Aiden Markram: SA and its Golden Boy find glitter together

Bengaluru: Somewhere in uptown, Transvaal Ray Jennings will be having a soft chuckle of satisfaction watching Aiden Markram’s career-defining hundred that led South Africa to the World Test Championship triumph over long-standing nemesis Australia.

Jennings was a hard-taskmaster, which earned him the sobriquet ‘Headmaster’ when he coached South Africa at various levels.

But he has this uncanny ability to gauge a talent, amply reflected in his call to promote Markram, who till then batted primarily at 3-4 in age group matches, as an opener during the 2014 U19 World Cup, which the right-hander made his calling card at the highest level.

From his budding years, he was earmarked for big things in top-flight cricket, as Jennings told him while moving him up the order.

But Markram's journey in red-ball cricket was not always rosy, despite smashing 97, 143 and 125 in his first four innings.

It’s evident in his numbers till the WTC Final — 2857 runs from 45 Tests, averaging 35.71 with seven hundreds and 13 fifties.

In fact, Markram is an aching puzzle. He has every attribute to be a top of the line batter as even Virat Kohli was once dazzled by his skillsets.

The right-hander has all the shots in the book, has impeccable timing, and has that soft, languid grace that sets apart the special ones from the ordinary.

A cover drive that blazed to the fence off Josh Hazlewood at the Lord’s during his monumental fourth innings 136 off 237 balls against a supremely capable Australian bowling unit that also had Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon underlined his abilities.

But in the past, he often seemed to be getting weighed down by his own gremlins, and coming out of their clutches only occasionally to play some dazzling innings such as a hundred against India at Newlands in a losing cause a couple of years ago.

He had or has obvious technical flaws — the tendency to get stuck inside the crease or play unnaturally aggressive irrespective of the nature of the pitch leading to his untimely dismissals.

It prevented Markram from finding that delicate balance, the hallmark of great batters.

Sachin Tendulkar could blitz any attack at will, but he also had that zen-like patience to eschew shots through the off-side to strike off the possibility of getting caught in the cordon or covers.

But at the Home of Cricket, Markram finally managed to touch that rarefied zone after a familiar stutter in the first innings when he was jettisoned after a six-ball duck.

“It's always one side of the sword — to absorb, but when you look at the wicket and quality of the bowling, you have X amount of balls to face and have to try and maximise scoring off those balls,” said Markram in the post-match presentation ceremony.

But to get to that space, the 30-year-old had to make a few adjustments to his batting in this WTC cycle, especially eliminating his fatal tendency to push at the ball away from his body.

It could have been suicidal against the Aussie pace troika but he played with admirable self-restraint at Lord’s but without getting into a shell and being self-destructive.

South Africa’s batting coach Ashwell Prince explained it.

“He played an unbelievable innings there, where everybody else was really struggling. And he got a hundred on that surface. And so, we know what he's capable of," said Prince in the post-day press meet on Friday.

But more than anyone in the world, Markram himself would know more about his capabilities and how to express them on a cricket field, and South Africa will be massively beneficial by that in the coming months.

It was no mere coincidence then that the SA fans, who assembled at the Lord’s, chanted his name incessantly.

“Oh! Aiden Markram trust in me when I say, Oh! Aiden Markram you are the love of my life,” they sang in unison as SA cruised towards a cathartic triumph.

It was a glorious modern twist to Bob Marley’s most famous number — the Redemption Song, customised for a man who found his freedom at last. They know that their team and its Golden Boy have finally managed to find the glitter after years of hurt. Together.