The duality of being Kagiso Rabada, home and away

Kagiso Rabada walks into a bar. It's heaving with teenyboppers celebrating finally having escaped the turgid tedium of their high school careers.

The boys are in tight t-shirts, shorts and flip-flops. They're trying too hard not to look enthusiastic about anything, even Rabada.

And not even about the girls, who have painted their faces and done their hair in a manner that makes them look at least five years older. They have dressed accordingly. Only 18? Me? How dare you? Who do you think you are to sit there and say something like that to me?

Not that anyone is sitting. Instead, everyone who is not Rabada - or his handful of fellow travelling teammates - is dancing and singing to songs that were first sung and danced to years before they were conceived, nevermind born. "Living next door to Alice..."

The bar is aptly named: Sunsets and Mermaids. Well, sort of. We're in Umhlanga, Durban's version of California, on South Africa's east coast. The sun sets on the other side of town. But reasonable facsimiles of mermaids and mermen abound.

Rabada is as comfortable in his anonymity, real or imagined, as he is in the spotlight. You know who he is? Great. You don't know who he is? Great. You do know who he is but you're trying to play it cool? Great.

He sidles over to two familiar faces standing in the outside section of the bar. "So," he says in a near whisper that evokes the sound of leather soles on gravel, "what's up?" As he speaks, he lights a cigarette that lays waiting elegantly between his fingers. He's come not only to shoot the breeze, but the breeze is duly shot for several minutes while he stands and smokes. His leonine eyes gleam through the grey haze with a precise intelligence.

Earlier in the day, South Africa had completed a 233-run hammering of Sri Lanka at Kingsmead. It was not a particularly successful Test for Rabada: 1/10 and 2/65. But he is content. He has nothing to prove to anyone. Besides, there wasn't much bowling to be done in the first innings after Marco Jansen started sniping for his 7/13.

Also, other opportunities were and will be available. At Newlands in January, for instance, when Rabada took six wickets in a 10-wicket win over Pakistan. That was his last Test before the WTC final against Australia started at Lord's on Wednesday, which doesn't mean Rabada has had a quiet six months.

He played only two games for Gujarat Titans in the IPL before returning home for the now-infamous "personal reasons" that turned out to be a month-long ban after testing positive for cocaine. After going back to India, he featured in just two more matches. He finished the tournament in 88th place on the list of economy rates and 100th in strike rate terms. He was what Rabada most certainly is not: ordinary.

What followed was extraordinary. Rabada issued what could kindly be called an incomplete explanation. He apologised, but he neither revealed what the substance was nor how many times he had used the drug. It would, after all, be the worst luck to be nabbed at your only experiment with cocaine. Two of the journalists - established cricket writers, not newshounds or tabloid hacks - among those who had reported the story were not invited to a media engagement with Rabada.

An unease rippled through cricketminded South Africans. Rabada is a giant in his country, the only established bona fide star, with the possible exception of Keshav Maharaj, among South Africa's current Test players. But Maharaj is an uncle in waiting. Rabada is a rock star. If what he had used was marijuana, this would be no big deal. Cocaine is a different order of magnitude.

So there might have been a heavier weight than usual on Rabada's shoulders at Lord's on Wednesday, especially after Temba Bavuma won the toss and declined to bat. Or chose to take the game to Australia by inserting them. Choose your preferred narrative. Whichever, Rabada delivered in the best possible way by dismissing Usman Khawaja, Cameron Green, Pat Cummins, Beau Webster and Nathan Lyon for 51 runs in 15.4 overs. That, folks, is what a five-for looks like.

"It [the cocaine bust] wasn't my best moment, as I've alluded to," a smiling Rabada told a press conference. "Now life moves on. Every game I play for South Africa, I try to do my best. So I didn't try to give any more or any less effort than I usually do."

Rabada's haul put him on 332 Test wickets, which took him past Allan Donald and into fourth place on South Africa's all-time list. Only Dale Steyn, Shaun Pollock and Makhaya Ntini remain ahead of him. How did surpassing Donald make him feel?

