Ben Gardner was at Lord's to witness the partnership between Aiden Markram and Temba Bavuma that drove South Africa to the brink of the World Test Championship title.
As Temba Bavuma and Aiden Markram constructed the partnership that, impossibly and inevitably, guided South Africa to the brink of a maiden world title, two chants rang out. “Oh, Temba Bavuma” to the opening bassline of ‘Seven Nation Army’ by the White Stripes is the more printable of the two. The other starts “Oh Aiden Markram, you are the love of my life,” and continues in a sordid rhyming fashion.
Here were the two pillars of South Africa’s batting line-up, the only members of the top seven to have played in a victory over Australia, getting their moment, the Home of Cricket turned into a home away from home by a boisterous, booze-fuelled diaspora crowd, eschewing champagne corks in favour of a braai for the ages. As the noise ramped up, the only two South Africans keeping their heads were those in the middle, keeping their cool as an achievement 30 years in the making drew ever closer. As Markram stroked the boundary that brought up his hundred, it was Bavuma who jumped first, and yet still the top of his head, diminutive as he is, didn’t quite reach Markram’s.
The contrasts between the two are there to be drawn, and were only accentuated by the circumstances of the day. Markram, broad-shouldered and tall. Bavuma, scrappy and small. As Markram batted like a god, Bavuma’s pinged hamstring served as a reminder of mortality. Markram made it look easy while Bavuma was having to work hard just to hobble each single. Such has been the story for both, through their careers, through their lives. Markram, born in a wealthy part of Pretoria, attended a prestigious sporting high school, while Bavuma, who grew up in the township of Langa, is the only alumnus of St. David’s Marist Inanda to go on to play cricket for South Africa.
Early on in his career, Bavuma just couldn’t make the easy runs, regularly rescuing South Africa but getting out with the job not quite done, contributing but not dominating, converting just one of his first 21 half-centuries into a three-figure score. Markram, on the other hand, was all or nothing, having to wait 18 months for his first score between 40 and 80. First it came easy. A 97 on debut, hundreds in his third and fourth Test innings. Then the grind, a run of 15 innings without a fifty until he was dropped partway through 2022. He had made four hundreds in a breakout first year and just one since, averaging 26 across a four-year stretch.
Both have found significant backing from head coach Shruki Conrad, who recalled Markram for his first series in charge, against West Indies in 2023, and named Bavuma South Africa’s first Black captain at the same time. Markram made a century in the series opener and Bavuma a pair. In the second came his long-awaited second Test hundred. South Africa won both. They were off. Bavuma is now 10 Tests in, his record of nine wins and a draw unmatched in cricket history. This triumph etches him among South Africa’s most significant sporting figures, and Markram’s century is among their greatest performances.
This was a game where each succeeded by adopting the other’s best traits. Bavuma was rendered shotless in the headlights on the first evening, Australia’s trio of all-timer quicks probing and puncturing in their own varied ways. Kagiso Rabada’s hard-won advantage was being reduced by the ball. At stumps they were 43-4, scoring at under two an over, and sinking fast. Markram had started the slide, playing injudiciously in the first over and edging onto the stumps. Bavuma seemed powerless to prevent it becoming match-defining.
Overnight, the plan changed. Bavuma attacked his first two balls, mistiming the first and missing the second altogether. But when he stroked Mitchell Starc gloriously over the off-side for four soon after, the feeling of the game changed. He drove and cut and played and missed. Pat Cummins was hooked into the Grand Stand. He made only 36, but showed his side these guys could be got at. In the second innings, he found the balance of attack and defence, able to score at a decent rate even as his hamstring hampered him. Markram, meanwhile, was simply sensational, and yet not with a flurry of strokes, as was the case in his last worldie, crashing a century at better than a run a ball on a Cape Town pitch so difficult India won the shortest Test of all time, but with a consummately compiled masterpiece. “Phenomenally responsible,” was how Ian Bishop put it.
Bavuma said it best after the game. “For us as a country, here’s an opportunity for us, divided as we are at times, to forget all of that, rejoice in this moment and be one.” The joy of this win was built on what divides and unites Bavuma and Markram, twin batting architects of an innings for all time.
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