It was a Test played amid a firestorm, certainly as far as Australian cricket was concerned. Events at Newlands in March 2018 had thrown the game into crisis, but a few days later, with their captain and both openers, including one of the best in the world, banned, there was still another Test at the Wanderers to finish the series against South Africa.
The one-Test club is full of fascinating stories and Chadd Sayers' tale is up there. Alongside the trio at the centre of the ball-tampering drama, Mitchell Starc was ruled out of the Johannesburg game with a stress fracture of his right leg. There was a call to be made between Sayers, who had been around the Ashes squad earlier that season and had also come close to a debut against South Africa in 2016-17, and youngster Jhye Richardson. It went Sayers' way.
"It was a weird week," Sayers says. "With what happened in Cape Town, it was obviously a dark time for the side. We didn't train until the day before the game, which is really unheard of as a team. I got told at the end of that session that I would be playing."
While Australia had bowling back-up left in the squad, they needed batting reinforcements. Hasty phone calls from chair of selectors Trevor Hohns put Joe Burns, Matt Renshaw and Glenn Maxwell on flights to South Africa.
Burns and Renshaw had been soaking up victory in the Sheffield Shield final, having secured the title for Queensland with a 106-run opening stand in the second innings against Tasmania.
"It was a little bit surreal because it happened so quickly. Forty-eight hours earlier I was in Brisbane playing a Shield final" Joe Burns on getting the call-up for the Wanderers Test
"We would have come off the field at about 4 or 5pm, and I reckon Trevor Hohns called me about nine," remembers Burns, who had then recently returned from a groin injury. "I was on a midnight flight to Singapore, Dubai, then Johannesburg. It obviously wasn't a normal situation, there were a lot of moving parts and everyone was just trying to do their part. It was a pretty brief chat… Cracker [Hohns] is pretty to the point at the best of times."
Burns had played 13 Tests at that point, although not since the 2016-17 defeat against South Africa in Hobart, which had led to a clear-out of the team. "The group was flat, which was to be expected," he says of arriving in South Africa. "Me, Renners and Maxi were coming in and our energy probably didn't match where the group was, so it was a tough situation."
Due to his earlier injury, had Queensland not been in the running for the Sheffield Shield, Burns was unlikely to have even been playing cricket at that time. But, having literally flown in straight from a game, he wasn't overly worried about the lack of preparation. "I think Maxi was giving me some throwdowns in the nets, but it was more just [about] being physically and mentally ready."
For Sayers, however, there was the whole other level of emotion that comes with a Test debut. Unfortunately, his wife, Steph, had flown home to Australia after the end of the designated partner period in Cape Town. "I didn't really think I was going to be considered," Sayers says. "She pretty much landed [back in Australia] when I gave her the news. So happiness and a bit of sadness as well that I couldn't really have anyone there, but that's fine."
The Johannesburg Test began on March 30, three days after Steven Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft had left South Africa and a day after Smith's emotional press conference at Sydney airport. Head coach Darren Lehmann had announced he would be standing down after the final Test. But the series was still on the line with the home side leading 2-1.
Sayers was presented with his cap by Adam Voges. Burns, Renshaw and Peter Handscomb had been confirmed as the three batting replacements.
"I must admit it was a little bit surreal because it happened so quickly," Burns says. "Forty-eight hours earlier I was in Brisbane, playing a Shield final. When you're in the changing room, it's actually a bit of a sanctuary from everything. We just locked into what we needed to do.
"Tim Paine [the new captain] gave a speech to reinforce what the baggy green meant and why we wear it. It was also about recognising we were under the pump and [saying] let's not shy away from that."
With South Africa opting to bat, Sayers marked out his run to deliver the second over of the Test. "It was excitement and nerves. You looked at some of the players in South Africa's line-up and it gave me not the best sleep the night before," he says. "I just tried to take it all in."
Having propelled himself into the reckoning for Australia by topping the Shield charts with 62 wickets at an average of 19 in the 2016-17 season, Sayers found himself in a position not unusual for a reserve bowler on tour.
"It's a hard one. You go on tour as the spare bowler and don't get the game time or match fitness you do back home. I felt confident enough to perform at that level, but I hadn't played for over a month."
"I was hurting for the guys. You knew these guys as friends and team-mates. I understand the magnitude of what happened, but at the time I thought the sanctions were harsh" Joe Burns on the punishment for Steven Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft for ball-tampering
It became a long day in the field for Australia. Aiden Markram put together a commanding hundred, although Sayers came close to removing him on 103, when an edge fell short of Paine. "That was a bit deflating," he says.