"Yeah... I mean... geez... Sometimes I ask myself if I'm giving you guys enough. You want to write a very interesting piece. But it's honestly very simple. I sound like a stuck record, because all that you do is try to improve and win games for South Africa.

"I guess to be named in that list of bowlers is special. As a player growing up and representing South Africa, I've been inspired by those who've come before and seen what they've done on the big stage. As a kid, I was inspired to want to do the same thing."

But, you heard the man, keeping it uncomplicated is what matters.

"The bottom line is, if you're a bowler, try to bowl a good line in length. And as a batter, I guess it's about keeping the good ball out and scoring off balls that are not quite there, on missed executions from the bowler.

"Everything else is just noise. It creates the package of cricket and of sport because you've got you guys, the journos, who write about everything. You've got the fans. You've got the entertainment around the game. But the bottom line is cricket."

Similarly, he wasn't about to entertain notions of what made him special: "You tell me, man. I don't know... I think pace, bounce and movement and doing that consistently."

What message might he have for Lungi Ngidi, who suffered the bruising figures of 0/45 in eight overs? Again, it's simple.

"Just to tell him to have a good night's sleep. Have a nice steak. And a nice milkshake. Watch a movie. And come back tomorrow."

That's what established bona fide stars do. They bandage the bruises of those around them who have not flown as high.

So it does beg the question of why it feels like Rabada doesn't get spoken of in the same breath as Cummins or Jasprit Bumrah anymore when it comes to Test cricket. Not the way he was for the first five or six years of his career. Outside of South Africa anyway.

The obvious point there would be that South Africa simply don't play the same number of Tests that India or Australia do. Not even close. But there has to be more to it.

Maybe it's just more a perception in Australia. This is Rabada's 11th Test against the Aussies. But a majority of them - seven to be precise - came before 2018, or within the first three years of his Test career. And his returns on South Africa's last tour Down Under were paltry by his standards. It wasn't just the numbers but the way he bowled on that tour. After a pretty fiery start on a fiery pitch in Brisbane, Rabada looked short on intensity, short on speed and short on energy. It was an under-par performance, where at times he was taken apart by the likes of Travis Head and Alex Carey.

Well, he couldn't have asked for a better or grander stage than the WTC final at Lord's to remind Australia of what makes him the champion who once tormented their batters. This was peak Rabada. Constantly at the Aussie batters, threatening their stumps and their edges, and with very little leeway to break free on offer. Except when Steve Smith was on strike. The classic best versus the best battle, which the Australian won on the day.

The Rabada spell to Webster summed up his genius in many ways. It was like watching a puppet-master at work. If Rabada wasn't cutting the Aussie giant in half by hooping the ball around while altering his lengths, he was teasing his outside-edge by dragging him away by playing around with his line. That Webster survived was more fortune than anything else. Including the time, he was trapped in front and the South Africans didn't review.

That does make you wonder though about another potential reason for Rabada not getting the kind of plaudits he deserves.

For while Rabada's best is right up there with both Cummins and Bumrah, his bad days with the ball stand out a bit more than they do with the other two. But even with that, it could be a matter of the kind of bowler Rabada is compared to his competitors. He's always making the batters make difficult decisions repeatedly when he's on top. But there's still the occasional loose delivery that he dishes up even amidst those unplayable spells. Which is different to how Cummins and Bumrah go about their business. But again like with all things Rabada, it might well come down to how he's perceived.

He adds to it himself by the unassuming nature in which he talks about himself, and his bowling. Like it says above, ask him about what it means to go past Donald's record, and he starts with how he needs to start sounding more interesting to ensure that journalists write more interesting stories about him.

All things considered, Rabada might take issue with us writing that he had a rip-snorter of a day. In that case, he should also take issue with Jansen saying: "You could see it in his eyes. He was sniffing blood." And with Steyn's comment: "When Rabada gets a sniff, he really rams it in."

You see, KG, you don't only stir reporters' juices. You also get your fellow fast bowlers' emotions going. And those of many other South Africans. It's simple, really.