Aiden Markram on ‘that’ moment: No hard feelings, Dean

Aiden Markram said on Thursday evening that he was not at all unhappy that he had missed out on a century on debut.

Instead, he was delighted that Dean Elgar had ended the first day of the first Test against Bangladesh in Potchefstroom on 128 not out.

The opening pair batted together until the stroke of tea, putting on a superb 196 for the first wicket, with the 22-year-old Markram inexorably marching towards becoming just the seventh South African batsman to score a century on Test debut.

Also read: Aiden Markram cruelly denied as Proteas dominate in Potch

But, in the over before tea, Elgar was on 99 and Markram had 97.

The pair of Titans players would almost certainly not have consumed much time discussing such a scenario when they drove down to Potchefstroom together earlier in the week, but the worst possible outcome happened with a run out not only breaking their partnership but leaving Markram agonisingly short of a memorable hundred, suffering the dreaded dismissal on 97.

Elgar had pushed off-spinner Mehedi Hasan Miraj backward of square on the off side and Markram came charging down the pitch to sprint through for the single the left-hander needed for his century.

But the experienced Elgar had spotted Mominul Haque moving quickly on to the ball and sent his partner back, but alas he was too far down.

“I’m more than happy to take 97, if you’d offered me that last night I would have grabbed it with open arms because I barely got any sleep. I never look at my batting from a selfish perspective and I really badly wanted Dean to get his hundred and I got myself in no-man’s land. Dean was very distraught, but I just told him he must bat through the day and do it for the team,” Markram said.

“I have massive respect for Dean, it’s never easy to bat a full day so you have to take your hat off to him. I’m incredibly happy for him and I know he really wants to kick on tomorrow. He’s very hard and a proper fighter and that’s reflected in his cricket.”

While admitting that South Africa were not expecting to be sent in to bat, Markram said the Bangladesh bowling was not so easy that they could play them with Geoff Boycott’s proverbial ‘stick of rhubarb’, even though the home side finished the first day on 298 for one.

“We were pleasantly surprised because it was our plan to bat first as well and the pitch is becoming a touch low and slow. So we’re happy to have first use of it and we feel we justified that. Bangladesh didn’t bowl badly, it’s just that there wasn’t much assistance out there. They hit the bat hard and they made it quite difficult to score at times,” Markram said.