Seven years ago, on an Australian tour of South Africa made infamous by Sandpapergate, a pair of centuries clouted by young Proteas opener Aiden Markram against a formidable bowling attack seemed to herald the birth of a new star.

Then just 23, and with the cricketing world at his feet, the intervening years have brought with it trials and tribulations aplenty for Markram and his nation, with stints out of the team and underwhelming contributions on the field leaving him with a Test average in the mid-30s and just three further additions to a century tally that stood at four when he raised his bat in Cape Town on the very day Australian cricket was sent into crisis.

But on Day 3 at Lord’s, against the very same bowling attack he faced all those years ago, the now-30-year old’s spectacular, chanceless and, as of stumps, unbeaten 102 has made good at a stroke all the promise of his youth, and taken South Africa within touching distance of a remarkable World Test Championship triumph.

In front of a Lord’s crowd cheering on every shot – or perhaps cheering against the Australians – the Proteas finished the day 2/213, just 69 shy of their 282-run victory target, with captain Temba Bavuma defying a strained hamstring to finish unbeaten on 65 and put on 143 and counting with Markram.

Barring a disastrous collapse on a pitch that now looks a batter’s paradise, Day 4 will bring South Africa their first major ICC trophy, and end their reputation as perennial chokers in one fell swoop.

Aiden Markram celebrates reaching his century in the World Test Championship final. (Photo by Gareth Copley/Getty Images)

After 14 wickets apiece fell on Days 1 and 2 as both sides’ pace trios ran riot in helpful conditions, sunnier skies and a less challenging surface combined to both allow Australia’s tail to bat the favourites into what seemed a strong position in the first session, and then the Proteas’ top order to commandingly wrestle back the ascendancy.

A fighting half-century from Mitchell Starc and a 69-run last-wicket partnership with Josh Hazlewood set the underdogs a daunting 282 runs to take the mace – more than double what they managed in the first innings – before Markram and Bavuma’s sensational rearguard flipped the match on its head.

To make matters even worse for Australia, Steve Smith suffered a gruesome compound dislocation of his finger in the day’s most pivotal moment – dropping Bavuma on 2 while standing, helmeted, far closer to the bat than a conventional second slip owing to the Lord’s pitch’s tendency to have edges fall short of the cordon.

The blow, which sent Smith to hospital and left Australia without his crucial tactical advice as Pat Cummins’ deputy, leaves his fitness for the upcoming tour of the West Indies in jeopardy.

That would only further destabilise a top order whose collective failure in both innings has proved as crucial to Australia’s looming loss of their World Test crown as the Proteas’ stellar fourth-innings rearguard.

“We took away the fear of failure going into this innings,” Wiaan Mulder, who played a key early cameo in the run chase before Markram and Bavuma’s heroics, said of the Proteas’ batting mindset after play.

“Shuks [coach Shukri Conrad] had a long chat with us the other day, and he basically said that we have to go for it – no matter what they get, we’re gonna get.

“If you look at the way we played in this innings compared to the first innings, there was a lot less fear of failure and more looking to score every ball.”

Resuming on 8/144, a quick end to Australia’s innings looked on the cards when Kagiso Rabada trapped Nathan Lyon LBW in the third over of the day for his ninth wicket of the match.

But Starc and Hazlewood would frustrate the Proteas attack for 22 overs and 69 runs, a stand that appeared priceless at the time, but with the benefit of hindsight proves a worrying omen that batting was suddenly a far easier task than it had been on Days 1 and 2.

Content to rotate the strike and trust Hazlewood against both Rabada and Marco Jansen, Starc’s 136-ball stay at the crease was the longest for either side across the first three innings.

Playing sensibly with only the occasional flourish, his unbeaten 58 was his first Test half-century since the 2019 Ashes, and with just five boundaries a far cry from his usual freewheeling approach to batting.

When at last the partnership was broken, it came as a surprise: dealt a half-tracker by part-timer Markram, Hazlewood sensed an opportunity to score but could only flat-bat a catch to Keshav Maharaj at cover.

