SA's batting reeks of cricketing criminality of unfinished business

A framed black-and-white photograph hangs among eight others on a wall of the press' temporary situation at Newlands. It is of Jacques Kallis on the hook. All that touches the ground, a good 15 centimetres behind the crease, is the toe-end of his right boot. His left leg is almost straight out in front of him, kicking the air can-can style, the toe-end of that boot at his eye level.

His head has swivelled to face backward square leg. His hands have whipped through the shot and are about to reach the equator drawn from the point of his left shoulder. The look in his eyes is of a gnarled boxer who has landed the left hook of his life. Mercifully, the ball has fled the scene.

Only then does it hit you: he's in whites! Jacques Kallis has played this outrageous stroke, this thing of visceral, lasting power, this immaculate confection of ambition and impossibility... in a Test match!

Even in its static, two-dimensional form, the photograph is a sight much richer and rewarding than what was going on out the window in lurid full colour. South Africa were playing their first match in 265 days at Newlands on Friday: