Long day's journey to victory for South Africa

Spectators trickling into Newlands on Monday were greeted by the angry ugliness of a police riot vehicle brooding on Campground Road. With its barred, dark windows and bulletproof everything, it was conspicuously incongruous on these streets, which are among Cape Town's leafiest.

Considering there were only 3,038 people in the ground by lunch, it was difficult to understand why the monster - officially an RG-12, unofficially a Nyala - had been deployed.

"Because," a policeman who had almost as much brass on his epaulettes as he had hair on his top lip explained, "sometimes that's just how we get to where we need to be."

Ah. So, no anticipation of a riot, then? "No."

As an analogy for the fourth day of the second men's Test between South Africa and Pakistan on Monday, that will do. There was no riot, neither of runs nor wickets. There was only a plodding progression of wickets and not enough runs to tilt the balance away from the expected outcome: victory for South Africa.

The visitors resumed with eight wickets standing and needing 208 runs to make South Africa bat again. That they accomplished by making their highest total against South Africa - 478. But that left the South Africans a nominal target of 58, which David Bedingham - who opened because Ryan Rickelton had tweaked a hamstring - and Aiden Markram dealt with in 43 deliveries to win by 10 wickets.

In Nyala-speak, what became the last day of the series and the end of South Africa's season eased into third gear and dawdled at 60 kilometres an hour before labouring over a few speedbumps and puttering into its garage.

It took South Africa 49 balls to strike - Marco Jansen's extra bounce found the outside half of Khurram Shahzad's bat and the catch flew to point. Five balls later in the same over, Kamran Ghulam drove and Bedingham, at slip, should have caught. He didn't.

Four overs after that, Kagiso Rabada bowled a front-foot no-ball. It was the first of seven he would send down on the day to take his total for the six Tests South Africa have played this season to 51. In his four Tests before that, Rabada overstepped only three times. Even more remarkably, while Rabada was bowling those 51 no-balls, he also took 28 wickets at 21.19.

Monday's eight no-balls - Wiaan Mulder bowled the other - brought the team total for the six Tests to 94. Piet Botha, you have a problem.

Or maybe not. Shan Masood comes from a family of lawyers, which he sounded like when he mounted a defence of his opponents' issue at his press conference: "People say they were overstepping, but you realise they are pushing themselves and trying to create chances. You know that as soon as the ball gets soft, it gets easier to bat on a surface like this."

Eleven balls before lunch, Nitin Menon turned down Kwena Maphaka's lbw appeal for Saud Shakeel's wicket. The gizmos said the stumps would have been hit. The South Africans opted not to send the call upstairs. Menon, the best umpire currently in the game, also had two decisions overturned on review.

It was that kind of day; more memorable for what went wrong than right. Masood's dismissal in the seventh over after lunch was a prime example. Maphaka and the rest of the South Africans levelled another leg-before shout at Menon, and again he said not out. This time they reviewed, and were successful.

Masood was plainly incensed, convinced that he had been struck outside the line of off stump. And so ended his innings of more than six hours in which he scored 145, a performance of grit and gumption that did more than any other to keep Pakistan in the match.

"I was beaten on the outside edge and it was shown as an inswinger; I was baffled by that," Masood said. "With the naked eye you could see that it looked like it was outside the line as well. I felt it was a different picture.

"I didn't get hit where Hawk-Eye showed it had hit [the pad]. I was hit more on the outside of the leg than the inside. It shows it on the inside; it shows it as an inswinger. That's not an inswinger - it's being beaten by an outswinger, and that's what the umpire thought as well."

Had he taken up the issue with the officials?

"No. It's up to the administrators whether they feel that's a fair decision. But I certainly felt that technology didn't show the trajectory of that ball [accurately]."

Masood's opposite number didn't have that problem, or it seems many others. Temba Bavuma has captained South Africa in nine Tests - eight won, one drawn. Would he take some of the credit for his team's success?

"I'd never do that," Bavuma told a press conference. "Probably among the players I would, but not here. As a captain, you're only as good as your bowlers. But you're also only as good as the rest of the team. The bowlers have been superb, and the batters have done their jobs when the time has come.

"There's nothing special about me as captain. I'm just enjoying being part of this group of guys, and enjoying the responsibility of executing the coach's [Shukri Conrad] vision."

Bavuma's next Test assignment will be to beat Australia in the WTC final at Lord's in June. To help that happen, improvement would be required: "I don't think we're a well-oiled machine. You can see in certain phases how we let the game go too much in the opposition's favour. And then it takes brilliance for us to bring it back.

"When you play against top sides who are on their game, you can't allow that. But when you talk about a special factor in the team, it's our ability to bring it back. That stands out. But we're on a journey. I don't think we are close to us playing at 100%. It will be scary when we are firing on all cylinders."

Bavuma himself has fuelled South Africa's cylinders that have fired. He has scored three centuries and four 50s in his 15 innings as captain, and he averages 57.78 at the helm.

"I understand my game a lot better, and I'm trying to stay within my strengths; I'm not trying to play like anyone else," he said. "In my early days I was always being told, 'You need to trigger.' I tried that, and it was never natural for me. But now I've put that aside and I try to do what comes naturally to me. From a mental point of view, I'm more at ease.

"I'm a lot calmer about things. I don't take them as personally. I think there's a sense of me not, in a good way, caring as much."

Do not get that wrong. Temba Bavuma cares a great deal. There's no brass on his shoulders. But there's gold in his heart.