Markram holds firm after Pakistan claim two wickets on day two

Aiden Markram reached 81 but two wickets in the second hour of the Friday’s opening session, has kept Pakistan’s hopes up in the first Test with SA at SuperSport Park.

Markram continued to look in good shape, as he registered his highest score in 2024 since making 106 against India at Newlands in January. SA reached 180/5 at lunch, with Kyle Verreynne, yet to score, set to resume after the break alongside the South African opener.

Markram and Proteas captain Temba Bavuma shred a partnership worth 70 runs for the fourth wickets as SA sought to make inroads after Pakistan were dismissed shortly after tea on the first day for 211. 

Bavuma had just reached the stage in his innings where he was moving well, and garnered a feel for conditions that allowed him drive with authority, a shot he unfurled on three occasions.

Having played it so well, his dismissal came as a surprise, because the drive he attempted to Aamer Jamal lacked conviction, giving Mohammad Rizwan an easy catch behind. 

Bavuma’s innings included four fours, but such has been his form recently, which included a sequence of four consecutive 50-plus scores, one of which he turned into a hundred against Sri Lanka, that both he and those watching were just expecting him to convert another good start once again. 

It left Markram to hold the SA innings together and briefly he and David Bedingham lit up the morning with some exquisite batting.

Bedingham once more offered a glimpse of his silky shotmaking ability, with drives off the back foot through the covers and elegant flicks off his legs. He and Markram produced back-to-back cover drives, which were perfectly executed. But, playing in his 11th Test — a year after making his debut at this ground against India — Bedingham is also developing an irritating habit of making good starts, but not making them count. 

He has three half-centuries to go with the 110 he made against New Zealand in Hamilton in February, but also middling scores ranging from 28 to 35, which only serve to whet the appetite.

Friday’s was another example and while he could claim that the ball from Naseem Shah that caused his dismissal, bounced a bit more than he may have anticipated, the shot he attempted, was going to do nothing else but lead to his dismissal. He made 30 — simply not enough in the context of this or any other innings — before edging Shah to first slip where Kamran Ghulam held a comfortable catch.

Pakistan, worked hard through the session, with Abbas bowling a lengthy eight over spell from the Hennops River End. The ball darting back into the right hander proved the most challenging for the South African batters, with Abbas on one occasion finding the inside edge against Markram, with the ball flying passed the slips to the fine leg boundary. 

Until Bavuma’s dismissal that was the closest Pakistan had come to taking a wicket, on a surface that is still offering encouragement for the seamers, but one which is increasingly better for batting.