Harmer and Maharaj South Africa’s match winning formula

For most of the modern era South African cricket has been defined by fast bowlers. Visiting teams planned for new ball spells from quicks, not for days spent wrestling against high class spin. The partnership of Simon Harmer and Keshav Maharaj has changed that story, and their work in India this season finally delivered what South African teams had been chasing for fifteen years a Test victory on Indian soil.

Harmer’s journey is an unusual one for a South African spinner. Born in Pretoria in 1989, he broke through with the Warriors and made his Test debut in Cape Town in early 2015, showing he could both contain and attack with his right arm off spin. When national opportunities dried up he moved to Essex and became the dominant spinner in county cricket, taking huge wicket hauls and leading Essex to titles. That long apprenticeship in often helpful but sometimes flat English conditions hardened his skills. By the time he returned to the Proteas setup he was a far more complete bowler in control of pace, angleand drift.

Maharaj followed a different path but arrived at the same summit. A teenage prodigy in KwaZulu-Natal, he debuted in first class cricket at sixteen and worked his way through the Dolphins system before a Test debut at Perth in 2016 where he became the first specialist spinner to debut on that ground. A left arm orthodox bowler with stamina and courage, he built his reputation through big spells in Asia, including a nine wicket innings in Sri Lanka and a Test hat trick against West Indies. In white ball cricket he rose to the top of the ICC rankings and became South Africa’s most successful spinner in Tests by sheer volume of wickets.

Together they give South Africa something the side has almost never had in India a pair of spinners who can both win and control a match. Harmer attacks right handers from around the wicket, using overspin and subtle changes of flight to make batters play against the spin. Maharaj operates from the other end with his left arm angle, hitting the same spot again and again, squeezing the scoring rate and punishing any attempt to hit against the turn. On Indian pitches that start slow and then break up, this constant pressure from both sides of the wicket forces errors that a lone spinner simply cannot create on his own.

That was the difference in the recent win at Eden Gardens. Harmer’s eight wickets across the match, including two four wicket spells, supplied the cutting edge and earned him the player of the match award. Maharaj’s role was less dramatic on the scorecard but equally important he held end after end, dried up singles, and drew India’s stroke makers into taking risks at the other end. Once the surface began to crumble and the rough outside off stump for both right handers and left handers opened up, South Africa were suddenly the side with the more dangerous attack in Indian conditions.

The result was historic South Africa’s first Test win in India since Nagpur in 2010 and a clear signal that the old stereotype of a one-dimensional pace based attack no longer applies. With Harmer and Maharaj in tandem, South Africa finally have twin spinners of genuine world class, capable of turning the hardest assignment in Test cricket into a genuine opportunity rather than a slow march to defeat.