Burns says there were no thoughts in the Australian camp that they were beaten before taking the field. "Players just naturally don't have those thoughts. It ended up being a pretty tough Test match, we were in the field for a long time, there were a lot of different emotions from a lot of different players, and some hostility from the crowd."
Pat Cummins lifted spirits somewhat by removing Markram and Faf du Plessis off consecutive deliveries. Then the second new ball was taken, and in the 84th over Sayers nipped one back at AB de Villiers, who, it would transpire a few months later, was playing his final Test. The caught-behind decision was given on the field and de Villiers reviewed it, only for the nick to be confirmed.
"It was, I guess, cliched Chadd Sayers," the bowler recalls. "Line and length, just nipping back through the gate. It was pure joy. That's what you ask for if you wanted your first wicket - to get one of the best batters in the world out."
Having waited until his 24th over for that first Test wicket, a second came along two balls later, when Kagiso Rabada pushed a catch to short mid-off. At stumps, South Africa's score of 313 for 6 meant it wasn't far from honours even, but on the second day, they extended their total to 488 with Temba Bavuma left stranded on 95 not out. Sayers finished with 2 for 78 from a hefty 35 overs.
"It's what you do the work for," he says. "I was confident that my best was good enough to match it with the best. Walking off, I held my head high. Obviously, it became a pretty tough Test from there on."
Australia were soon 38 for 3 with Burns one of the early losses, edging Rabada into the slips for 4. Even before the ball-tampering controversy exploded in Cape Town, it had been a series of heightened tensions, with significant sledging, but Burns recalls this game was played in a different atmosphere.
"I think they [South Africa] understood the external factors," he says. "The game's pretty challenging as it is. To have our guys who had left the team going through what they were, the images and scenes - no one wants to see that as a player. Both sides were just cracking on with the game. South Africa played very well and [we] couldn't hang in there for long enough."
South Africa bowled Australia out for 221 but didn't enforce the follow-on, and du Plessis' century ground Australia down well into the fourth day. Late in the evening, Burns reached 42, which would end up being Australia's top score in their second innings, when he was lbw to a yorker from Morne Morkel, who was retiring after the game. "He blew my foot off," Burns says. "I was his last Test wicket."
Australia's last seven wickets fell in less than 17 overs on the final morning. South Africa won by 492 runs to finish the series 3-1.
"You've got to pinch yourself to know you've played for Australia. I don't know how many it is now, 470? So I'm one of those" Chadd Sayers
South Africa invited Australia into their dressing room afterwards. At the time Paine joked that the game had finished so early in the day that it might be a coffee rather than something stronger, but a few cold ones were shared, including when Sayers "downed a beer" with de Villiers as part of South Africa's fines meeting.
"You pay your respects to the opposition," Burns says. "We spent plenty of time in their changing room. Other guys were exhausted in that moment. There was obviously a lot to talk about. I wish we had known at the time it was AB's last Test, there was so much respect for him. There's desperation from both sides to win the game and I just think at the end of the day, unfortunately, that desperation might have crossed over into a mistake and I think when both sides sat down, that was the reflective mood."
By the time Australia left the country, Smith, Warner and Bancroft had accepted their sanctions, but there was still considerable fallout to come. "I was hurting for the guys," Burns says. "I had sat alongside them and I know they're not bad people. I'm not condoning what happened. Everyone would admit mistakes were made. Don't get me wrong, it was a very bad situation, but the reaction was hard to watch because you knew these guys as friends and team-mates. I understand the magnitude of what happened, but at the time I thought the sanctions were harsh."
On the field, Australia returned to action with a white-ball tour of England but when the next Test squad was named, to face Pakistan in the UAE, neither Burns nor Sayers was part of it. "I played through unique circumstances and maybe that was the best choice at that time," Burns says.
But while Burns would play nine more Tests in 2019 and 2020, which included scoring a career-best 180 against Sri Lanka in Canberra, Sayers would not get another opportunity: injury hit his ambitions to be part of the 2019 Ashes tour, where conditions may have suited him.
"I knew they were going to [the UAE] to play Pakistan, where it was always going to be tough for someone like myself and the skills I had," Sayers says. "And as we know, the bowlers Australia have had over the last ten to 15 years are pretty good and pretty durable. But I gave my all every time I played and thought if I did get the chance, that I'd be able to perform at the top level. I just say I wish I got more of a chance to prove that and show everyone that I could, but that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.
"You've got to pinch yourself to know you've played for Australia. I don't know how many it is now, 470? [473 men have played Tests for the team] So I'm one of those. But I guess that tour was also a tour of disappointment as well, and the actions that we undertook weren't the right ones. So, looking back, there's obviously some regret at what happened, but pure joy that I got to experience my dream come true and play for Australia."