Aiden Markram faces his Faf du Plessis moment

How much worse can this get? Bad light has plagued the Kingsmead Test, and on Monday there were no lights at all because a power outage struck central Durban shortly after 8am. The gizmos needed for the match to go ahead as planned — DRS, communications between the onfield and television umpires, and such — had backup batteries.

Happily the electricity fluttered back into life minutes before the players took the field. On Friday a set of keys was stolen from a supposedly secure area at the ground and a car driven out of the ground. For days several streets not far from the cricket heaved with xenophobic unrest, which has since eased with the help of the army.

On Sunday the South Africans tossed their wickets away as if they were the nasty bits of a filleted fish. On Monday their bowlers looked as flat as the pitch and the Aussies took their lead to 420 before declaring at what became Tea with Matt Renshaw adding a 99-ball 82 to his 190 in the first innings.

At stumps. four of the home side’s top five had come and gone and they were still 319 away from winning. Or rather further down the road to defeat than victory, or saving the match. From a local perspective there was darkness in the light itself.

The first three days of the match were truncated by a lack of the precious stuff. On Monday, when the South Africans could have done with as much bad light as they could get, the sun shone brightly enough to allow play for half-an-hour after the scheduled close. Even though Australia’s attack bristles with some of the best bowlers the game has yet seen, and considering the pitch has been sound throughout and the outfield slick, were the visitors surprised at how poorly their opponents have batted on a sound pitch and a slick outfield?

Beau Webster thought carefully about that question at his press conference, and declined to pull the trigger. “We’re challenging them in different ways,” he said. “The short ball, the ball on the stumps, we saw today one keeping low into [David Bedingham’s] front leg ...

We have a world class attack who can challenge according to what the conditions dictate. Whether that be a short-ball plan or slightly wider with a 7-2 field, we feel like the skills are there to go about getting 10 wickets in different ways. And then Nathan [Lyon] does a huge job from one end and is really threatening, especially when there are footmarks created by Marco [Jansen] and [Mitchell Starc].

“Like all batters they’ll be disappointed not to get more runs. But we’ve got another big day tomorrow and then a big two Tests where they’re no doubt going to come back fighting.” The exception to all that was Aiden Markram, who stood tall for three minutes short of three hours and faced 115 balls for his 45 not out.

Even that small, silvery cloud had a dark lining: Markram received treatment on the field, which included taking pills, for what looked like a shoulder issue. “Just a bit of tightness,” team management said. In November 2012, at the Adelaide Test, South Africa had also lost four wickets going into the fifth day.

They were after a target nine runs bigger than what they will chase when they resume hostilities on Tuesday, and they have already scored 25 more runs in that cause than they had after four days in 2012. Sounds promising. But is it?

In Adelaide the pair who resumed on the fifth day were AB de Villiers and Faf du Plessis. De Villiers shut out every attacking instinct shrieking at him, batting for more than four hours and facing 220 balls for his 33. They shared 89 off 408 balls before he was bowled by Peter Siddle’s inswinger.

Du Plessis, on debut no less, kept going and going and going, and made an undefeated 110 in almost eight hours off 376 balls. Do South Africa need a Du Plessis on Tuesday? “Yeah, very much so,” Keshav Maharaj told a press conference.

“There were soft wickets, but the application that Aidan showed, from when we got sent in to bat, is what we’re looking for.” Aiden, this is your Faf moment calling. Or even your Faf almost eight hours ...