Dark clouds trump South Africa's silver linings
“You live by the sword and you die by the sword,” Ackerman said after the day's play. On 158/0 at one point, South Africa slid to 329 all out
Marques Ackerman, what have you done? For what felt like an age after lunch on Tuesday, that appeared to be Newlands’ collective emotion. How dare the man? What was he thinking? Was he even thinking?
It seemed not. His legside lurch to Nathan Lyon, who saw him coming and bowled flatter, faster and wider, looked thoughtless. Consequently Alex Carey was able to stump Ackerman as simply as he might have plucked a ripe fig off a low branch. What the fig?!
This, if you were a South Africa supporter, was a disaster. Those who have never known a tragedy would call it that. It was the worst of times.
Cricket is a cruel and bizarre game for all sorts of reasons. Among them is the grief that descends when someone who seems set to score a century does not. Ackerman was that someone on Tuesday.
The sorrow that soaked into Newlands came from five runs he did not score. The 95 runs Ackerman did score didn’t matter. Neither did the dozen boundaries he hit, with aplomb. Nor the sixes he lashed over midwicket and fine leg off Nathan Lyon and Pat Cummins. Nor the almost two-and-a-half hours he spent at the crease, nor the 94 deliveries he faced. Nor the dash and daring he showed throughout. Certainly, it seemed that way from the applause begrudged him as he slunk away a scolded, sorry figure.
“You live by the sword and you die by the sword,” Ackerman told a press conference. “I’ve learned that throughout my career. But, yeah, I left a hundred out there. A Test hundred. I’m not happy with that. But it’s good motivation for trying to get my first one next time I get an opportunity.”
Those who clapped him off the field less than enthusiastically might have shown more appreciation for Ackerman’s effort had they known how bad things would get.
Aiden Markram; another one. Bats beautifully for nearly three-and-a-half hours and gets to 78. Only to hoist Josh Hazlewood to deep fine leg, where Mitchell Starc dived to take the catch.
Not that Ackerman would have a bad word said about Markram, with whom he has shared a Sunrisers Eastern Cape and a Durban Super Giants dressing room: “He’s been exceptional for me; that arm around the shoulder, giving me good advice as to what’s going to work, what to expect and backing certain options.
“It’s nice to have a calm head around. I’ve batted with him before, opening in the SA20. So it’s quite a familiar relationship we have. Having a guy like him with all the experience has been key for me.”
Pity about Tuesday. Ah well. Nevermind. Here comes Temba Bavuma, fresh from making a career-best 179 at St George’s Park last week. Bavuma was carried to the crease on Tuesday on a wave of ovation for that monumental performance. And on the strength of the hope that the rot would stop with him.
He defended two deliveries from Hazlewood before playing inside the line of the next ball he faced, a straight one from Lyon, which nailed his off stump. Bavuma walked off a ground shrouded in funereal silence.
Then Matthew Breetzke put his pad where his bat should have been and became Cooper Connolly’s first Test victim. Then David Bedingham — two balls after reaching a judicious 50, only his second half-century in 14 completed innings — needlessly tried to hit Starc into the Railway stand and was caught, with a hop and a skip over the cushions and back, by Hazlewood. Then, the allegedly unflappable Wiaan Mulder flapped at the second ball he faced — a short delivery from Starc — and was caught behind.
Midway through the fourth over after lunch South Africa had all their wickets intact with 140 runs scored. Less than an hour-and-a-half later they had lost 6 for 74, the last five of them for 29.
That made Cummins’s decision to field first after winning the toss, which befuddled many and was widely and loudly questioned, seem prescient. Likewise, Australia’s bowling, which appeared flat, flabby and flawed in the first session, looked poised and patient. How had things gone so wrong for the South Africans?
“I don’t have an answer for you,” Ackerman said. “Maybe there were a few soft dismissals. We lacked a big partnership after myself and Aiden got out. We needed someone to stick around with Bedingham for a session or so. Unfortunately we lost wickets in clusters. But we did come back nicely with Plank and Rickleton’s partnership.”
Plank is Marco Jansen. He and Ryan Rickelton put some of what had gone skew straight in their stand of 95. It was ended by the fourth delivery with the new ball, an outswinging yorker that trapped Rickelton in front for 42. By then the floodlights were making silver linings in the dark clouds that had gathered over the ground.
“We saw the second new ball swing a lot more than the first one,” Ackerman said. “When the sun was out it didn’t do as much. It was dark and tricky out there. So it’s a pity we didn’t come off for bad light.”
And how, if you’re shouting for South Africa. Two balls after getting Rickelton, Starc veered an inswinger into Jansen’s stumps; gone for 52. Starc bowled Gerald Coetzee off his pads with the first delivery of his next over, which put him on a hattrick. Kagiso Rabada survived the next ball, but not the one after that — which trapped him bang in front to give Starc a haul of 6 for 72 and snuff out South Africa’s innings for 329.
That sounds reasonable, and maybe even as if both teams would be satisfied with their day’s work. The home side won’t. There’s nothing satisfying about losing your last nine wickets for 126. South Africa, what have you done?
