It has ended. More than nine years after they last lost a Test series away, South Africa finally have been beaten outside their home.
The last time they lost, in Sri Lanka in August 2006, they were not undone by spin as comprehensively as they have been in this month’s series in India.
Muttiah Muralitharan took 22 wickets in two Tests but, at that point, Muralitharan would have taken that many almost anywhere, against anyone.
And Sri Lanka were, just at that moment, well-served by fast bowlers; they played four — Lasith Malinga, Chaminda Vaas, Farveez Maharoof, Dilhara Fernando — across the two Tests, not fewer than three in either.
But there was something about that series and this, a superficial similarity of circumstance, if nothing else.
South Africa arrived then in Sri Lanka without Graeme Smith, their captain, who missed that tour with injury. So did Jacques Kallis. Shaun Pollock missed the first Test.
This India tour has accrued similar misfortune. Foremost, Dale Steyn has missed two Tests. Vernon Philander was out after the first Test. Morne Morkel missed the first — South Africa’s great strength, their pace trio, have not played a single Test together here. JP Duminy was also not fit for Mohali.
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None of this is to subtract from India’s victory — unjust jibes about surfaces have done plenty of that — but to remind ourselves how good South Africa have been away from home. So good, perhaps, that the streak might not yet have ended had a full, fit team been in play.
Still, this victory streak has to rank among cricket’s greatest, stretching over nine years and 15 series away from home.
To put the run into context: the great modern Australian sides never came close to matching it. The longest they went undefeated outside Australia was between 2001 and 2005, bookended by defeats in India and England.
The great West Indians had a longer streak, not losing an away series for over 16 years. But because a lot less cricket was played then, that was over 18 series, only three more than South Africa managed in just over half the time.
South Africa won 10, West Indies nine, though the former’s record is burnished by three series in Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. Such benefits were not available to the latter.
Having an attack good enough to bowl in all conditions is key to such a record. It is why, for example, Pakistan’s away record is far superior to that of India, Sri Lanka and New Zealand.
Steyn’s record in this run is vital, and outstanding: 167 wickets in just 36 away Tests, since that loss to Sri Lanka, at a scarcely believable strike rate of 44. Morkel and a sizeable cast of others have provided sturdy support.
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But what this loss in India really highlighted is how big a difference their batting made. In Graeme Smith, Hashim Amla and Kallis, South Africa had three monumental pillars for their away successes, three men capable of winning a Test in the final innings in England, batting over 11 hours in India or bringing a sense of calm to a Test-record chase in Australia.
Among them, they scored 9,126 Test runs during that run, at a combined average of 57.03 and with 34 hundreds. There is no way of knowing how Smith and Kallis would have fared here, but a batting line-up with them certainly would have looked a lot sturdier than it does right now.
Would they have been able to emulate Amla’s 39 on the final day in Nagpur, a little masterpiece by itself? Perhaps.
Instead, South Africa are now likely to regress back to the current mean of world cricket, which is that away teams generally struggle in unfamiliar conditions.
And it still feels as if the run has not been celebrated as much as it should. Was it because it was not capped by a World Cup, or supplemented by a truly dominant home record (they failed to win five out of 13 home series in the same time)?
Maybe it is just a matter of time, as we get deeper into this era of more away losses, before its true worth is recognised.