A text message to a retired player with an offer to make a comeback became the stuff of legend after Ben Stokes persuaded Moeen Ali to turn out for last year’s Ashes series. But when Dane Piedt received a similar SOS from Shukri Conrad, he did not quite believe what he was reading.

Unlike Moeen, Piedt was not living in the same country he was being asked to represent, had not played a red-ball match in almost four years (Moeen’s absence was less than two years), and had no knowledge of the situation developing in South Africa, where the majority of the Test team would be unavailable for a series in New Zealand.

“I was sitting out in the US and Shukri sent me a message to ask me if I was keen for New Zealand. To be honest, I thought he was lying,” Piedt said in Hamilton, where he took a career-best 5 for 89 against New Zealand on Wednesday. “He told me ‘I am being dead serious’. I didn’t know of anything that was going on [in South Africa] at the time.”

Piedt was in North Carolina, playing in the newly formed American league structure, unsure if his decision to try and qualify for the USA was ever going to materialise but determined to try and make the most of his move. He relocated in lockdown shortly after getting married, and his wife, Misha, had given up her occupational therapy practice in Cape Town for a new life. A year into the move, they had a son, Dax, and though adjusting to another country had its challenges – such as driving far longer distances than the ten-minute commute from his previous home in Kenilworth to Newlands – they were settling in.

Conrad’s call, which came only because he was set to be without his first-choice players for the Test tour due to SA20 obligations, threatened to have the opposite effect. For Piedt to be considered for the Test squad, he would have to return to South Africa and play in the domestic circuit. Except that no-one in the top division would have him.

All eight provincial teams in the top tier said they either didn’t have the money or the space for Piedt, so he had to settle for a spot with a recently relegated division two side – Knights. His first match was against Limpopo, a team that was only given first-class status in October 2022, and he bowled 24 overs in the first innings and went wicketless. At that point, no-one would have blamed Piedt for turning around and heading back to his American life. But he stayed.

A second innings five-for bowled his team to an innings win and six wickets in the next game against Northern Cape was enough for Conrad to draft Piedt into the South Africa A squad to play West Indies A. Those matches were effectively dry runs for the team Conrad would put out in New Zealand – and even that was derailed by Tony de Zorzi getting a late SA20 deal – and Piedt stepped up. He finished as the leading wicket-taker in the three-match series (15 at 15.00) to vindicate Conrad’s out-of-the-box approach and roll back the years to repay a long-time mentor.

Conrad was Piedt’s coach in 2008, when he joined Western Province after excelling in South Africa’s Under-19 cricket week, and oversaw his progression to first-class debut in 2010. Dane Paterson was in the same XI that Piedt played the red-ball game in. Coming back to the set-up was coming home. “It felt like 2008, bowling with Dane Paterson. We’ve come a very long way. Those are the types of memories you think about,” Piedt said. “It’s come full circle.”

Except this is not 2008, but 2024, with South Africa 1-0 down and facing the possibility of losing a series to a side they have never been beaten by before. This is 2024, and the club versus country debate has come to a head and left Piedt as the most-capped bowler in a South African Test XI, in his tenth Test and first in five years.

This is 2024, but Piedt was bowling like its 2014 when he topped the first-class wicket chart and earned his first national call-up.

Despite a total of only 242 to work with, Piedt didn’t mind the batters taking him on a touch. Tom Latham hit his tenth ball over mid-on for six and Kane Williamson sent his 15th over square leg for four. As the pair attacked, Piedt kept his lines fairly consistent outside off stump but made small adjustments to his lengths until he got full enough for Latham to stay back when he should have gone forward and the ball turned past the outside edge to bowl him. Once he found what worked, he stuck to it and some extra bounce forced an error from Williamson, who flicked a ball on to his pads and it popped up for a catch to short leg. Of the batters Piedt wanted to get the better of, Williamson was on top of his list.

“I bowled a beauty of a delivery to Tom Latham, no disrespect to him, but Kane Williamson, in my opinion, is the best player in the world at the moment,” he said. “Having to watch him from the side in Mount Maunganui, the way he goes about his business, that one for me was the best one. It’s always nice getting the big fish but it will mean nothing if we don’t get over the line in the end.”

The end is a long way away and South Africa will still have to bat well on a surface Piedt doesn’t “foresee getting easier”. But they have a handy lead and the comfort that their team selection – which includes two spinners as opposed to New Zealand’s all-seam plus Rachin Ravindra attack – appears to be well thought out. Piedt was partly responsible for that. “I said it looks a bit bare compared to the Mount in Tauranga. We thought there was less covering on the pitch,” he said. “That’s worth the risk and fortunately it’s paid off. And yesterday, when we saw Rachin bowl beautifully, with a couple spinning, we said it’s the right decision and we just tried to pounce on that opportunity.”

And it will be their challenge to keep doing that as the game goes on. South Africa are well aware that in terms of experience and reputation, they are nowhere near New Zealand’s calibre and they accept that handicap. “This New Zealand team is a quality Test team. We’ve seen this. They’re actually a proper cricket team. They are not just going to give it away to you,” Piedt said. “We know we are on the back foot all the time and we try to take those windows of opportunities.”

But they also know that in terms of fighting spirit, they are among the best in the world and that is what they will be drawing on. “We’ve been quietly going about our business. The camaraderie has been really good. It’s a tight knit team and when pressure situations come you can lean on the next guy,” Piedt said.

Most of all, for someone like Piedt, who is more than likely making his comeback and final bow all at the same time, it’s a chance to do something special and claim a piece of Test history that will be remembered far longer than an out-of-the-blue text. That’s what Piedt is playing for, and for Misha and Dax, who were in attendance and all smiles to watch him live his Test dream. Again.