Ken Borland

You know you have made an impression on the cricket field when AB de Villiers tweets about how excited he is to watch you bat, Ravi Shastri says you remind him of his childhood hero and Ian Chappell wonders why you weren’t playing Test cricket earlier.

Keegan Petersen was so impressive in South Africa’s Test triumph over India, taking the Man of the Series award for his 276 runs at an average of 46, scoring 41 more runs than anyone else, that the world has taken notice of the new number three’s performance against the top-ranked side.

De Villiers said “Keegan Petersen CAN play! I’m very excited with the composure, skill and technique I’ve seen against one of the best attacks in the world.”

Shastri, India’s former captain and the coach who made them a dominant force before he stepped down last year, called Petersen “a great world player in the making. My childhood hero Gundappa Viswanath comes to mind.”

Viswanath played 91 Tests for India and scored 6080 runs at an average of 41.93 between 1969 and 1983. He was a wristy stylist who was at his best when the conditions were at their toughest.

Former Australian captain Chappell, in his column for CricInfo, wondrered where Petersen has been all this time. “He has all the requirements of a Test No. 3, including a wide range of shots that he is prepared to play, plus a solid defence. So why is he only playing now?” he asked.

Out of the public eye, Petersen’s new-found fame has led to him being swamped with well-wishers, especially in his home town of Paarl, where he went with his family after the Test series.

“I don’t think my phone has ever been as busy as it has been for the last few days,” Petersen told The Citizen. “To have such legends talking about you, anything they say is really nice.

“It’s been a bit of a star-struck few days. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind. My whole family and friends came to see me in Paarl, but I’m not complaining.

“It is their honour too. I am a product of my community and I owe a lot to them,” Petersen said.

Educated at New Orleans Secondary School, Petersen popped into his old school last week as the guest of honour to welcome the new pupils. It’s a close-knit school, well-known for its family values as much as the many sports stars they have produced.

And, in terms of his life outside of cricket, Petersen makes it clear that family is his priority.

“All my time outside of cricket goes to my family, my wife and three kids – two boys and a girl – because I’m away enough with cricket,” Petersen said.

“We enjoy watching movies, Netflix, having a braai or potjiekos. I’m not very outgoing but we enjoy going to the beach.”

Speaking of family, Petersen credits his father, Dirkie, as having been the major influence on his cricketing career. Currently a teacher at New Orleans SS, Petersen senior was a talented all-round sportsman playing fullback for the SA Tertiary Institutes rugby team and cricket for Paarl, alongside Adrian Kuiper and Marais Erasmus.

“He’s always been there through my career and probably knows my game better than I do,” Petersen junior said. “I don’t think he can throw anymore because he’s thrown me so many balls.

“I’m so grateful to him. He was a wicketkeeper/batsman, a decent player, but I only watched him at the back end of his career in club cricket.”

The 28-year-old Petersen said there were plenty of nerves to get over during the Test series against India. But he’s the sort of character who is comfortable pushing himself and rising to challenges.

He was a prolific scorer for Boland after making his debut for them in 2011/12, but struggled to gain a regular starting place in a powerful Cape Cobras batting line-up. So he moved to Bloemfontein for greater opportunity and flourished for the Knights. Last season he moved to the Dolphins – “to upskill myself in a new challenge on turning pitches” – and helped them to the four-day title.

Those butterflies were flying in perfect formation by the end of the Test series as any questions over Petersen’s place in the Proteas team were firmly erased.

He was always going to miss the next two Tests against India on paternity leave, but it was confirmed on Thursday night that we have seen the last of Quinton de Kock in Test cricket as the wicketkeeper/batsman announced his retirement from the format.

The 29-year-old made relatively minor contributions with the bat – scoring 34 and 21 – in his final Test as South Africa lost by 113 runs at Centurion on Thursday. It leaves De Kock with a Test record of 3300 runs in 54 matches at an average of 38.82, with six centuries and 22 fifties.

As designated wicketkeeper, that average goes up to 40.12 and of all the glovemen in Test history who have scored more than 2000 runs, only countryman AB de Villiers (57.41), Zimbabwe’s Andy Flower (53.70), Australia’s Adam Gilchrist (47.60), Englishmen Les Ames (43.40) and Matt Prior (40.18), and Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara (40.48) have averaged more.

De Kock’s reason for retirement is his family, with he and his wife Sasha expecting their first child in the New Year.

“This is not a decision that I have come to very easily,” De Kock said in a statement. “I have taken a lot of time to think about what my future looks like and what needs to take priority in my life now that Sasha and I are about to welcome our first child into this world and look to grow our family beyond that.

“My family is everything to me and I want to have the time and space to be able to be with them during this new and exciting chapter of our lives.

“I love Test cricket and I love representing my country and all that it comes with. I’ve enjoyed the ups and the downs, the celebrations and even the disappointments, but now I’ve found something that I love even more.

“In life, you can buy almost everything except for time, and right now, it’s time to do right by the people that mean the most to me,” De Kock said.

