauntingly, again.

It will take a stumble of even more catastrophic proportions on the fourth morning for South Africa to fall short again here. Asked to make the joint second-highest fourth innings score to win a Test at Lord’s, Markram and Bavuma added an unbeaten 143 for the third wicket, with Markram making his eighth, and most important, Test hundred and Bavuma a fine half-century, to leave South Africa just 69 runs short of their victory target. It was another gripping day — albeit one that was very different in character to what came before.

Cummins, the Australia captain, and the rest of his attack endured a frustrating day MIKE HEWITT/GETTY IMAGES

To the surprise of everyone, this World Test Championship final will stretch into a fourth day. A torrent of wickets, 28 of them, had come with dizzying speed over the course of the first two days, but they were much less conspicuous on the third, only four of them falling, which suited South Africa just fine on a blissful afternoon with the sun shining, Lord’s full to bursting, Australia toiling and South Africans and neutrals in clover.

Very little went right for Australia, despite a morning session that had seemed to take the game beyond South Africa’s reach. They added 63 for their final two wickets, thanks to Mitchell Starc’s first half-century in Tests for six years, but the ease with which he and Josh Hazlewood batted in putting together the longest partnership of the match hitherto showed how dramatically the conditions had changed. They showed the way; South Africa’s batsmen followed.

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Summing up Australia’s problems and the changed nature of the conditions was the sight of Steve Smith leaving the field in the afternoon in high pain with a compound fracture of the little finger of his right hand, suffered after putting down Bavuma at slip early in the South Africa captain’s innings. This was a critical moment: Bavuma was on two at the time, had yet to settle, and South Africa were 76 for two in the twentieth over, the target still a distance away.

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Smith is one of the best slip fielders in the game, his huge hands usually gobbling up anything within his vicinity. But because the pitch was so slow, he had placed himself two yards ahead of the wicketkeeper Alex Carey and under a helmet for extra protection. When Bavuma edged Starc, Smith could not react quickly enough, and a compound fracture was duly revealed after a visit to the nearby Wellington Hospital.

Despite a relatively optimistic overnight position, and the dawn of a gloriously sunny morning with the promise of a day laden with runs, there was an air of fatalism that hung over South Africa’s supporters before play began. The scarring, after years of failure in ICC events, runs deep. Australia’s morning resistance and the early loss of Ryan Rickelton, driving at Starc, deepened their gloom.

South Africa fans hit full voice as their side moved within reach of their first victory in an ICC world event, more than three decades after restrictions were lifted MIKE HEWITT/GETTY IMAGES

Markram had arrived on a pair but, clearly, is a redoubtable character and he and Wiaan Mulder added 61 for the second wicket, with the kind of purpose and intent that was missing from South Africa’s first innings reply initially. Seven boundaries came in the opening seven overs and Pat Cummins, predictably, did not need much excuse to push his field back.

Markram was always likely to be an important player in any run chase, given his positive outlook in general as a batsman. Sizeable fourth-innings chases have become more likely in recent times too, partly because of the increased pace of the game: this was still a third-day pitch, remember. Mulder shaped well enough until Starc returned and he drove the left-armer’s fourth ball of a second spell uppishly to cover.

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Out came Bavuma for the most important innings of his life. When he tried to launch his second ball over mid-off, skewing it instead over point, it was not clear whether nerves were the cause or whether, having played too cautiously in the first innings, it was a provocative change of tack. Soon he was hamstrung, although for those old enough it stirred memories of Gordon Greenidge who could be so devastating when limping and who was so central to the highest ever run-chase here in in the 1984 Test.

Markram’s half-century arrived after tea in a spritely 69 balls and each boundary and run was cheered raucously by a crowd that felt almost entirely in South Africa’s corner. There are good numbers of their countrymen here, and most England fans, one assumes, were in support. Neutrals who care for Test cricket too and want to see a competitive world game, rather than one reduced to its bones, had plenty to cheer.

Mick Jagger, a frequent Lord’s visitor, will have got some satisfaction from an absorbing day at Lord’s

Nathan Lyon found some occasional sharp turn from the footholds but was otherwise unthreatening. Cummins finally turned to Beau Webster with a little more than an hour to go and a hundred runs with which to play, but could pull no rabbit from the hat. Bavuma almost holed out sweeping to Lyon, but Sam Konstas was unable to gather in the deep, diving forward at full stretch. The ensuing boundary raised the 100 partnership.

Australia’s much vaunted attack could extract nothing from the surface and they began to run out of puff. Nor could they string together a single maiden in 31 overs between them. Markram slowed with a hundred and the end of play in his sights, but then leapt on a straight half-volley from Hazlewood to bring up his hundred in 156 balls in the penultimate over of the day. His celebration was warmly received but subdued; there was still work to do.

Bavuma has achieved so many things in his life since leaving the township of Langa, just outside Cape Town, and setting off on a journey into professional cricket. He became the first black man to score a Test hundred for South Africa, at Newlands in 2016, and is the first black man to captain his country. He has led them with distinction in this WTC cycle, with seven consecutive victories to get his team to Lord’s.

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An eighth, and a first ICC World triumph, should — whisper it — be a formality on Saturday. “Oh Temba Bavuma!” came the rolling chant of thousands of his countrymen during the long, final session, and outside the Grace gates after play, as they turned up the volume for one of cricket’s quiet achievers.

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