Right from the start of the day, there was an inevitability that this match was Australia’s. They started 218 runs in front, in the third innings, walking back onto a Lord’s field where 28 wickets had fallen in the previous two days. They had the four-star bowling attack, their opponents had the shooting-star batting order, one that had flashed and vanished in its first sighting. Soon this would be compounded by Temba Bavuma’s hamstring injury. The lead as it stood looked a chance to be enough, and first would come the chance to increase it a smidgen more.
The sense of inevitability only grew as that smidgen broadened into a big dirty smudge. There is nothing more galling for a cricket team than a long tenth-wicket partnership. Every ball is more annoying than the one before. Things had started right, Kagiso Rabada in his second over of the day trapping Nathan Lyon with only four runs added to the score. On four wickets for the innings, nine for the match, Rabada was ready to complete twin milestones.
Except they didn’t come. Not in his third over, nor his fourth. Not his fifth, not his sixth. Not even his seventh. When he was taken off after drinks, fading with fatigue, it must have been galling to the entire side, their champion deserving that last swipe of icing on the cake. Instead, not content with seeing off the major threat, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood just kept batting: 135 balls, 59 runs, to the stroke of lunch.
Starc made a few Test fifties early in his career, including a 99, as slap-and-slash affairs. He hadn’t made one in the last six years, but over that time his batting has probably been better. He has made 20s, 30s, 40s, over long periods, in tough situations, when resistance was needed. Look at the previousWorld Test Championshipfinal, the last Ashes in England, some of the most difficult outings against India. Today’s unbeaten 58 was one of his best, by far his slowest score of anywhere near that size, facing 136 balls, more than anyone in the Test to that point.
So a session of frustration, surely a distraction for South Africa as a lead inverted its final numbers from 218 to 281. Then an early wicket for who else but Starc as Ryan Rickelton nicked an outswinger. Starc again, as Wiaan Mulder chipped to cover for 27. Bavuma’s hamstrings have always popped like champagne corks on New Year’s Eve, and the South African captain did another when he was on 9. It was still inevitable, it seemed. Australia were on their way to win.
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But there was one wrinkle. For all that the Starc and Hazlewood stand drove South Africans mad, every run they made was also an example to the same team of how much easier run-making had become. The pitch metrics showed that movement had eased through the air and off the surface. The sun was shining brightly. And while it was the fourth innings of the Test, it was also only the third day.
Those who pay attention to county cricket will know there has been a Lord’s trend, at least recently, of scores growing bigger as matches goes on, with surfaces easing as chases are made. A month ago, Middlesex spinner Zafar Gohar sealed a chase of 366 at eight wickets down. Most followers of the Australian Test team would find themselves short of the required standard on reaching the Zafar Gohar round of their local pub trivia night, but that is a fact with some bearing on Australian fortunes.
Because over the next session and a half, that inevitability shifted. Bavuma batted on despite the injury, riding some luck with a dropped catch, injuring Steve Smith in the process, then growing into an unbeaten 65. At the other end was Aiden Markram, who had looked like a million dollars from the outset, riding the bounce and diverting the pace of Australia’s celebrated quicks, using their gifts to build his score. As the runs went by, South Africa became the team untroubled, Australia the team starting to scramble, and by stumps the pairing remained intact with only 69 more to win. Markramstarted his careerwith a fourth-innings hundred against Australia, and has reached that career’s peak with another here. The first time he still ended up on the losing side; this time, he mustn’t.
Cricket is fond of dishing out the lesson that nothing can truly be known, or in more frank terms, the lesson that you, the one making the assumptions, are an idiot, actually. No matter how many times the lesson is taught, each fresh instance of an opportunity will see some portion of us fail to remember it. Australia were going to win this, it was inevitable, until they weren’t. South Africa will win it from here, that too is an inevitability. Which means it might happen. Or it might not.