Having quietly contributed towards South Africa’s qualification for the semi-final, he could have a far bigger role to play in the knockouts
Danyal Rasool01-Mar-2025
Keshav Maharaj picked up 2 for 35 against England•Getty Images
Harry Brook slogged one to wide long-on. It wasn’t middled, but along the vast expanses of the on-side boundary, there was enough acreage for it to land safely. It was England’s best period of the game, having put on 62 for the fourth wicket after Marco Jansen had ripped out three early wickets. As Jansen sprinted towards the ball, Ramiz Raja said on commentary that the ball had landed safely. The sentence wasn’t yet complete before Jansen put in a slide, letting the ball nestle in his hands as he broke out into a full dive.Twenty minutes later, with England knee-deep into another collapse, Liam Livingstone charged out of his crease. Brendon McCullum said yesterday, perhaps incongruously, that part of England’s ODI malaise was down to the players caring “too much” about the result, but it didn’t seem the correct diagnosis at this moment. Livingstone got nowhere near a wide one but swung at it anyway. For a man who might have played his last ODI, that may not be too far off what his epitaph reads. The only person who seemed irrelevant to those dismissals was the man whom the record books will allot them to: Keshav Maharaj.There are invariably reasons to look past Maharaj, and he is far from the main story from a game where England plumbed new depths as they produced a performance to remind their outgoing captain why he had resigned from the job. Making it as a spinner in South Africa is a bit like pursuing alpine skiing in Ibiza; you could be very good at it, but you will never be the main attraction. With Jansen blowing a hole in England’s top order as well as competing with Lungi Ngidi for the catch of the day, and Wiaan Mulder finding a yard of extra pace to knock back Joe Root’s middle stump, Maharaj would do well to sneak into a sidebar.Related
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Maharaj had let the fast bowlers pick up the load against Afghanistan nine days earlier on a surface, registering ostensibly nondescript figures of 1 for 46 from his ten. However, it was a surface Afghanistan captain Hashmatullah Shahidi said offered “no turn” for the spinners; Noor Ahmed, Rashid Khan and Mohammad Nabi were more expensive, combining for 3 for 175 in 29.Going the distance in ICC events tends to require an ensemble cast, and South Africa understand the value of Maharaj in these conditions. Maharaj’s contribution may not have been instrumental to the last two results, but it was indicative of his reliability.Thrown the ball after drinks as England began to find their way back into the game, this was the ideal situation for him. Brook fell to spin in each innings this tournament, and England had ten right-hand batters in their side. Unlike Mitchell Santner – the most obvious comparison in this tournament – Maharaj doesn’t seem to have a preference for right-hand batters; his strike rate and economy rate are largely identical for both sets of batters. But 43 of his 58 wickets have come against right-hand batters, and with his use of the wider line and the slower speed, it is an angle batters have struggled to handle in these conditions.Maharaj treated this like a game of chicken. England were enjoying their best passage, and with large gaps on the on side, he fed one right into Brook’s arc. “I tried to lure him into playing a false shot,” Maharaj said afterwards. “I think at that stage, with England three wickets down, you’re trying to get the breakthrough. I don’t think he played the shot as well as he would have liked to but kudos to Marco Jansen for taking such a brilliant catch.”With nothing appearing to work for England’s ODI team at present, it’s more tempting to put that miscue down to the form of England’s batters, but you have to earn the right to bowl into the arc of the world’s most explosive batters, and in these conditions, Maharaj has paid his dues. Fifteen months ago, he played a key role in South Africa’s run to the semi-final in the ODI World Cup in India; he took 15 wickets from ten games at an economy of 4.15. Among those who took at least ten wickets in the tournament, only Jasprit Bumrah had a better economy. In five of nine innings where he bowled at least nine overs, he conceded 32 or fewer, including standout performances against New Zealand, India and twice against Australia – the three opponents left standing alongside South Africa in this tournament.1:39
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This role of situational cicada is one Maharaj has almost perfected. With the wickets in Karachi playing “a little bit slow”, he was happy to give credit to the fast bowlers for “making his life easier”. “It’s just about bowling as many dot balls as I can and trying to understand what the batter’s trying to do and being one step ahead in the analysis work we do, and allow the fast bowlers to strike from the other end.”Maharaj is, perhaps characteristically, being uncharitable to his own contribution and the role his two wickets played in derailing England’s middle order, which slumped from 99 for 3 to 129 for 7. His spell today included 36 dot balls; only two bowlers – Michael Bracewell (twice) and Will O’Rourke – have produced more in a single game in the tournament. But with those performances coming against Pakistan and Bangladesh, who do not remotely share England’s attacking ethos, Maharaj’s success in squeezing down the middle is hard to overstate; only two bowlers have sent down more dot deliveries against England in an ODI since the start of 2024.He might be the perfect piece that slots inconspicuously into this ICC tournament jigsaw South Africa will feel they’re getting closer and closer to completing, but it has not dimmed Maharaj’s hunger for a more prominent role. With South Africa potentially playing the semi-final or final in Dubai, he remains a star performer only temporarily reduced to supporting cast.”I’m sure there will be a time in the last two games in this competition where I’m allowed to hold the attacking role,” Maharaj said. “Looking forward to that when it does come about, but for now I’m just trying to bowl my balls as consistently as possible.”And while he does, it may be easy to overlook him. Yet, as Afghanistan and England found out to their cost, actually working out how to play him is another story altogether.