Not Out on 30, Gone for 150: Jordan Hermann's Debut Hundred Puts South Africa 1-0 Up in Windhoek

Somewhere in the early part of Wednesday's first ODI in Windhoek, Jordan Hermann was out. He was on 30, completing a single, and a direct hit at the non-striker's end found him short. He was not given. There was no DRS to correct it. On such small administrative mercies are careers sometimes launched.

Hermann was playing his first ODI. He batted on, and finished with 150 — seventeen fours, three sixes, 126 balls in all — and by ESPNcricinfo's count became the fifth South African to make a hundred on ODI debut, after Colin Ingram, Temba Bavuma, Reeza Hendricks and Matthew Breetzke. Only Breetzke had gone on to 150. Hermann's score is level with his as the highest on men's ODI debut.

With Tony de Zorzi he added 190 for the second wicket, and South Africa made 348 for 6 in the first ODI ever played between these two sides. Namibia, who had beaten South Africa in a T20I only twelve days earlier, never got near it. Rain interrupted their reply twice and turned a difficult chase into an impossible one — 262 from 31 overs — and they finished on 162 for 8. South Africa won by 99 runs on DLS and lead the three-match series 1-0.

The first thing to say about South Africa's innings is how slowly it began. Ruben Trumpelmann found a little early movement, beat Hermann's outside edge and drew a top edge, and Namibia created half-chances throughout the first hour: Zane Green's full-length dive to a leg-side feather off Connor Esterhuizen in the first over, a de Zorzi edge that went wide of the slips, a close run-out. Esterhuizen, one of three South Africans making their ODI debut, pulled Trumpelmann to fine leg in the seventh over, and South Africa were 100 for 1 after twenty overs — sound rather than threatening.

Then they changed gear. The next seven overs brought 50. Hermann reached his fifty from 61 balls; Tony de Zorzi reached his — his third in ODIs — from 64. At the second drinks break, after 32 overs, South Africa were 195 for 1 with Hermann on 103. They made 153 more in the last eighteen.

The hundred came from the 93rd ball Hermann faced, and it seemed to unlock him. ESPNcricinfo's report noted a flurry of scoops after the milestone and a strikingly even distribution of scoring, 59 of his runs coming between cover and mid-off for a batter better known for his leg-side play. His second fifty came from 32 balls. De Zorzi's 72 from 84 was, by comparison, the steadier innings — until he was beaten for pace attempting a reverse sweep and given lbw to Gerhard Erasmus at 217 for 2.

Dewald Brevis needed two balls to produce a no-look six on his way to 33 from 28, and South Africa went into the final ten overs at 266 for 2 with 350 and more in view. It did not quite come. Hermann slashed a slower ball to Louren Steenkamp at backward point, and South Africa lost four wickets for 58, three of them to Trumpelmann. It took Corbin Bosch's 39 not out from 24 balls, with three sixes, to carry them to 348.

With the ball, the South Africans were disciplined in ways the scoreboard only half shows. Duan Jansen, another debutant, bowled six overs for 13. Kwena Maphaka took the two top-order wickets that mattered. And Prenelan Subrayen's off-spin, in six overs for 29, removed Malan Kruger, Erasmus, JJ Smit and Jack Brassell — the best figures of his ODI career.

Namibia will look at Hermann's reprieve on 30 and wonder. He made 120 more after it, and the match was lost by 99. But it would be unfair to their bowlers to reduce the day to one umpiring decision. Trumpelmann found early movement, kept coming back, and finished with 4 for 68. JJ Smit, left-arm, was the only Namibian bowler to go at less than six an over.

Where Namibia lost control was in the back half of the innings. Bernard Scholtz, described by ESPNcricinfo as their leading bowler in this format, bowled ten overs for 78 without a wicket. Namibia bowled 15 wides. And between the 20th and 32nd overs, when Hermann and de Zorzi decided to accelerate, nobody found a way to break a partnership that had grown too comfortable.

The chase was built for a target that never existed. Kruger and Alexander Busing-Volschenk made 24 in the first ten overs and went without a boundary from the second over to the twelfth — a sensible approach to 349 in fifty, and a costly one once the rain arrived. Busing-Volschenk was dropped by Jason Smith at long-off on 12, then was caught behind off the next ball he faced, from Maphaka. Jan Frylinck, the hero of the T20I series, bottom-edged Maphaka on to his stumps for 7 from 16 balls. Kruger was lbw to Subrayen for 34 from 60. When the first rain came, at 76 for 3 after 21.3 overs, Namibia were behind but not yet out of it.

