South Africa vs England: Kagiso Rabada pays tribute to team-mates after seven-wicket haul

It was the second consecutive match in which the South African bowler had taken a five-wicket haul

Kagiso Rabada is applauded off the field at Centurion (Getty Images)

At the age of 20 years and 244 days, Kagiso Rabada yesterday became the youngest South African to take seven wickets in an innings. It was the second consecutive match in which he had taken a five-wicket haul. The world awaits him.

For a few brief minutes before lunch on the third day of the fourth Test, he was at the peak of his game, taking three wickets in nine balls with fizzing deliveries. Yet afterwards he was perfectly prepared, nay he insisted, on paying his dues to his colleagues, Morne Morkel and Kyle Abbott.

“I don’t think I have arrived yet,” he said. “There is a lot of work to be done. It felt good to take these seven wickets but Kyle and Morne bowled so very well.

“If they had taken seven wickets they would have deserved it more than I did. I think I did OK in spells but they just kept coming. I bowled a lot better at the Wanderers. But I’m happy that I produced seven wickets. It doesn’t happen often.”

Abbott, who took 5-73 in the third Test, is still wayward at times but he bowls enough good balls in a sufficiently sustained period to make batsmen fret. His dismissal of Joe Root yesterday, the ball holding its own on a ‘does he, doesn’t he’ length outside off stump, was wonderful to watch.

“The plan was to stick to the basics,” he said. “I just thought once I got Joe Root out it was a big relief. Only the day before, I was bit all over the place, Alastair Cook kept putting me through point and cutting me and pulling me. I was a bit too short, so this morning I tried to rectify it and we got our rewards as a bowling unit.”

His contribution put South Africa in a splendid position and, with nine wickets in hand, they are hot favourites to win their first match of the series. Rabada seems at home in international cricket despite his protests.

“People kept telling me that Test cricket is the real deal and I think I have learnt that because there is little margin for error,” he said. “You have got good players who have been playing for a long time, they latch on to anything that’s remotely off a good area. You have to bowl well for a period of time, not two overs.”

England came into the match with an unassailable 2-0 lead and have not played their sharpest cricket as Moeen Ali, who returned to form with a much-needed 61, conceded.

“We’re disappointed,” he said. “It’s obviously going to be tough. We dropped some catches and we probably should have played better with the bat. But they bowled very well.”

It was Rabada’s day. This is his sixth Test match and he is living the dream. “This is what I always wanted to do when I was growing up. I’m loving this but sometimes, when you ponder over it, you think: I’m really doing what I wanted to do, it’s amazing.”