Keshav Maharaj is a South African spinner, who was recently featured in the team. During a press conference, the spinner showed no signs of fatigue even after spending the last five days bowling or building a strategy about bowling. Ten minutes short of 16 hours earlier he sent down the last delivery in his 66.2 overs in the first Test at Queen’s Park Oval.

Keshav Maharaj played twice as much as any of his other teammates, Kagiso Rabada’ played 30 overs. He handled nearly half of the 148.1 overs the home side faced. Not since Ray Price labored for 79 overs for Zimbabwe in South Africa’s only innings in Bulawayo in September 2001 has a bowler worked harder? That was 987 men’s Tests ago.

“I don’t have many variations like other types of spinners around the world do, so I try to rely on consistency and being able to bowl for long periods,” Maharaj said. “I never want the captain to take the ball away from me. So I’m always trying to bowl my best ball and trying to be the wily old character that left-arm spinners are supposed to be. My passion is spin bowling. I love it. If you wake me up at two o’clock in the morning and ask me to bowl, I’ll bowl. I’ll bowl the whole day if I need to.”

The match was less than an hour old when Maharaj marked out a run-up on Wednesday. He bowled his 40 overs in the first innings unchanged, along with the first 13 of his 26.2 in the second dig. He took the second new ball in the first innings and the first new ball in the second innings.

Maharaj claimed 4/76 and 4/88, banking his best match figures in the last seven Tests in which he has bowled. Or since his 9/97 against Bangladesh at St George’s Park in April 2022. Maharaj has claimed better figures than his 8/164 in Trinidad in only four of the 48 Tests in which he has bowled.

About all Maharaj didn’t do was bowl South Africa to victory. But that was a tall order with rain taking 148 overs out of a match played on a singularly useless pitch that refused to help seamers or batters. Among the six specialist and part-time spinners deployed in what duly became a dull draw, only Maharaj was able to threaten. West Indies, who were set a target of 298 in 63 overs and looked vulnerable when they slipped to 127/4 in the 35th, were 201/5 in 56.2 when, mercifully, hands were shaken to end what had become an unbearable grind.