Bavuma basks in his garden of Eden

The bat was proffered upright and at an angle of submissive defence. But the ball splintered off the inside edge, snuck past leg stump, scooted into the fast outfield, and hit the boundary.

With that, a decent chunk of the 39,769 at Eden Gardens on Sunday did what doesn't often happen in reaction to such an unlovely stroke—even if it takes the batter to 50, especially not for a visiting player. Temba Bavuma returned the salute by raising his bat.

"The crowd cheers loudly when India have done something good," Bavuma told a press conference. "But that gives you energy and keeps you connected in the game. As much as it spurs on the Indian team, it also has a positive influence on us."

Bavuma had overcome a pitch of dastardly inconsistent bounce and vicious turn that made batting, particularly on the first two days, a cruel joke. He withstood an attack featuring four of the top 20 ranked bowlers. His innings, which endured through eight partnerships, was the great leap forward South Africa needed to retain hope of winning.

"He was clear on how he wanted to bat, and that went against the grain of everybody else in the match," Shukri Conrad said. "That was the difference between the two sides—Temba's innings."

Conrad described Bavuma as "suffocated but comfortable", paraphrasing his gameplan as: "I'm going to get beaten by balls on the outside; as long as I don't get beaten on the inside, I'll bat through this."

Bavuma summed up his approach: "I try to play around my defence."

He was 55 not out when India ended the innings, confident of chasing the 124 needed to win. With Simon Harmer in form for his 4/21, they were bowled out for 93.

"It's not every day you take a lead of 123 and feel that's a winning score, but we had to believe," Bavuma said. "We knew it was tough. We saw that in our first innings, and we took confidence in the fact that we were able to put them under pressure with the ball. The bowlers brought us back into the game."

After winning the toss and choosing to bat, South Africa were bowled out for 159, with Jasprit Bumrah taking 5/27. But with Harmer taking 4/30 and Marco Jansen claiming 3/35, the visitors kept India's lead to a marginal 30 runs.

To stay in the game, South Africa needed partnerships. When they dwindled to 91/7—just 61 ahead—their biggest stand was 20. Enter Corbin Bosch, who scored 25 in an eighth-wicket stand of 44: the biggest of the innings and the second-highest in the match.

"His partnership with Boschy was immense, and that gave us something we felt we could defend," Conrad said. "Temba and Boschy played like gods."

Bosch wouldn't have been in the XI had Kagiso Rabada not withdrawn with a rib injury.

"Batting yesterday was tricky," Bavuma said. "We felt that the spin was extreme."

He added: "In South Africa sometimes, you get pitches that are on the other end of extreme. As a batter, you're still expected to score runs. Similarly, coming to the subcontinent, the conditions can play out as extreme in other ways."

Conrad refused to criticise the pitch: "When you come to India and the subcontinent, you expect pitches like this. So I don't have a problem with them. You've still got to play well. You've got to bat well, you've got to find a way. That's why it's a home series."

He continued: "It's more of a mental battle than a battle of your technique sometimes. Because you feel you don't know where your next run is coming from."

Bavuma explained his preparation: "This morning my message to the guys was always try and play what's in front of you, try not to have too many preconceived ideas. Fortunately this morning the pitch did calm down. There was still turn, but Corbin and I could build a partnership. It was a case of play what's in front of you, keep your nerve, and, importantly, keep the belief that the result can still go our way."

Harmer, the off-spinner, walked a winding path to Eden Gardens. He left India with 11 wickets at 25.40 in two matches during South Africa's 2015 series, then went missing from the national side for almost seven years—partly due to a Kolpak deal with Essex, and partly because spinners like Dane Piedt and Keshav Maharaj emerged in his absence.

"We've always had decent spinners, we just never had a crop of them," Conrad said. "Because in Test matches at home we rarely played more than one. It feels like Kesh has been around forever, and we also had guys like Paul Harris and Claude Henderson. But Henderson and Simon Harmer went on Kolpak deals. So when Simon called me up a few months ago and said he's desperate to play for South Africa again, I was more desperate to have him back.

"We are thrilled that we can come to the subcontinent with a quality pack of spinners, and it will do wonders for our game back home. Because youngsters can see we're keen on spinners as well. It's not only a fast-bowling country."

It's also a country for people who believe. People like Bavuma, who left the field carrying something rarer than runs or applause: the belief that this South Africa side could walk through the chaos and still find a way.