Getting into a Test team as a medium-pace seam-and-swing operator in South Africa has to have felt, for years, like playing a video game where there is a never-ending stream of bosses to fight. If it’s not Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, Vernon Philander and Kyle Abbott keeping you out, suddenly you have Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortje, Marco Jansen and Gerald Coetzee.
It took two seam bowlers from the Durban Test to get injured for Paterson to get this chance to play his sixth Test, and if this was a rapidly descending warehouse shutter, he’s sprinted full-tilt and slid underneath in heroic fashion.
“It’s my first five-for in Test cricket, and it’s come at the age of 35 – I think that’s a feat on its own,” Paterson beamed after the day’s play. “But it’s basically a reward for my career. That’s how I look at it. That’s why I celebrated like that.
“I think when I was playing my cricket, it was a very good fast-bowling stock. And you think, okay, one day, could I have my chance? And yeah, luckily today, I got my chance and I took it with both hands.
“It is quite special for me and my family – that’s why the emotions came out. It feels like scoring a hundred.”
He was ecstatic with each of his wickets on Saturday morning, gesticulating to the dressing room repeatedly while being swamped by his teammates. Aside from being perhaps the most momentous achievement of his career, it was genuinely a high-quality five-wicket haul. In one triple-wicket over, he nipped a ball away to take Dhananjaya de Silva’s outside edge, nipped one back to take the bails off Kusal Mendis’ stumps, and had Lahiru Kumara nicking off to third slip.
He was on four wickets for the innings at that point, and obviously keen to keep bowling, in search of that milestone.
“Looking at the scoreboard, you’re on four wickets, and Temba Bavuma kept on asking me, ‘Are you okay?'” Paterson said. “‘Do you want to keep going on?’ And obviously, I told him, I do want to carry on. I was not actually getting frustrated by all the plays and misses. I just tried to stay calm. And yeah, luckily, Asitha Fernando nicked it.”
Of the wickets, the ball to Kusal Mendis was his favourite. Kusal had actually tried to leave that alone, figuring it would hold its line, or at least bounce over the top.
“I think the ball to Mendis – that’s a bowler’s dream, just hitting top of the bails, it’s quite nice to see.”
It was reward too, for long stints bowling the “dirty overs” on day two. This is when the ball is a little older, and there is little assistance from the surface, and the bowlers are just waiting for the second new ball to become due. Paterson knew these were overs he’d be asked to deliver to keep the spearheads – Rabada and Jansen – fresh.
“One person has to lift their hand up and bowl those overs, and I did,” he said. “If I’m doing the dirty work and picking up one or two wickets, that’s a positive for the team. There was one wicket last night.”
South Africa may have further need for Paterson this summer, with Coetzee out of the Pakistan series as well. But beyond that, Paterson isn’t sure whether he will continue to play Tests. That decision rests with coach Shukri Conrad, he said.
But for now, this spell is validation for his life in cricket, not only for him, but for his family who have supported him through it. A dad now to a four-year-old and a three-month-old, Paterson has the story of a match-turning Test-match spell he can bore his kids with forevermore.
Andrew Fidel Fernando is a senior writer at ESPNcricinfo. @afidelf
