Stokes Said It Slowly
NEWS / Stokes Said It Slowly
Newlands, 5 January 2016. Temba Bavuma is 5ft 3in. England had dropped catches all innings. Ben Stokes, after an inside edge ran for four, said it slowly enough that the cameras and The Times both got it: “You. Are. Absolutely. S***.” Aleem Dar told Stokes to calm down. Bavuma said later some of it he could not really hear, and that it fired him up.
He came in after three wickets for 10. Fifty off 52 balls, eleven fours. 102 not out off 141, sixteenth four a thick edge off Steven Finn. First Test hundred by a Black African for South Africa, 226 Tests after readmission. Hashim Amla had already made 201. The stand with Chris Morris was 167, a seventh-wicket record against England. South Africa declared on 627 for 7, two short of England’s 629.
Temba Bavuma’s 102 not out, Newlands, first Black African Test hundred for South Africa. If the player does not load, open it on YouTube.
Stokes was among the first to shake his hand. Bavuma told TMS he was full of emotion and relief. He is No. 5 in the Test batting list now, and the captain who took South Africa to a World Test Championship. The ranking is the long joke on that afternoon. The short one is still the sledge, said slowly, to a man who then made a hundred.