What followed was an hour and 18 minutes off the field and a revised target of 301 from 38 overs — 225 needed from 16.3. Steenkamp was caught ten balls after the restart. Erasmus hit two handsome boundaries before a second stoppage, and when play resumed in fading light, the equation was 167 from seven overs. JJ Smit's 31 from 20 balls was honest hitting in an academic cause.

Context matters here. By ESPNcricinfo's count, Namibia had passed 300 only four times in ODIs, and their highest successful chase is 266. A target of 349 was 83 runs beyond their best before the rain made it something else entirely.

There was nothing in the numbers to suggest a difficult pitch — 348 in fifty overs says the opposite — but there was a clear pattern to how the runs came. Both sides were slow in their first powerplay: South Africa 38 for 1, Namibia 24 for none. South Africa then made 248 from their final thirty overs once the ball was older and the batters were set. On this Windhoek surface, the new ball asked questions and the old one answered them.

The rain, which interrupted Namibia twice for close to two hours in total, removed the second half of that pattern from Namibia's innings. They were never given the thirty overs of an old ball that South Africa had used so well. Their innings went from a new-ball phase straight into a run-rate problem.

South Africa's attack read the surface well: according to ESPNcricinfo, their seamers bowled hard lengths and shared four wickets, while Subrayen's off-spin did the rest.

A debut innings is supposed to be nervous. It is supposed to contain a moment of doubt, a streaky boundary, a period where the new player looks around at the size of the stage. Jordan Hermann's 150 contained a run-out that should have ended it and very little else to suggest a first match.

His first fifty took 61 balls. His second took 32. So did his third. He finished with 17 fours and three sixes, and he was out trying to push on again in the last ten overs.

The record he now shares with Matthew Breetzke is a remarkable one, and so is the list he joins — Ingram, Bavuma, Hendricks, Breetzke. But the more meaningful number may be the change of tempo after his hundred. A debutant could be forgiven for playing for the ovation after reaching three figures. Hermann reached his and began to play for the total.

The reprieve on 30 will always be part of the story. It should not be the whole of it. Luck gives a batter an innings; it does not give him 120 more runs.

We previewed this match and leaned towards South Africa, on the argument that fifty-over cricket would reward depth and sustained execution, and that South Africa's batting would produce "totals beyond what Namibia's bowling can consistently contain across fifty overs." South Africa made 348. That call was right, and the reasoning behind it held.

We also wrote that the longer format would expose whether Namibia's batting from five to eleven could build "partnerships of substance." Namibia's best partnership was 51, for the first wicket, and nobody passed 34. We suggested Kwena Maphaka's pace could be "genuinely hostile" at altitude; he took the wickets of Busing-Volschenk and Frylinck.

The misses are worth owning. We named Jan Frylinck as our player to watch from Namibia; he made 7 from 16. We named Lhuan-dre Pretorius as our South African player to watch, and he did not play. We framed Ruben Trumpelmann's new-ball spell as the contest that would set the tone. He did remove Esterhuizen inside the first powerplay, and he took four wickets in all, but the tone was set by the 190-run stand that followed. And we listed Divan la Cock and Jan Balt in Namibia's top four; neither played, and Kruger and Busing-Volschenk opened.

The player who decided the match — Jordan Hermann, then uncapped in ODIs — did not appear in our preview at all.

The series moves to the second ODI on Friday, September 11, again at the Namibia Cricket Ground, with the third on Sunday, September 13. South Africa, under Bjorn Fortuin and with three new caps in Wednesday's XI, lead 1-0 and have the more settled look of the two sides.

Namibia need two things to change. The first is control through the middle of the opposition innings — fifteen wides and a leading bowler conceding 78 are not affordable against a batting line-up that can accelerate like this one. The second is a batter who can do in fifty overs what Frylinck did in the T20Is. The side that beat South Africa by 18 runs less than a fortnight ago has not gone anywhere. It will simply need to find its way through fifty overs rather than twenty.