Kagiso Rabada doesn't get too excited about being the most lethal bowler in the 300-wickets club, or about his other records, because all he wants to do is play for South Africa.
"Every kid dreams of playing for South Africa and that was my dream," Rabada says from Chattogram, where South Africa won their first series in the subcontinent since the start of his career. "My dream was to represent South Africa and to be the best and to be a part of winning South African cricket teams. Along the way, you don't really think about stats."
Except one number: 0.
That's how many times South Africa have won a World Cup, and like so many who have gone before him, Rabada says it's what he most wants to achieve. "I just want to win the World Cup. That's literally my dream. So, hopefully, I don't have any other metrics really."
Rabada was part of South Africa's disastrous 2019 ODI World Cup campaign and the much better 2023 one, in which they reached the semi-finals. He has also played in four T20 World Cups, and experienced exiting after the group stage three times before South Africa pulled off an eight-match unbeaten run to reach this year's final. He described the current group of players as having found a "sweet spot" between experience and youth without being haunted by the ghosts of greats gone by.
When Dean Elgar played his final Test earlier this year, he was the last player of a South Africa side that had been ranked No. 1 in Tests. His exit may also have been the last in a steady stream of big-name retirements that began with Mark Boucher in 2012. Back then Rabada was a schoolkid with stars in his eyes. Three years later, he was an international, in the side in place of an injured Morne Morkel, and playing a Test alongside Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander. Three years after that, in March 2018, as the other three struggled with fitness concerns, he found himself the leader of the attack in a home series against Australia, which South Africa won 3-1.
Throughout, Rabada has had the opportunity to play alongside a range of bowlers, from the ones he idolised to ones he grew up with. It is with this current generation that he feels the most settled.
"Those guys [Steyn, Philander, Morkel] were my heroes growing up and I played with them. And now I'm playing with guys I played with at school, so there's more familiarity because we grew up together - played against each other at school, played together at the provincial level, at Under-19…"
Rabada went to school with Ryan Rickelton and Wiaan Mulder, who is three years his junior. He won the 2014 U-19 World Cup under the leadership of Aiden Markram. Lungi Ngidi and Kyle Verreynne were among the top performers in the national schools weeks in 2013 and 2014. All of them now represent the country. "We play for each other," Rabada says.
After he won the Player-of-the-Series award in Bangladesh for his 14 wickets at an average of nine, Rabada first showered praise on the batters for giving the bowlers over 500 runs to work with in Chattogram. And even though their coach, Shukri Conrad, wasn't convinced about enforcing the follow-on, Markram, the captain, was certain that Rabada, who had taken a five-for in the first innings, was fresh enough to have another go at Bangladesh. As it turned out, South Africa's spinners did the job the second time round, but the point holds that Markram would likely have batted again if he did not believe the leader of his attack could do the job, which speaks to Rabada's continued importance to the side and the significance of managing his workload.
This year Rabada was rested from white-ball series in the UAE to focus on Test preparation, and he will similarly sit out the four-match T20I series against India to get ready for the home Test summer.
By his own admission, more of that needs to happen to prolong his time at the top level. "I'm not getting any younger, and with the amount of cricket that's being played, you have to think about it in terms of finding periods when you're going to rest in order to be the most effective you can be."
But he does not put his success down to that alone. "It speaks to hard work," he says.
Over the last few years Rabada's work has been less about speed and more about skill. He regularly swings and reverse-swings the ball, and always seems to know when to bowl with the most intensity. He identifies the new ball and periods just before or after a break as being times when he has to be particularly switched on.
"Pace is important but you need the skill with the pace. When you combine the two, you can become very lethal. In Test cricket, you have to maintain the pace, but when it's not there, you obviously have to be a bit crafty because, especially in the subcontinent, it's hot. Obviously you want to really make an impact with the new ball. It's about being consistent with it and bowling at a good pace. The older you get, the harder you have to work. You won't get away with what you got away with when you were younger."
If Rabada sounds older than his 29 years, that's because in Test cricket terms, he probably is - with 66 caps across nine years, he is the most experienced player in the side. In that time, while he has experienced highs like beating Australia home and away, he has also seen South Africa go from No. 1 to No. 7 on the rankings.
"Of course, there were times where I was like, 'Man, what's going on here?' But then in the morning, you wake up and you just have to front up. People go through that on the daily, but as players, we have a spotlight on us. Everyone's going to comment on whatever we do. There have been times in my career when I've been disappointed, but it becomes worth it when you do achieve what you want to achieve."
Some would say being back at No.1 on the ICC's rankings for Test bowlers, having occupied that spot for most of 2018 and 2019, is one kind of achievement, but it's not Rabada's favourite one. "If I was No. 5 or No. 3 and we're winning, then I'm really happy. If I'm No. 1, I'm even more happy, but as long as we're winning - that's the major thing for me. It's not about being No.1 the world, it's all about the process and being obsessed with that. I know it sounds so cliché, but cliché is a kind of reality."
He acknowledges that his numbers do have some effect on him in that "they motivate me, but I'm not fixated on them". Then he goes back to his original mantra: that as long as the team is winning, that means more than anything else, and there are still a few big things he wants them to win. "I'm happy with it [the No. 1 Test bowling ranking], but I'm not going to think about it too much. The work continues."