In the pandemonium of the Cape Town Test, Aiden Markram scored an outrageous century that stole the narrative of a tumultuous two weeks, writes Katya Witney.

In the context of the match, Aiden Markram’s innings is extraordinary enough. Twenty-three wickets falling on the first day, 55 all out on a surface that could be called seamer-friendly at best, dangerous at worst. Throw into that Jasprit Bumrah’s pinpoint first half-hour spell this morning, following on from the other exceptional spells of fast bowling yesterday, it all adds up to a scenario batters wake up in cold sweats at night dreading, seeing the ball continuously flash past their outside edge in their sleep. But for one glorious hour, Markram revelled in the mayhem.

Seventeen of the 23 wickets that fell before the morning session of Day Two came before their victim had reached double figures. Nine batters hadn’t troubled the scorers. The most balls anyone had faced in the match was the 59 played by Virat Kohli, which gave him 46 runs before he became part of India’s evening session steam-rollering. While tentative defences from South Africa’s inexperienced middle order and attacking shots slapped to fielders contributed to the never-ending collapse, that doesn’t mitigate that Markram’s innings came in some of the toughest conditions possible and in the face of everything that had gone before.

Of the 1096 Test Hundreds with ball tracking available, none have been tougher than Aiden Markram’s at Newlands according to our Expected Runs and Wickets model, with an Expected Average of just 16.6 during his innings. #SAvIND

— The CricViz Analyst (@cricvizanalyst) January 4, 2024

Aiden Markram is the first player to make a century in a Test innings where nobody else scored more than 12.

Previous best in any inns:
G Gooch 91* Eng v NZ The Oval 1978 out of 138-3.

Previous best in all out inns:
G White 73 SA v Eng CT 1906.

— Andrew Samson (@AWSStats) January 4, 2024

When Test cricket is being played on fast-forward, as it has been since ball one in Cape Town, there’s no point trying to put the brakes on. You have to strap yourself in, hold on to whatever you can and embrace the chaos. Having been beaten and rapped on the pad several times, having watched the wickets continue to tumble around him, Markram concluded there was no other alternative than to attack in full awareness that South Africa’s hopes of winning the game were slim to none, and at some point he would be dealt an unplayable ball that would bring it all to an end.

The best players can turn a game on its head, if only fleetingly. Block out the narrative of everything that’s gone before and grab the crowd by the scruffs of their necks taking them along for the ride. With every four crashed through mid-on and the sixes, the first swatted square and the second imperiously driven over Mukesh Kumar’s head, the momentum of what Markram was doing built. The frustration on his face when he was unable to dictate the number of balls Kagiso Rabada had to face was only equalled when yet another ball came within millimetres of his outside edge.

South African cricket in particular is built on great entertainers. Markram’s exceptional 2023 across formats marked his completed ascendence to their ranks. But this was his unquestionable best, treading the line between in complete control and grappling with the situation he was in. The moment that should have been his undoing was a wild swipe at a bouncer which KL Rahul inexplicably put down. It was followed immediately by an unplayable delivery, a vicious back of a length ball which reared up in the following over. When he finally misjudged a boundary shot off Mohammed Siraj into the hands of the fielder at long off, the disappointment wasn’t at the end of South Africa’s chances of the most unlikely victory, but the end of the most extraordinary innings.

There’s been so much to digest in this dizzying encounter both on and off the field despite less than five days being played in total. But in amongst all the noise, the chapter that Markram wrote in an hour in Cape Town stands on its own as the performance that will outlive a fleeting series.

Subscribe to the Wisden Cricket YouTube channel for post-match analysis, player interviews, and much more.