An Australian win looked inevitable after setting 282 to win, but Aiden Markram and Temba Bavuma defied the odds
R
ight from the start of the day, there was an inevitability that this match was Australia’s. They started 218 runs in front, in the third innings, walking back onto a Lord’s field where 28 wickets had fallen in the previous two days. They had the four-star bowling attack, their opponents had the shooting-star batting order, one that had flashed and vanished in its first sighting. Soon this would be compounded by Temba Bavuma’s hamstring injury. The lead as it stood looked a chance to be enough, and first would come the chance to increase it a smidgen more.
The sense of inevitability only grew as that smidgen broadened into a big dirty smudge. There is nothing more galling for a cricket team than a long tenth-wicket partnership. Every ball is more annoying than the one before. Things had started right, Kagiso Rabada in his second over of the day trapping Nathan Lyon with only four runs added to the score. On four wickets for the innings, nine for the match, Rabada was ready to complete twin milestones.
Except they didn’t come. Not in his third over, nor his fourth. Not his fifth, not his sixth. Not even his seventh. When he was taken off after drinks, fading with fatigue, it must have been galling to the entire side, their champion deserving that last swipe of icing on the cake. Instead, not content with seeing off the major threat, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood just kept batting: 135 balls, 59 runs, to the stroke of lunch.