Still, the stand and Starc’s knock had taken Australia to a 281-run lead, and the left-armer’s heroics weren’t done just yet, quickly finding Ryan Rickelton’s outside edge for just 9 to give the favourites an early breakthrough in just the third over of the chase.

There was, however, a notable change in the Proteas’ approach: where their top order had batted timidly and folded meekly late on Day 1 against Australia’s fearsome pace attack, the second time around featured a desire to take the fight to them.

With the pitch offering little and sunny skies diluting any swing, Markram, out for a duck in the first innings, and Mulder, a strokeless wonder to start the match, were men transformed.

With the former punishing anything too straight or wide from Starc and Mulder authoritatively cutting both Hazlewood and Cummins to the point boundary, the Proteas’ 50 was brought up in just the 13th over – some 11 overs faster than in the first innings.

The introduction of Lyon as early as the 10th over symbolised Australia’s sudden uncertainty, but did little to turn proceedings, with the slowness of the pitch enabling Markram to blunt the great off-spinner’s menace by playing him off the back foot with a minimum of fuss.

The fall of Mulder, chipping uneven bounce to Starc to Marnus Labuschagne at cover for 27, might have sparked a collapse, especially when, an over later, the South African captain’s edge was found.

But Smith, having donned a helmet to stand far closer than usual at second slip in order to snaffle a nick dropping short, found himself too close to react: what would have carried perfectly to him in regulation position instead clanged off his hands, doling out considerable damage to his right pinkie finger in the process.

Steve Smith leaves the field injured during day three of the World Test Championship Final. (Photo by Ben Whitley/PA Images via Getty Images)

In visible agony, Smith departed the field, never to return: if indeed it proves, as seems likely, his final act in Test cricket at Lord’s and in England, site of so many of his finest moments, it is a cruel farewell.

At first, Bavuma seemed incapable of cashing in on the reprieve, requiring medical attention on a strained hamstring and limping his way to tea: but the bloody-minded Proteas captain pushed on regardless, even limping his way through for a quick single to allow Markram to reach his 50.

The injury was doing nothing to impact the 35-year old’s timing, however: punching Cummins, the first innings destroyer, straight down the ground for an authorative boundary the best of his strokeplay.

The halfway mark was reached, then passed via a pair of Markram boundaries off Starc, whose earlier menace had dissipated to leave figures of 2/47 from his eight overs.

Lyon fared better, proving threatening as he found prodigious spin, but all the while the runs kept flowing, six byes in an over as Alex Carey struggled to deal with the turn ensuring yet more cheers from an increasingly raucuous Lord’s.

With even half-chances all but nonexistent, a Bavuma slog-sweep that fell millimetres short of a diving Sam Konstas at deep mid-wicket, only to scuttle underneath him for another boundary, summed up the state of affairs perfectly.

Increasingly desperate Cummins turned to Beau Webster and then Travis Head’s part-timers in the hope of burgling a wicket; but while the latter found spin and the former offered accuracy with Carey up to the stumps, the breakthrough remained elusive as the pair past first their century stand – the first of its kind all match – and then the team 200.

A glorious straight drive for four from Markram to take him to 97, that nearly had Bavuma run out at the non-striker’s end as a deflection off Hazlewood’s fingertips passed perilously close to the stumps, was quite literally as close as Australia came to ending the stand.

Increasingly desperate, a ball change late in the day sparked hopes of a turnaround similar to what England achieved with their own controversial switch in the fifth Ashes Test two years ago: but there would be no stopping Markram progressing to his eighth Test hundred.

Clipping Hazlewood elegantly off his pads to the vacant mid-wicket boundary in the dying embers of the day, the opener’s century brought with it a deserved standing ovation, and rubber-stamped South Africa’s mastery on what might be the greatest day of their modern cricketing history – but which will be quickly superseded should they finish a job all but done already on Day 4.