SA vs AUS, 2nd Test — Day 5: South Africa Win by an Innings and 31 Runs to Level the Series 1-1 (SA 425/9d; AUS 99 & 295)

At the close of the second day South Africa were 97 for 5, a series slipping away from them. Three days later they had won by an innings. Test cricket rarely turns that far, that fast, and when it does it usually needs one person to stand still while everything else moves. In Gqeberha that person was Temba Bavuma.

The last day made South Africa work. Rain washed out the first session, Travis Head made a hundred, and Scott Boland, sent in as nightwatcher the evening before, batted as if he had forgotten he was one. But the gap was always 326 runs, and Australia fell 31 short of making South Africa bat again. The series is level at 1-1.

Morning showers kept the players off until 12pm, and Australia resumed on 156 for 4 with Head on 87. He reached his century from 151 balls with two boundaries in three deliveries off Jansen. ESPNcricinfo noted it was his first Test hundred against South Africa and only his second overseas, after the 163 in the 2023 World Test Championship final. The celebration was muted. He knew how far there was still to go.

Boland was the surprise. Twice a nightwatcher in this Test, and the bowler who took 5 for 81 in South Africa's innings, he went well past his longest Test innings in balls faced, defending soundly and driving well. He and Head added 59 from 162 balls for the fifth wicket, and for a while a draw did not look impossible.

With the new ball five overs away, Wiaan Mulder came around the wicket, cramped Head for room and got a bottom edge onto the stumps. Head went for 121 from 190 balls, and Australia were 209 for 5. Steven Smith, troubled by his neck since the previous day, came in at No. 7, his lowest position in Tests since 2014. He made 3 from 20 balls before top-edging a Rabada pull, and Matthew Breetzke held a juggling catch at midwicket in the swirling wind. Bavuma turned his back and could not watch.

Boland made it to tea alongside Alex Carey, 253 for 6, but early in the final session Mulder nipped one back between bat and pad. He had Boland for 40 from 166 balls, and then moved one the other way to bowl Pat Cummins. Rabada bowled Mitchell Starc, and with the floodlights on, Jansen had Josh Hazlewood caught by Aiden Markram at slip. Australia were all out for 295 with more than 28 overs left, and Carey was left unbeaten on 37.

Mulder's three wickets mattered all the more because Anrich Nortje was missing with the groin injury he picked up on Day 4. Ryan Rickelton stood up to the stumps to him, which kept the batters in their crease, and all three of his final-day wickets came from that pressure.

Australia chose to field and, for two days, looked right to do so. Boland and Starc reduced South Africa to 40 for 4 and then 110 for 6. From there Bavuma added 132 with Marco Jansen and 183 with Simon Harmer. Jansen made 85 from 100 balls, Harmer 82 from 157, and Bavuma batted 334 balls for 179 before Carey caught him off Starc, after which South Africa declared on 425 for 9. The last three wickets were worth 315 runs.

Then Jansen took 5 for 33 and Australia were bowled out for 99 in 42.3 overs. It was their first total under 100 in 69 Test innings, and only the third time since 1988 that South Africa had made them follow on. This was Australia's first innings defeat since 2023. Jansen, with 85 runs, six wickets and the final wicket, was involved in almost every turn of the match.

The second innings showed what Australia can do. Head, Labuschagne and a nightwatcher kept South Africa in the field for 107.1 overs. The first innings showed the other side. The top four made 30 between them and the whole side lasted 42.3 overs, and once Head fell on the final day, the last six wickets went for 86.

The bowling has questions too. Boland's 5 for 81 and Starc's three wickets had South Africa at 110 for 6, but Cummins went for 96 without a wicket and Hazlewood, who took six in Durban, finished without one. Smith's neck is the other worry. He batted at No. 7 on the last day and never looked settled.

Bavuma came into this Test after making 6 and 1 in Durban and losing a Test as captain for the first time. He made 179, his highest Test score, from 334 balls with 18 fours and a six, and he scored them when South Africa were losing wickets at the other end. Rickelton, Jansen and Harmer each stayed with him for a while. He was the only constant.

His captaincy was good too. He enforced the follow-on, and on the final day he stood so close at silly point that umpire Arno Jacobs called a no-ball because his hand was on the pitch. There is a kind of batting that wins a crowd and a kind that wins a Test. Bavuma's was the second kind.

Our preview said Australia held all the aces, though we also wrote that South Africa, at home and behind in the series, would be dangerous, and that Bavuma tends to produce innings when his captaincy is questioned. The second part was right; the first was not. We picked Hazlewood against Markram as the key contest. Markram made 11 in the only innings he batted, but Hazlewood went wicketless in the match, and the contest that decided it was Bavuma against the second new ball. Breetzke, our South Africa player to watch, made 4 but took two important catches. Nathan Lyon, our Australia pick, was not in the XI.

The series goes to Newlands, Cape Town, level at 1-1. South Africa have the momentum, with Jansen, Rabada and Mulder all among the wickets here, but they will be waiting on news of Nortje's groin. Australia need Smith fit, an answer to the first-innings collapse, and more from Cummins and Hazlewood. After Durban and Gqeberha, it's hard to say who goes in as favourite.