{"id":176996,"date":"2025-06-12T00:11:15","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T00:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/176996\/"},"modified":"2025-06-12T00:11:15","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T00:11:15","slug":"greats-kagiso-rabada-and-steve-smith-rise-to-occasion-in-tense-wtc-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/176996\/","title":{"rendered":"Greats Kagiso Rabada and Steve Smith rise to occasion in tense WTC final"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seventeen years ago to the day, the convicted fraudster Allen Stanford landed his helicopter on the Nursery ground at Lord\u2019s at the start of cricket\u2019s great disruption. Since then, parasitic franchise short-form competitions have continued to chip away at the fabric of the game, with the result that occasions such as the World Test Championship (WTC) final come imbued with added significance in the context of international cricket and the five-day game. <\/p>\n

We need a good contest and while it was a very watchable day, as it often is when runs are at a premium, it might also be a short one, if the 14 wickets that fell are anything to go by. Still, cricket often doesn\u2019t have enough faith in itself \u2014 as the sorry Stanford episode suggested \u2014 but here, with some greats on show, there was certainly no need to gild the lily. Two of them, Steve Smith and Kagiso Rabada, would grace any composite team in history, and they rose to the occasion.<\/p>\n

Smith anchored Australia\u2019s innings with what is likely to be an important half-century in the final accounting, in his first outing after a lengthy three-month break in New York. Rabada\u2019s recent breather from the game was an enforced one, after failing a drugs test, but he bowled like he\u2019d never been away, working an immaculate line, finding late movement off the pitch, and looking dangerous every time he had ball in hand.<\/p>\n

\"Steve<\/p>\n

Smith made 66 with ten fours before he was caught at slip<\/p>\n

GETTY<\/p>\n

He took five wickets in archetypal fast bowler\u2019s fashion, plucking out the top order with the new ball, returning to break mid-innings resistance and then polishing off the tail, passing Allan Donald on South Africa\u2019s all-time wicket-takers\u2019 list along the way. Rabada is, unquestionably, a great fast bowler, and he walked off to rousing acclaim from a near-full house at Lord\u2019s, a healthy number of South Africans among them. <\/p>\n

Australia struggled under morning cloud cover, yoked by some sharp new-ball bowling and catching. They recovered a little in the afternoon sunshine, with Beau Webster adding a half-century of his own to Smith\u2019s, before losing their last five wickets for 20 in no time at all. Bowling out Australia for 212 was certainly vindication of Temba Bavuma\u2019s decision to bowl first, but doing so in 56.4 overs meant a lengthy examination at the crease of their own.<\/p>\n

When Aiden Markram played on for a duck in Mitchell Starc\u2019s opening over, the close felt a long way off. Starc added another in a fine opening spell, when Ryan Rickelton drove and edged to slip. Wiaan Mulder, an optimistic call at No3, struggled for 44 balls before having his bails trimmed by Pat Cummins, and when Tristan Stubbs was bowled by Josh Hazlewood, it was the final wicket of a madcap evening session, which yielded nine wickets. <\/p>\n

\"Mitchell<\/p>\n

Starc removed both South Africa openers to start the fightback on a frenetic day when 14 wickets fell<\/p>\n

KIRSTY WIGGLESWORTH\/AP<\/p>\n

South Africa are up against it already. Nevertheless, with the ammunition at his disposal, it was fair enough that Bavuma opted to bowl first. It was a gloomy morning, murky enough to prompt the use of floodlights, and only one bowler in the history of the game (minimum 100 Test wickets) has a better strike rate than Rabada, Mind you, Marco Jansen, yet to reach that three-figure mark, has an even better strike rate than him so Bavuma is well served by his new-ball pair and Australia\u2019s top order had a hastily assembled look to it. <\/p>\n

Rabada struck twice in the opening hour and Jansen twice in the second, to leave Australia tottering at lunch. Usman Khawaja, first of all, spent 20 balls demonstrating that his feet would not respond to his brain\u2019s urgings, before edging to first slip. Cameron Green, promoted ambitiously and playing crookedly, lasted three balls. South Africa\u2019s close catching was pin-sharp.<\/p>\n

At the ground where his Test career was ignited six years ago, Marnus Labuschagne was playing for his future. He has been short of runs, average plummeting, and is short of confidence, encouraging the bowlers to come at him, rather than the other way around. Ousted from the middle order and parachuted into opening for this game, batting looked a hardscrabble business, although his appetite for the struggle could not be doubted.<\/p>\n

For 18 overs, Labuschagne fought the good fight, before he feathered a catch behind off Jansen, back for a second spell from the Pavilion End. South Africa\u2019s wariness of Travis Head was demonstrated by a fielder posted to the cover boundary after one blistering cut shot, before he had made it into double figures. To the final ball before lunch, Head tickled Jansen down the leg side, for Kyle Verreynne to take a fine one-handed catch, the best of three excellent catches in the morning.<\/p>\n

Smith had survived a very close leg-before shout to Jansen just before lunch, because he has returned to that pre-Covid style that sees him leaping across his stumps at the point of delivery. At 36 years old, he misses a little more than he used to on his pads. His movements push bowlers to a wider line than intended, though, and he flayed anything that was too wide. In passing a half-century in the afternoon, he also became the leading overseas run-getter in Tests at Lord\u2019s. He loves batting here.<\/p>\n

Webster survived a clear leg-before shout to Rabada on eight, the score 94 for four, after Bavuma opted not to review, one of those moments that took on greater importance the longer the afternoon wore on. Webster looked supremely uncertain initially, especially when facing Rabada, but the sunshine arrived, and Lungi Ngidi and Mulder are a notch below Rabada and Jansen in class, and so conditions eased; the run rate, under three an over in the morning, picked up. <\/p>\n

Mulder\u2019s five no-balls suggested some rustiness and Ngidi looked in need of an outing. Needing to switch Mulder from Pavilion End to Nursery, where he had bowled a decent spell before lunch, Bavuma introduced the palindromic Markram for an over and from nowhere Smith edged the off spinner\u2019s sixth ball to slip, where Jansen juggled and pocketed gratefully.<\/p>\n

\"Australia<\/p>\n

Hazlewood bowls Stubbs for two to leave South Africa with a big rebuilding job on Thursday<\/p>\n

BEN WHITLEY\/PA<\/p>\n

Webster, 6ft plenty and with reach to match, began to find his confidence. His half-century came in 69 balls with eight fours, which suggests it was more easily made than it was, but the occasional booming drive through the off side brought the crowd\u2019s approval. Inevitably it was Rabada who ended Webster\u2019s resistance, the bowler\u2019s arm angle from beyond the perpendicular bringing a defensive prod where none should have been offered.<\/p>\n

Carey had earlier missed a reverse-sweep immediately after tea, which heralded the start of a dramatic collapse. Returning to the ground for the first time since the Ashes in 2023, when he raised the ire of the Lord\u2019s members by stumping Jonny Bairstow, the wicketkeeper\u2019s day did not improve when he put down a straightforward chance off Mulder in South Africa\u2019s reply.<\/p>\n

This, though, was a rare error on a day when the quality of bowling and catching far outstripped the standard of batting. A measure of the difficulty of making runs was highlighted by Bavuma\u2019s 31-ball struggle to get off the mark, which gave the end of the day added tension and was concluded to resounding cheers. It was a day of slim pickings for batsmen. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seventeen years ago to the day, the convicted fraudster Allen Stanford landed his helicopter on the Nursery ground…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4101],"tags":[1406,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-176996","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114667499505312077","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}