When Faf du Plessis walked in to bat at the fag end of the fourth day at the Wanderers, with a herculean task of saving South Africa the Test, he “knew” he could do it. The confidence stemmed from having successfully battled similar situation a year ago – on his Test debut, at Adelaide, du Plessis scored a belligerent fourth innings century to save the Proteas from a defeat.
While his Wanderers vigil was 71 minutes shorter than the one in Adelaide, Faf said this was a harder knock than the one against Australia.
"This wicket was a little bit harder," he said. "In Adelaide, it was quite flat and there was not a lot of seam movement but I knew this was going to be a real challenge. There was consistent bounce outside off stump."
There were a couple of common factors in both of Faf’s innings though. On both occasions he was accompanied by his best mate since school days, AB de Villiers in his fight to save the match. This time too, the duo applied the same strategy that got them over the line a year back.
“The first challenge was to get to the new ball," he said. "Myself and AB wanted to get through that, so I was really pleased with the way we did that."
What started out as a mission to save the Test, transformed into a real possibility of a win after the pair had put an unbeaten 150 on the board and had a session to play.
"I started to think about the win when myself and AB started getting some momentum and were scoring four runs an over quite regularly," du Plessis said. "Our plan was to bat until the last 10 overs. From there, we'd try and get anything."
The victory dream was given up on when de Villiers played an Ishant Sharma delivery on to his stumps with an hour to go. A couple of overs later JP Duminy followed suit and du Plessis once again began to bat for a draw.
"Then I just wanted to bat the innings through. When JP got out, I knew I had to stay in because if I got out, we would be in trouble.” Although Vernon Philander played positively, du Plessis chose to play safe.
"Vernon came in and made it closer. I just wanted to stay there. Until the last five overs, I just wanted to be there. I was very defensive, very tight,” before a punch at mid-off resulted in his run-out, thanks to a direct hit by Ajinkya Rahane. "I wanted to join the party. In hindsight, I should have hit that ball over his head for four," du Plessis said.
It was the end of a phenomenal yet exhausting time in the middle for du Plessis. "When you get out, your concentration levels just go out," he said. "I just went back to the change room and lay on my back and starred at the TV."
The worth of du Plessis’s 134 rises several notches higher when taken into consideration the pain in the hand he battled right through his innings.
"In between my thumb and index finger, the handle keeps jarring. There was a lot of bounce so every time the ball hit the splice, the handle jarred into my hand. After 300 or whatever balls, it hurt."
The joy of being a hero in his team’s time of need overshadowed the pain. "I'm very satisfied that we pulled it through. In the morning a lot of people wrote us off," he said. "I was really happy with the way I played, constructed my innings and left the ball."
This knock also ended his dry run of nine Test innings without a fifty and an ODI performance that led him to being dropped from the squad.
"I was very good until I got a 100. A lot of emotion comes through your body then. Over the last eight months, we played a lot of cricket in the subcontinent and a lot against Pakistan. They've got a really good attack. I was disappointed to be left out of the one-day squad but I can use this as a stepping stone to get back.
"It was also nice to go up the order. Jacques is not going to bowl 25 overs in every game where he needs a rest [before batting]. I enjoy going up the order. Hopefully I can get more opportunities."
Despite pulling off one of the greatest draws in Test cricket, du Plessis was a touch disappointed that he wasn’t able to see his team through what would have been a historic win.
"The position we got to, we'd have liked to win the game and be part of the best Test match ever," he said. "You always want to be the guy at the end that is the hero, but I couldn't do that today."
