Jimmy Sinclair and Aubrey Faulkner were two of South Africa’s original cricketing heroes, both hard-hitting all-rounders who were many years ahead of their time when it came to ball striking.
Sinclair liked to bowl as fast as he could and enjoyed “putting one up” opposition batsmen, while Faulkner was one of the original great leg spinners. Both men scored Test centuries and took five-wicket hauls but rarely in the same Test match. In fact, they did so only once each, the first two occasions the feat had ever been accomplished in Test cricket.
Sinclair achieved it against Lord Hawke’s all-conquering England team at Newlands in 1899, while Faulkner’s feat came 11 years later at the old Wanderers, also against England. It wasn’t repeated by another South African for almost a century, when Jacques Kallis did it twice, against the West Indies at Newlands in 1999 and Bangladesh in Potchefstroom three years later.
It happened again just four months ago when Corbin Bosch scored the only century of his career, at any level, and took 5/43 against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo. That’s it. Four times in 140+ years of Test cricket.
Far be it for me to suggest an asterisk should be placed next to any of those achievements for the era in which they happened, the quality of the opposition or the fact that they were achieved in familiar conditions. Far better to say categorically that, had Marco Jansen scored seven more runs in South Africa’s first innings in the second Test against India, it would have comfortably surpassed all of those who preceded him.
Jansen followed up his magnificent 93 with seven sixes and six fours from just 91 deliveries with a quite brilliant master class of fast bowling which brought him 6/48 and helped dismantle the home side for a modest 201 in reply to South Africa’s imposing first innings total of 489. It would have brought smiles to the faces of Sinclair and Faulkner and did to Kallis and Bosch, who had a front-row seat in the changing room.
Those missing seven runs would have meant so much to Jansen, who loves scoring runs even more than he enjoys taking wickets, but the innings ended with nerves getting the better of him as he abandoned the big-hitting approach and attempted to dab a single to cover point against wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav and was bowled off an inside edge.
“I was nervous in the 90s, for sure, but I was nervous in the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s, too. Next time I’d rather be caught on the boundary than get out like that,” he said ruefully after play on Monday.
Individual records and milestones mean little if a team is losing, but when they are as dominant as the Proteas have been in Guwahati, players are not just permitted but encouraged to indulge.
“I’ve never been in the 90s before, not even in first-class cricket, never mind flippin’ Test cricket.”
He will surely score a century before his career is over.
South Africa have a lead of 314 with all 10 second innings wickets in hand and two days remaining to complete a 2-0 series win following their epic 30-run victory at Eden Gardens last week.
“Great” is the most over- and incorrectly used word in sport, but it is appropriate in describing the way Temba Bavuma’s team have dismantled an extremely good India team in this appallingly short series.
By out-batting and out-spinning the home side on a made-to-order pitch in the first game, the tourists forced the hosts into a backtracking rethink at a venue hosting its first Test match. This time, the pitch was watered before the match and has offered something to everyone: fast bowlers, spinners and — as Jansen and Senuran Muthusamy showed so gloriously with his maiden century — the batsmen, too.
It is exactly what former India players called for, a “good” cricket wicket.
“We are good enough to win on a fair surface; we don’t need to be doctoring pitches,” said former batsman Cheteshwar Pujara after the team’s shock demise in Kolkata. Now they have been embarrassingly outplayed on one of the fairest pitches seen in India in recent memory.
It is just about feasible that the hosts can regroup and bat out the final day to secure a draw and save a little dignity. But highly unlikely. It will be one of the most unexpected and memorable series wins since 1991.
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