But it was one of those morning sessions, a bowling attempt on psychedelics, where the balls just floated into the ether, hovered there briefly, as if the laws of gravity had been momentarily suspended, and barely touched the surface before flying into the wind danced away. On a pitch where hitting the ball on the ground is the most tried and tested method of getting results, Naseem rejected conventional wisdom and there was no logic behind the iconoclasm. Mohammad Abbas, 13 years his senior, tried to follow the rules to the letter, God bless him. But at his pace, with little work coming from his wrist into the ball, even the Centurion surface struggled to give him an edge.

“You have to learn to adapt to new conditions,” admitted Naseem after the game. “It’s not easy, but you have to be disciplined and adapt quickly to different conditions. The pitch here is a bit high and the ground is in a dip, so I think as a bowler you have to adapt and it took me a while to do that.

But Test cricket saw something in Naseem, something he liked. In a country where the express fast side has lost either its pace, its interest in Test cricket or both of late, Naseem still has it all.

David Bedingham had taken advantage of his luck against Naseem and survived a setback off the first ball of Naseem’s return game. To be fair, Pakistan managed their ratings about as efficiently as many lottery winners manage their winnings, but it did indicate a change in intensity towards a bowler whose ceiling remains a formidable force. Bedingham soon paid the price for his insouciance when a touch of extra bounce, thanks to improved lengths and increased pace, became too hot and Naseem began to produce some proper Test match bowling on both sides, like those of old knows lunch. Kyle Verreynne was goaded into making a similar shot and was outdone by a similar shot.

By now the crowd at Castle Corner had broken out into a chorus of grudging respect; The South African crowd can’t seem to help but respect a fast bowler who is doing his best. Every time he returned to the target, the sound of “Naseem!” Naseem” shouts, but it was afternoon and the voices were well intoned by now, so you might attribute some of the generosity to that. Apparently SuperSport Park sold more than R1 million worth of alcohol on the first day; The eye test would indicate that the second day is not long in coming.

“You have to learn to adapt to new conditions. It’s not easy, but you have to be disciplined and adapt quickly to new conditions.”

Naseem Shah

However, Naseem knew that this day had been generous to Pakistan; None of the other bowlers had come close to matching his quality, and yet South Africa were suddenly seven points behind; The completely out of shape Marco Jansen was food and drink for Naseem. At this point, Naseem’s second effort was game-winning: 3 for 28 in five overs, and the question turned from the size of South Africa’s lead to the possibility that they had no lead at all.

On other occasions, in other countries, this might have been work for a frail, fast-pace bowler, but Masood felt Pakistan had no other source to turn to. He tied up Aiden Markram at one end, causing him to miss against Khurram Shahzad at the other end. And still Naseem was bowling while taking on the background of the day from the media side. Drinks came and went and Naseem was still there, his pace a little slowed but he was pounding the pitch with full force and asking the same questions.

“Fast bowling is not easy but you have to be ready. I always try to work hard and bowl more in the nets and even in domestic cricket.”

“The team needed it and of course you have to be ready when the captain asks you to. That’s my habit as a fast bowler, to receive the ball when it’s needed. I didn’t know this was going to happen, but the captain thought about it. “Which bowler would have more impact and asked me to bowl?”

However, the good balls no longer translated into advantages and the occasional moments of looseness that crept into his spell were put away by Corbin Bosch, exactly the sort of player Pakistan likes to give dream starts to their careers. There were five overs between Naseem’s break and the captain’s return to him, but now Test cricket was once again finding him difficult to deal with.

The field was spread out for Bosch, the touch of optimism from the early afternoon had disappeared. The crowd, too, began treating Naseem as the figure of heroic failure he became as the innings dragged on, playfully booing every roll call and then chanting “Check it” once Pakistan’s profligacy had squandered them all.

South Africa had added 88 for the last two wickets and although he delivered more overs than any other bowler, faster than any other bowler, better than any other bowler, Naseem’s numbers showed him to be the most expensive of the three specialist quicks. It’s a miracle that Naseem plays Test cricket with a smile on his face, but Pakistan is lucky that he does. And perhaps a pleasant celebratory afternoon of Test cricket briefly smiling back is the only reward he needs.