Yes, it is a bowlers' era, and sure, this is not the strongest South Africa batting order there has ever been, but eventually people are going to look across your stats, find the column under "Hundreds", and check.
Temba Bavuma is aware of this. Painfully aware.
Before the second innings at Kingsmead, he had only two trips to triple figures, compared to 22 fifties. The rock to throw at him is that this is a poor conversion rate, even if many of those fifties came in difficult match situations. Both his team-mates and his opposition, for example, have praised his first-innings 70, for having taken South Africa from a truly modest total to a halfway-respectable 191, given the conditions.
Still, that column on the stats page has eyes on it. And on Friday, at Kingsmead, he raised the count to three, hitting 113 against Sri Lanka. Will people wonder how he has been doing as captain and see that he averages 54.22? Will they wonder how many of his innings have come at No. 6 and lower (51 off 103 innings, by the way), and reason that these are not positions where centuries are harder to come by? Perhaps not many will. Hundreds are kind of a big deal.
"Getting to a three-figure mark is always a lot more satisfying, personally," Bavuma said, about making centuries vs important fifties. "When you bat in positions where the team is in trouble, and you get to a 50 to 60, I guess it's good in terms of getting the team into a competitive position. But once you're able to go over, you really get the team into a strong position.
"Hundreds are a currency as a batter as well, I guess that increases that value. There's obviously a lot of confidence that comes from scoring a hundred, and I think in terms of the batting line-up we're getting to a stage where we're starting to believe that in each innings, someone is able to go and get a hundred, so it's good to add to that confidence."
Bavuma's approach to the hundred was fraught, however. Between getting to 80 and getting to triple figures, there was an edge that dropped short of the slips, a ball that jumped up and hit him on the glove, plays and misses, and an lbw shout and a review to the shot (it came off his glove) he got to triple figures off. Bavuma had, in fact, been asking for the strike.
"I think I'm not too good when I get to the 80s and 90s. I'm going to try and get there [to a century] as soon as I can. They had the second new ball as well, and there was still something on offer for the bowlers. I was always looking to score.
"Then, obviously, getting to the three-figure mark, it was quite nerve-racking. Against the spinner [Prabath Jayasuriya], I got one off the first ball, and then the next two balls Tristan Stubbs blocked. I went over to him and said, 'Stubbo, please get me on strike. I can't wait on this end.' He was able to do that, so I was always going to play that shot."
The shot was a paddle sweep, and he just managed to get a glove to the ball before it hit him on the pads in front of the stumps.
"It was a bit high risk, but the way the spinner was bowling, I was thinking of getting to that three-figure mark and then kind of starting again."
Sri Lanka reviewed that lbw, shout, but Bavuma had known he had got enough on it. He politely waited for the big screen to show the little spike as the ball brushed his glove.
Then he celebrated his third hundred.