Australia on the back foot as Bavuma plays captain’s innings for South Africa

In the first Test in Durban, it was Australia’s lower order hanging in with one established batter that first frustrated, then demoralised South Africa. In the second, on the third day in Gqeberha, South Africa returned the favour. Temba Bavuma played the role of Matthew Renshaw, assembling a near-flawless 179, combining with Marco Jansen’s 85 and Simon Harmer’s 82 to take the hosts to a declaration at 425 for 9. Australia then lost one wicket for three in reply.

Eight years ago, during Australia’s previous visit, Bavuma was a hard luck story. In his 29th Test and facing questioning for having only made one century in that time, he had Australia on the mat at Johannesburg in the aftermath of sandpaper week, until the last two wickets fell in two balls to strand him on 95 not out.

That innings sat like a curse for five more years, as he reached 54 Tests and 20 half-centuries without ever scoring that second ton. This made him an unlikely candidate for captaincy, but that’s when everything changed. Despite starting with a pair, Bavuma has now added four centuries in 14 Tests, averaging 54 across the span, and until last week in Durban had never led a loss. That includes the World Test Championship final, making yet another fifty to help beat Australia. Now, eight years after the 95 not out, he has a century against South Africa’s fiercest historical rival.

The 179 wasn’t just Bavuma’s biggest score, but comfortably his best. He entered the fray at 12 for 2, saw a slump to 40 for 4, and batted in patches across two cloudy, damp, difficult, abbreviated days, starting the third with 41 to his name. Australia’s quicks got less help from an older ball, but Scott Boland was still suffocatingly accurate, while Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc bowled vicious bouncers in between threatening stumps and edge.

Bavuma was immovable. His discipline in not reaching for width was monastic. When he did choose aggression, with the on drive or the square punch, he chose exactly the right ball. Australia were hampered by Josh Hazlewood being banned from bowling for the first session having been off the field ill the previous day, while Bavuma was helped by Jansen’s repeated rolls of the dice forming a hot streak.

Hazlewood’s absence didn’t seem a problem when Starc bounced out Wiaan Mulder early, South Africa six down when a smart review picked up a flick of glove, as the batter’s futile desperation couldn’t get him out of the way of a ball that squared him up and threatened his facial wellbeing. But Jansen was a cool breeze through a boiler room, freeing up Bavuma by outscoring him with ease.

Jansen’s approach will always fail more than succeed, but when it works, it’s a spectacle. Shades of Mitchell Johnson in 2009, a left-handed fast bowler destroying pull shots over midwicket and rifling straight hits from a high backlift, as he took on the opposing quicks from the jump. He had moments of fortune: slicing through the cordon, sixes over fielders’ heads, nicking balls past leg stump. But others rocketed to the fence, reaching 50 from 43 balls.

There he slowed, and batted past lunch to take his stand with Bavuma to 132, both eyeing hundreds before Boland got the new ball. The first delivery with it smashed Jansen in the box with such force that a long break was needed to pick up a player whose first move had been to crawl in agony across the grass. Two balls later, focus blown, he flicked aerially to be caught at midwicket, giving Boland five wickets from his first use of South African soil.

The replacement seamer had the figures, but a specialist spinner might have been handy. Bavuma survived nervy running to reach 99, then the telling blow against Cummins was rich in symbolism: no dinked single, no dusty dive, but a rasping pull with full control along the ground for four, imperious in dismissing the threat of the opposing captain. It was the moment of a player taking charge. On he went, no heaves, no artillery, only five boundaries between 100 and 150, all of those using grass instead of air as their conduit.

Harmer, with a couple of first-class hundreds and the use of a sun-baked pitch, rode shotgun, opening out after reaching fifty. The dam broke. Part-timers bowled. South Africa went past the 390 of Renshaw’s rescue, then past 400, a partnership of 183 by the time Harmer missed a slog against Marnus Labuschagne to be bowled for 82. Bavuma followed next ball, nicking Starc, declaring as he left the field.

Nic Maddinson will wish Starc hadn’t taken that one, Australia’s controversially selected opener making another first-innings duck as he edged Kagiso Rabada to slip. Having led with the ball, Boland was now pressed into nightwatch service, but bad light kept play to three overs of spin before the call of stumps. Remarkably, from 40 for 4, South Africa are now a team that can’t lose this Test. Australia’s batting on day four will decide whether they can say the same.