De Kock had the sort of batting x-factor you just can’t buy and was certainly one of the most feared South African batsmen.

But De Kock seemed to be getting worn down by the grind of Test cricket, especially the new normal of bio-secure bubbles, not helped by a fairly disastrous time when he had the captaincy thrust upon him.

If this decision buys De Kock more time in limited-overs cricket – he says he remains fully-committed to the white-ball game – then it will be worth it for the Proteas.

Kyle Verreynne, who has already played two Tests, is the likely successor behind the stumps for the Test team, with Ryan Rickelton waiting in the wings and Heinrich Klaasen another gloveman who has had a taste of Test cricket in the last couple of years.

Rassie van der Dussen was a virgin when it came to Test cricket on the subcontinent going into the first Test against Pakistan in Karachi last week and South Africa’s number three batsman pronounced himself satisfied with his efforts on Monday.

Van der Dussen, whose previous sub-continental experience has been limited to a first-class game for SA A in 2018 and a handful of T20s, made 17 and 64 in Karachi. His first innings saw him get off to a fluent start before he needlessly ran himself out, but his second innings was a fine 151-ball effort that reignited the Proteas’ hopes of winning the game along with Aiden Markram.

“For my first Test match in the sub-continent I was quite happy. You speak to players who have been successful here in the past, they prepare you for what to expect, and after spending time in the middle I can see it was exactly what we spoke about. So it’s nice to know my preparation and execution was good and I will take confidence from that into the second Test.

“The obvious difference to back home is the lack of bounce. Here the spinners come on quite early when the ball is still newish. There would be a lot more bounce for a spinner bowling with a newish ball in South Africa and slip would be in play but lbw would probably be out. But here the new ball skids through low, no ball is going to go over the stumps so all dismissals are in play all the time, for every ball,” Van der Dussen said on Monday.

The 31-year-old said the Proteas batting unit will be making an active effort in the second Test, which starts on Thursday in Rawalpindi, to bat time more than they did in their poor first innings of just 220 in Karachi after winning the toss.

“We were really disappointed to only get 220 after winning the toss. On the sub-continent, batting time is vital and we know as a batting unit that we weren’t even close to good enough. We prepared in bad conditions which is what we got to an extent, so we had the right game-plan, it was just the execution was lacking. It’s our responsibility if you get in, and a few of us got starts, to put pressure on the opposition.

“You need to get 350 at least and bat the whole day. But it was all of our’s first time in Pakistan, so it’s valuable experience that will hold us in good stead going forward. We will definitely be looking to rectify our batting. It comes down to the fundamentals of building an innings, give yourself a chance by surviving the first 20-30 balls. It was good bowling but there was also a bit of indecision,” Van der Dussen said.

Keshav Maharaj is not satisfied to be merely South Africa’s number one spinner in Test cricket; the 30-year-old said on Thursday that he wants to play in all three formats. And he even dreams of captaining the Proteas to World Cup glory one day.

While Maharaj is pretty much unchallenged for his place in the Test team, having taken 110 wickets in 30 matches, he has only played seven ODIs and is yet to be picked for a T20 International. Three of those appearances came in the whitewash of Australia earlier this year though and the left-arm spinner performed tidily enough to cement himself in the national selectors’ plans, being chosen for the abandoned limited-overs tour of India. It was Maharaj’s form for the Dolphins as they won the Momentum One-Day Cup that forced his return to the Green and Gold as he ended as the fourth-highest wicket-taker with 16 wickets, despite only playing seven out of the 10 games, and had the best average in the competition – 14.68.

“Since making my ODI debut in England in 2017, I had to work on my plan for limited-overs cricket and I went back to franchise cricket and worked as hard as I could. So it was a really good experience to be drafted back into the ODI side. Being boxed as a red-ball cricketer has been extremely frustrating for me because I was branded as a white-ball bowler early in my career!

“To be handed another opportunity for the Proteas was like making my debut again. I want to play for South Africa in all three formats, but for T20 I need to bide my time in the ODI side first. I want South Africa to be number one in all formats and if that happens then I must be doing my job. Then I just want to do better the next season,” Maharaj said on Thursday.

And if one enquires about the Durban-born star’s long-term goals then the drive and ambition of a champion competitor becomes clear.

“When I asked what I had to do to get back in the ODI side, I was told that apart from my bowling I had to work on my batting as well. I was fortunate to have extra responsibility as the Dolphins captain, it made me want to be able to bail the team out of any situation or put them in a winning position, and I managed to get some scores last season. I know I have a lot more ability with the bat than the numbers suggest.

“In India last year I tasted what it was like to get an international fifty. The biggest problem was getting the first one and hopefully now I can move to being a bowling all-rounder or even a fully-fledged all-rounder, able to contribute evenly with ball and bat. And I really enjoy captaincy, I really want to lead the Proteas, that’s my dream. Raising the World Cup trophy was a childhood dream of mine,” Maharaj said.