A South Africa team that doesn’t include Keshav Maharaj is as rare as a sponsor’s logo on the front of the players’ shirts. Almost, anyway.
Measured from his debut in each format, Maharaj has played in 80.82% of South Africa’s Tests and 60% of their T20Is. But in only 43.75% of their ODIs. The equation might have been different had he not been out of the selectorial spotlight for four ODIs and five T20Is while he recovered from the Achilles he ruptured in March 2023.
Maharaj’s relative rarity in ODIs is partly explained by the fact that he made his way into international cricket as a Test bowler. And because he came up while Imran Tahir was South Africa’s white-ball spinner of choice.
Tahir’s last ODI was at the 2019 World Cup. South Africa have since played 68 matches in the format, and Maharaj has featured in 45. Or 66.18% of them.
Never has he been as dominant as he was in Cairns on Tuesday, when he found turn and bounce and took 5/33 - his first five-wicket haul in his 49th ODI.
Maharaj claimed all of his wickets with his first 26 deliveries, in which the only scoring shots off his bowling were nine singles.
He trapped Marnus Labuschagne in front with his first ball of the match, which was delivered from round the wicket and straightened like a well-aimed knife after pitching - on leg stump - full enough to ambush the batter on the back foot. Labuschagne reviewed, and his teammates waiting to bat would have been alarmed to see the amount of turn extracted before the ball would, the gizmos said, have nailed the top of middle stump.
Alex Carey also reviewed his lbw decision after he missed a first-ball sweep to Maharaj and was hit on the boot. This time off stump was the designated target.
Carey came to the crease after Maharaj bowled a tentative Josh Inglis. Cameron Green and Aaron Hardie were also bamboozled, beaten and bowled.
It was a masterclass in left-arm spin, and it helped South Africa win the first of the three games in the series by 98 runs. The visitors’ 296/8 - fuelled by Aiden Markram’s 82, Temba Bavuma’s 65, Matthew Breetzke’s 57 and Wiaan Mulder’s 26-ball 31 not out, which realised stands of 92 between Markram and Ryan Rickelton and another 92 between Bavuma and Breetzke - proved more than enough on the day/night.
Fine left-arm spinner though he is, Maharaj is rubbish at talking himself up. “I was very fortunate to get the rewards,” he told a press conference. “I mean, I put the balls in the right area but it’s not often that happens.” Listening to him, you would be forgiven for thinking the pitch was the overarching factor in his success.