The South African men’s cricket team has waited for this moment for a very long time. The wait doesn’t just include the two-year cycle of the World Test Championship. It goes much further back than that. Going into the World Test Final at Lord’s, the biggest tournament wins for this South Africa side both occurred in 1998. Those were the Commonwealth Games and the first edition of the tournament now called the Champions Trophy. South African cricket has a history of heartbreaking losses. From the semi-finals of the 1999 and 2015 50-over World Cups to the 2024 T20 World Cup Final. Meanwhile, the men’s national rugby team has routinely been the top team in its sport, winning four Rugby World Cups including the last two. That background is important, because regardless of what other cricketing bodies or people think about the World Test Championship, this means a lot to the South Africans. For the second time in three editions, the team that was said to not deserve its spot in the final has won the ultimate Test match.
Australia entered the match as favourites despite South Africa finishing on top of the World Test Championship standings. Australia was coming off a 3-1 series win at home against India and there was a consensus that South Africa got an easier fixture over the two-year cycle. However, with two great bowling attacks this Test was billed as an exciting final.
The first day was one of great chaos. South Africa showed that they were going to be bold in this match after they won the toss and chose to bowl first. With the top three of Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne and Cam Green only making 21, it was up to Steve Smith to put on another big performance in England. It looked like he was on-track for a massive score but Jansen made a remarkable juggling catch off the bowling of part-time spinner Aiden Markram to dismiss Smith for 66. It was only the fourth wicket Markram had taken in his Test career. Smith walked back into the Lord’s changing rooms with Australia at 5/146 but South Africa where able to take the next the last five wickets for just 66 runs. Beau Webster top-scored with 72.
212 was a good score to keep Australia to, with Smith and Beau Webster’s partnership the main reason Australia put up a respectable enough total. Yet when Markram chopped on at the end of the first over of South Africa’s first innings, it immediately looked too much. At stumps, South Africa was 4/43, the Australian bowlers crucial again. South Africa could only make 138 runs in their first innings. The fifth and sixth wicket partnership were the main reason that South Africa were not further behind. The names of Temba Bevuma and David Bedingham stand out on the scorecard because of how far ahead their scores are compared to everyone else.
Australia started their second innings, 74 runs in front. This time when the first three faltered, Smith wasn’t able to pick up the pieces as he was dismissed LBW with the intervention of a South Africa review. Not for the first time, Alex Carey provided much needed runs but the highest score was Mitch Starc with 58. Carey and Starc had a crucial 71-run partnership for the 7th wicket and Starc was joined by Hazlewood where together they added an additional 59 runs. Despite the disappointment from the top order, Australia was still in a good spot. South Africa needed 282 to win. Never an easy fourth innings chase and even more so when no team had scored that many runs in the first three innings. However, it did seem that the Lord’s pitch was getting easier to bat on as the match progressed. At the start of the third over of the run chase, Ryan Rickleton achieved the difficult task of edging a yorker through to the wicketkeeper. South African fans surely thought that was the sign, that this match, like many others, would slip away from them.
Then Markram got his eye in. Throughout his innings, he was seeing and timing the ball well, finding gaps in the field. By the time he was finally dismissed the result was beyond doubt. He walked off the ground, his head was held down in frustration, oblivious to the fact that the entire crowd was giving him a standing ovation. No doubt every other South Africa cricket fan was so grateful for his performance. The man who was dismissed for a duck in the first innings, provided the best batting performance in a match where few others looked like they would make a big score. He had a steady presence in the run chance, especially when he and Bavuma made a 147-run stand for the third wicket. Markram had the crucial moment with the ball, with his dismissal of Smith in the first innings. He also had the crucial performance with the bat with a 136-run performance in the last innings. The undisputed player of the match. It was Kyle Verreynee who had the honours of scoring the winning run. The many examples of heartbreak had been forgotten. The Proteas had finally bloomed and won a world title. They had achieved their highest fourth innings chase since 1906 in Johannesburg when they chased 282, to beat England, in what was the nation’s first Test win.
But for every great winning story, there is the losing side of the equation. An autopsy has to be done on the Australian side, and now is the best time to do that. While losing the mace is one thing, losing the Ashes this coming summer would be something else. The batting order needs a major rethink. The selectors have stuck with the idea that the best path forward is to pick the best six batters possible and worry later about the exact order. The truth though, is for many players, they thrive when they sit in a specific spot in the eleven which bests suits them. Khawaja and Labuschagne need to show a lot more improvement to remove concerns and Konstas will likely only get better with more big stage experience.
Thankfully, the tour of the West Indies is upon us and the timing is perfect. It won’t be a pushover, as the West Indies showed last time, they toured Australia. It will be the last of the Test matches before the Ashes, so it is vital. While the Sheffield Shield can inform us a bit to a degree, there is a world of difference between playing well when playing for your state and playing for your nation. The bowlers, as great as they undoubtedly are, won’t be able to bail out the batters every single time. It’s time to get the batting order right. England will be firing on all cylinders as they try to win the Ashes on Australian soil for the first time since 2010-11. Losing the World Test Championship Final might be the loss, this Australian team badly needed.
But for now, South Africa is the World Test Champion. South Africa has had such a lasting impact on cricket and have a proud cricketing and sporting culture. The sporting sun shines down on the Proteas like never before in a way previously reserved solely for the Springboks. They are, for the moment, the champions of men’s Test cricket.
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