You didn’t have to be Australian last Friday to get goosebumps. Even by way of satellite over a considerable distance, it was impossible not to be gripped by the tension and sheer excitement as Steve Waugh set up his 29th Test century.
In an age that has thrown up two of the most prolific batsmen the game has known in Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara, Waugh remains the most influential cricketer of modern times: to use the old chestnut, if you wanted someone to bat for your life, you wouldn’t look further than Steve Waugh.
Under intense pressure to reaffirm his value as a batsman, with speculation swirling all around him in front of his home crowd and with his top order in tatters, Waugh went out and proved it all over again.
More than that, the moment set itself up for him. On 98 and with two balls of the day remaining, Waugh was off strike, but Adam Gilchrist found the single and Waugh carved Richard Dawson through the covers for four. Even the English commentators were beside themselves.
In one afternoon Waugh had become only the third player to reach 10 000 Test runs and, in an Australian context, had equalled Bradman’s record of Test centuries.
Bradman. That’s all you need to say. You don’t have to add ‘Sir Donald†or ‘The Donâ€, the surname is sufficient.
Even though the great man has passed on, he remains a palpable presence in Australian cricket, as, indeed he does in Australia itself. Perhaps more than any other individual, he provided Australians with a sense of identity that even now is expressed by achievements on the cricket field, on the rugby pitch, in swimming pools and on tennis courts.
A few years ago, Mark Taylor declared an Australian innings closed with himself not out on 334 and in doing so did not surpass Bradman’s record Test score. He said afterwards that to be bracketed with Bradman in the record books was sufficient acknowledgement in itself. Whether Waugh goes on to make a 30th century remains to be seen, but as it stands he too will be spoken of in the same breath as Bradman.
South African cricket, South African sport has no comparable figure. Our rowdy and fractious history means that even now many of the great achievements of the past are tainted by separate histories. Even so, cricket, perhaps more so than any other team sport, forever links the past to the present. Which brings us to Herschelle Gibbs and Graeme Smith.
Just hours after Waugh reached his hundred in Sydney, Gibbs and Smith put on 368 for the first wicket at Newlands. In so doing they eclipsed the 260 for the first wicket made by Bruce Mitchell and Jack Siedle, also at Newlands, against England in 1930/31, before passing the big one, the 341 for the third wicket put on by Eddie Barlow and Graeme Pollock against Australia in Adelaide in 1963/64.
The temptation of the view from a distance is to impose patterns, but it is difficult not to believe that this partnership was a watershed moment for South African cricket, the point at which South African teams convinced themselves that they could equal, if not better, any in the world. The line between that stand and the great 1970 team shouts to be recognised.
In the first few years after readmission, South African teams were burdened by comparisons with the 1970 team, so much so that there came a point when the new South African players could barely stand to hear another word about Richards and Barlow and Procter and Pollock and whoever.
It was an almost active resentment, but one that has subsided as the teams of recent years have forged their own identities, enjoying their own achievements and suffering their own failures. Even so, the past exists in the record books and this is how we are able to measure and recognise just how much Gibbs and Smith achieved.
It matters not that the pitch was flat and Pakistan bowled poorly.
Batting records are not set on green tops and against ferocious seam attacks.
The achievement is, in part, in itself and also in the pace at which it was achieved. This was a partnership that utterly destroyed that opposition and led directly to an innings victory. Not all big scores and big partnerships ensure a victory.
I have no wish to make too many comparisons with the Barlow/Pollock and Gibbs/Smith partnerships, save one. In both instances they involved a young left-hander and an exuberant right-hander. I find something about that immensely comforting.