Maestro Rabada leads Proteas to win with sublime ‘six-fer’

Kagiso Rabada’s 13th five-wicket haul led the Proteas to their first Test win in six matches and helped — momentarily at least — to push aside worries about their batting.

Rabada picked up 6/50 as the Proteas beat the West Indies by 87 runs on Thursday’s day three at SuperSport Park in Centurion, registering their fourth consecutive Test win against them.

Not that it required any repeating but this was yet another display of what makes Rabada one of the great modern fast bowlers.

While some of his teammates got carried away with the bouncer, or in Marco Jansen’s case searching for a magic delivery, Rabada relentlessly probed at an off-stump line, using changes of angle to build pressure on left and right-hand batters.

That he looked shattered at the end is no surprise. It was fast bowling of an extremely high standard and on the occasions when the West Indies flirted with the impossible, Temba Bavuma knew who he could rely on.

There was a worrying moment when Rabada damaged his left ankle in one over and needed to take a painkiller, but it got him through and he delivered the coup de grâce. He got a delivery to rear up off a good length that Jermaine Blackwood, who had batted superbly to score 79, could only deflect to Aiden Markram at second slip.

Blackwood had kept the West Indies cause alive after they had suffered a top order collapse that left them 20/4 in the 10th over. They must have wished they could have called on Brian Lara, now a performance mentor, sitting in their changeroom. He certainly produced his share of fourth innings heroics and Blackwood tried his damnedest to muster one here, hitting 12 fours and a six.

Oh, what might have been if one of the top order had hung around. Both Tagenarine Chanderpaul and Kyle Mayers threw their wickets away with wild shots, making a target of 247 unachievable as a result.

Blackwood shared a couple of useful partnerships with Joshua Da Silva and former skipper Jason Holder, but both those batters were dismissed by Rabada. Da Silva chased a wide ball and edged to Keegan Petersen at third slip, while Holder got one that nibbled enough off the surface and found the outside edge.

It had been an inauspicious start to the day for the home team, who had hoped to leave a more substantial target than 247.

The partnership Anrich Nortjé had talked about forging on Wednesday never occurred with Heinrich Klaasen dismissed off the 13th ball of the morning. The key wicket for the West Indies was that of Markram, who had looked the best of the SA batters and was still scoring relatively freely on the third morning. Kemar Roach got one to straighten on the angle, finding a thin edge to end Markram’s innings on 47.

Roach finished off the Proteas innings, claiming an 11th Test five-wicket haul and passing Joel Garner on the list of leading wicket-takers for the West Indies to 260 wickets.

A second innings total of 116, with just three batters in double figures, two of them tail-enders, does not suggest the concerns about the Proteas batting should ease. This was a pitch on which batting was difficult — particularly in the final session of each day’s play — but it was not a pit of demons.

There were too many soft dismissals and judgment regarding the location of the off stump was not what it should be for players who may be lacking in Test experience, but have played enough first-class matches to know better.

The second Test starts at the Wanderers on Wednesday.