Two bands at the venue accompanied the batters’ feats as the 1700 spectators rose as one
Firdose Moonda29-Nov-20243:30
Takeaways: Stubbs, Bavuma complemented each other very well
In an innings with two centuries, it’s unusual for the first bit of praise to be written about a batter who made 15. But bear with us.Wiaan Mulder, ruled out of the rest of the series against Sri Lanka with a broken right middle finger, wanted to have a final say on the first Test on the second afternoon of the game. He asked to bat at No. 3 in the second innings in the hope he could ease things for Tristan Stubbs and Temba Bavuma. And the scorecard will tell you how well he did that.”I was at the hospital, and then I thought [batting at No.3] was the only way I could impact the game,” he said on Friday, the third morning. “I knew I had no power in my bottom hand. I only really had top-hand shots. At No. 3, which is the hardest time to bat at Kingsmead with the ball moving, I can pretty much play with a straight bat. I don’t really need that much bottom hand.Related
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“And if I can face 30 to 70 or 80 balls, that just gives the other guys a better chance to come in with a little bit of an older ball, to be a bit freer, and get the lead as big as we can.”In the end, Mulder faced 31 balls, which was on the lower end of what he was hoping for, but he took some of the shine off the ball. By the time Stubbs came to the crease, it was the 22nd over. Bavuma came in in the 25th, and South Africa, with more than 200 runs in the lead, were already far ahead of the game. With no overnight rain, neither Stubbs nor Bavuma could have asked for better conditions to cash in on day three.Their half-centuries came up in the first session, and they continued more or less in exactly the ways we have come to know them for. Stubbs played in a slightly more attacking fashion to Bavuma’s, used his feet well to take on the spinners, and found boundaries down the ground. But he took the most pleasure out of his defensive strokes and dots, of which they were 148.”There’s a lot more satisfaction in that than any T20 shot: batting long there, and making the fielders toil,” he said later.Together, Stubbs and Bavuma built South Africa’s biggest fourth-wicket partnership against Sri Lanka by “feeding off each other quite well”, Stubbs said.”When I get to the middle, I’m quite energetic, and he actually calms me down and I keep getting him up,” he said of Bavuma. “When you bat with someone in a big partnership, it’s always nice. You get into the rhythm.”Tristan Stubbs brought up his second Test century•Gallo Images/Getty ImagesAnd by the middle of the second session, on the last Friday afternoon in November with summer holidays on the horizon and a festive atmosphere in the air, they both approached major milestones with a vibe to match.The band from Northwood School, the alma mater of Keshav Maharaj and Shaun Pollock, arrived just after 1pm, with Stubbs into the 90s. By the time they had settled in and were ready to start, he was on 96 and facing. A slightly slower version of than Eddy Grant’s version started. Stubbs was not even a thought in his parents’ minds when the song was released in 1988. He would have heard it many times since at his home ground at St George’s Park in Gqeberha.As the first bars sounded, Stubbs defended. The band got louder. Stubbs worked Asitha Fernando off the back foot for two. Slow claps added some bass, and they continued as Stubbs left a wide one. He thought about running when he worked the next one to the leg side but opted not to challenge mid-on’s arm.And then, as the song reached its second chorus, Stubbs carved Asitha through square leg and called for two. hit the high notes as Stubbs completed the second, and leapt up in his signature way. Bavuma let him own the moment and waited on the other end until the time was right to join in.”Hope before the morning comes” are the last words of the song, which dared to dream of democratic South Africa, the only one Stubbs has ever known. It’s also what he has given a South African batting line-up that struggled to score hundreds before last month with two in two Tests. Add to that his first ODI century, against Ireland last month, and Stubbs is in a rich vein of form. He maintains that he has “no idea” how it came about.
“He said to me, ‘Listen, please get me one here, I need to get on strike.’ That was the most nervous I felt in the day”Stubbs reveals the chat with Bavuma when the latter was near his hundred
That kind of century-making frequency is what Bavuma has craved for in his entire international career. In 60 Tests, he has had seven scores above 50, five in the 60s, five in the 70s, two in the 80s, and two in the 90s, including one at Kingsmead two and a half years ago. The majority of those have come with South Africa in trouble, and one of the most common phrases you would have heard about them is that they were as valuable as hundreds. But they still weren’t hundreds, which is a number that hits different.When Stubbs got there, Bavuma was still 11 runs away. He entered the 90s with a boundary, but it was a streaky one: a thick edge that flew between slip and gully. Then Bavuma added one more with a quick single to get off strike. The next over was laced with danger. Asitha beat Bavuma with a delivery that nipped away, hit him on the hand, and beat him again. What might have been going through his head? Something like, “Will I ever get there?”Bavuma got to 95 and 96 with singles off successive balls to find himself one shot away. Later in the over, he was bounced as he tried to play that shot – a pull – and missed. Two more singles came, bookended by an over change, and on 98, the band started again. It was not . That felt a little too personal given Bavuma’s home in Johannesburg and the many times people from there – and from all over the country – have hoped for more from him. Bavuma had a word with Stubbs.”He said to me, ‘Listen, please get me one here, I need to get on strike,'” Stubbs said. “That was the most nervous I felt in the day because I was like, ‘S***, I have to get one here.'”When Temba Bavuma reached his hundred, he let out what can only be described as pure joy•AFP/Getty ImagesAn upbeat cover of a local band called Mi Casa accompanied Bavuma’s paddle to fine leg. As he and Stubbs ran three, Sri Lanka appealed for a potential lbw, and the crowd noise dissolved into a mass of confusion. Another batter, especially one who knew he had gloved it, might have started the celebration mid-run, but Bavuma got to the non-striker’s end and turned his eyes to the big screen. Heart in the mouth. Hand on the bat handle. Maybe tears in the eyes.After waiting 87 innings and 48 Tests between his first and second Test hundred, and 18 injury-riddled months between the second and the third, it probably didn’t matter that Bavuma had to wait an extra few minutes to celebrate. And when UltraEdge confirmed the runs were his, he let out what can only be described as pure joy. Not relief. Not a pressure release. Joy, as his one-year-old son might know it.Bavuma pointed his bat at the change room as the band restarted, and the 1700 people at Kingsmead rose to enjoy the moment with him. He heard them chanting his nickname, Malume, the Xhosa word for uncle. He hopes it’s a moniker earned through wisdom, but if he can keep going there, there may soon be another reason.South Africa are looking for what Stubbs called “big-daddy hundreds”, which are obviously more than a hundred – or even a daddy hundred – and which, in South Africa, are basically the same as a hundred.”Hundreds don’t win you first-class games. We call it big-daddy hundreds when you win games,” Stubbs said. “A hundred in South Africa might be a really big score somewhere else.”
