There are two Aiden Markrams out there. India has usually brought out the vulnerable one. The fragile version had the “biggest relief”, according to his long-time mentor Pierre de Bruyn, when Dean Elgar and then Temba Bavuma were made Test captains. It was against India when Markram, just 23 and playing just his third ODI, was made the captain in a ODI series in 2018 and the “next Graeme Smith” collapsed under pressure. In a series where India crushed South Africa 5-1, Markram was so distressed that he didn’t even remember the manner of his dismissal in the final ODI at Port Elizabeth in his post-game chat with an alarmed de Bruyn. A year later, during another nightmarish series in India, after he got out to twin ducks in the Pune Test, he punched a “solid object” in the dressing room and left the tour with a fractured wrist. He would soon be dropped from the team.
“What we saw in Pune was as a build-up, a ticking time bomb,” de Bruyn had told this newspaper. “It was a frustrating tour for him, and the whole captaincy thing that was placed on his shoulders before… That is not Aiden, to go into a change room and hit the cupboard. When that incident happened, I was worried.”
The wheel would turn, he would become the white-ball captain, but he again ran into India now. He averaged just 15.58 games in Tests against India in 9 games before Cape Town where he would unfurl one of the great Test hundreds by a South African.
There are two Markrams, the Test batsmen too. The one often seen is the version that combusted in the first Test, poking around. He can look like a stereotypical subcontinental batsman on tracks in his own country, unable to fathom the 22 yards.
And here he was asked to conjure something on the toughest home pitch he has ever played on. Steep bounce from a length and he didn’t seem to have the game, like most batsmen from either team, in the first innings, feathering a nick behind.
The second Markram emerged, however, on the last over of the first day. He had moved to 28 from 48 balls, before he suddenly flashed two fours off Mukesh Kumar in the last three balls before stumps. He would continue with that approach on a remarkable morning on the second day.
It’s a simple technique that’s not always been watertight for him. He gets on the front foot and then tries to react to the ball with his hands. Often, it can go pear-shaped for him, but not this time.
Cricket – Second Test – South Africa v India – Newlands Cricket Ground, Cape Town, South Africa – January 4, 2024 South Africa’s Aiden Markram in action. (REUTERS/Esa Alexander)
Three elements helped: he held his bat above the waist without ever letting the hands go low on this track. In the first innings, he had plonked forward and got his hands a tad low; not this time. Secondly, he wasn’t caught half-cock, trying to get forward or trying to press back and unable to do either – his usual flaw. And as one would expect on such a track, some luck with the Jaffas zipping past the edge without him pushing his hands too hard at them. Thirdly, he chose the end to attack, one that offered generous lift to the bowlers was negotiated with greater caution, and he went after them at the other end.
At times, he also moved around the crease or walked forward to try to manoeuvre the length. He cut, pulled, on-drove on the up, scythed on-the-up.
The high bounce that was nemesis for most proved to be a blessing in disguise for him as when he failed to connect with the ball on his half-step-forward movements and was rapped on the pad, the ball was invariably flying over the stumps.
Anti-structure attack
Defence is about structure, attacks, though, are anti-structure. And on this track, not many if any had the structure to cope. And so, he went with anti-structure, finding a way. It’s not a kind of knock where he can confidently say that if he reproduced his ways, he would again be successful. But then noone from either team had a plan for this track. Without the ability to leave on length, none can form a plan either. Virat Kohli showed the way in the first innings with his compactness and intent – he not only played a conventional pull without any wristy-swat like finish that he usually does, he also played a horizontal traditional square-cut, another shot that he usually doesn’t play.
Pitch-blaming has to be left for postmortems by players, not during the game where a way out has to be found. Kohli showed a way, and now, Markram did. Left with no choice by the match situation and the track, he began to find release. In some terms, there was no pressure had he failed – noone was going to blame him; however looked differently from his career angle, there was pressure to perform as expected from a leader. Now with such a priceless knock in his kitty, he can take over the captaincy from Temba Bavuma even in Tests with more confidence if that situation arises. Going by Bavuma’s recent tribulations with his body and batting, it can well happen sooner than later.
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Even in his dreamy moment of the hundred, when he punched Bumrah to a four, he remembered to dedicate the knock to his captain who was retiring after the game. A left-handed hand gesture towards the dressing room indicated who he was referring to, and a huge smile spread across his visage. Elgar was the loudest cheerleader of Markram from the dressing-room balcony on a day when Markram shed the self-doubter identity and presented a free-flowing attacking persona to the world. In the end, on the toughest pitch of his career against his toughest Test opponents, there was just one version of Markram: a happy smiling one.
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