So long Biff. Thanks. And sorry.

Times Media - March 5 2014

TELFORD VICE, Cape Town

It ended with an appropriately unpretty stroke, the bastard child of a mean delivery that jammed bat into body and begat a flaccid blip to short leg where a simple catch was gratefully gobbled.

Graeme Smith’s test career was thus ended at Newlands yesterday. He deserved better. He deserved a century. He deserved to take his team to victory, or at least to within sight of the safety of a draw.

Instead, he was caught Alex Doolan, bowled Mitchell Johnson for three - an innings that was nonetheless applauded to the top of Table Mountain as Smith neared the boundary.

As he walked that walk one last time, he removed his helmet and his gloves. The sun shone from his face, which beamed with an unspoken goodbye. With demonstrative thrusts of his broadsword bat, he saluted the crowd, upstanding, of course, in all parts of the ground.

Then, three balls less than 20 minutes after he had strode between parallel lines of Australian players forming a guard of honour near the pitch and shaken Michael Clarke’s hand, he was back up the stairs and gone.

Johnson, who with that strike owned Smith’s wicket nine times, more than any other bowler in tests, and who broke Smith’s hands twice, clapped him all the way to the boundary.

We have not always appreciated how much Graeme Craig Smith did for SA cricket. More than once, he sparked the wrath of a fickle public. But, bloody hell, we know a champion when we see one. Thank you, Mr Smith, for everything. And apologies.

Smith left behind him an already tattered scorecard. His dismissal reduced SA, set a silly target of 511, to 12/2. Soon, they were 15/3. By stumps, they were 71/4 - only 440 more to get.

In a release, Cricket SA (CSA) said Smith had told his teammates of his decision after stumps on Monday. “It was an emotional space,” Russell Domingo said about the SA dressingroom when Smith broke the news. “All of the guys started their careers with with Graeme as their captain.”

Had the shock news remained in the dressingroom, Smith and his team might have been able to hide their feelings from their opponents.

But there was nowhere to run nor hide after CSA announced Smith’s retirement late on Monday night. With their conflicted emotions laid bare, SA’s game disintegrated.

Smith spread his fielders far and wide as the runs rained down. When the declaration came in the second hour after lunch, David Warner had added an aggressive 145 to the 135 he scored in the first innings.

Runs flowed at more than six to the over in an opening stand of 123 between Warner and Chris Rogers. The rate soared to 9.5 while Warner and Shane Watson were adding 57 for the third wicket, and it did not dip below 7.9 for the rest of the innings.

SA’s task comes down to surviving all day today to secure a draw and with it a share of the series. To do so, their remaining batsmen will need to follow the example set by Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers.

Between them, they faced 209 balls yesterday, mostly untroubled until James Pattinson caught Amla on the crease and trapped him in front for 41 in the fifth over before the close.

“We’re hoping AB can score the slowest 40 in the history of the game and Faf (du Plessis) has done it before,” Domingo said with reference to Du Plessis’ 110 not out on debut to save the Adelaide test in November 2012.

The pitch is worn but hardly treacherous, and there is also the flamethrowing, firebreathing Johnson to consider. But even he is only human.

And another thing: it’s Biff’s last test.