{"id":179900,"date":"2025-06-13T02:02:08","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T02:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/179900\/"},"modified":"2025-06-13T02:02:08","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T02:02:08","slug":"south-africa-have-massive-belief-they-can-stun-australia-insists-david-bedingham-world-test-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/179900\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa have \u2018massive belief\u2019 they can stun Australia, insists David Bedingham | World Test Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

The destiny of the mace may still be in the balance but David Bedingham admitted Australia\u2019s bowlers had already \u201cshown they\u2019re the best in the world\u201d in bowling South Africa out for 138 on the second day of the World Test Championship final<\/a>. Pat Cummins claimed six wickets to put his team in the ascendancy but on a whirligig day of constantly oscillating fortunes, the Proteas promptly bowled themselves back into contention, with Australia reaching stumps on 144 for eight, nursing a lead of 218.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an amazing chance, and we\u2019re all excited about the opportunity to win,\u201d said Bedingham. \u201cIt could go either way but us as a team are very, very excited and there\u2019s a lot of belief in the dressing room. We\u2019re very confident. When they started batting in their second innings we would definitely have taken this score. So very confident, there\u2019s massive belief in this team.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Australia will feel equally optimistic after their second innings was rescued from impending disaster by Alex Carey, who towards the day\u2019s end dominated the scoring in a 61-\u200arun partnership with Mitchell Starc after Australia had fallen to 73 for seven. \u201cKez has been brilliant, he\u2019s dragged us out of that,\u201d Cummins said. \u201cThe mood in the changing room was pretty positive towards the end there. It was a great partnership. It was almost like a run chase, with each four getting loud claps. It was a pretty good way to end the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

A total of 14 wickets fell across the second day, precisely as many as in the first<\/a>. It started with South Africa losing their last six wickets in adding just 95 runs to their overnight total, 51 of them provided by the partnership between Bedingham \u2013 who top-scored with 45 \u2013 and Temba Bavuma. \u201cI don\u2019t think Australia gave us any bad balls. That\u2019s why they\u2019re the best in the world,\u201d Bedingham said. \u201cHopefully going forward we can counteract that and win the title. I don\u2019t think Cummins ever misses. There\u2019s always energy on the ball. He bowled 18-odd overs and the energy from his first over to his 18th was exactly the same. He\u2019s world class.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are six quality seamers out there, I think that makes batting tough. The bowlers have the ability to take it in with the slope, which means the ball moves more, and they also have the ability to take it away. Just having world-class bowlers on a pitch that can move both ways makes it quite tricky.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lungi Ngidi, the least successful of South Africa\u2019s bowlers in Australia\u2019s first innings, made amends in their second by taking three key wickets across what became the second-longest spell of his Test career. \u201cI was struggling a bit from one side, but I swapped ends and I felt a lot better,\u201d he said. \u201cOnce you get a moment like that you don\u2019t want to let it go because it could change the game. I just kept going until my legs told me, \u2018That\u2019s enough.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we started bowling we realised there was still enough in the wicket to make it closer, to bring that margin down. Just finding a bit of rhythm, that\u2019s all I was looking to do. If you\u2019d told me this was the position we\u2019d be in at the end of the day I\u2019d definitely have taken it. I guess that\u2019s what a Test championship final should bring. A lot of guys have put their hands up. It\u2019s been very exciting, very tough cricket out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ngidi\u2019s earlier rustiness was perhaps understandable given that he has not played a Test match \u2013 or any first-class cricket at all \u2013 for 10 months, before being surprisingly preferred to Dane Paterson for this match. \u201cIt\u2019s a long time since I\u2019ve played Test cricket, and that\u2019s OK with me,\u201d he said. \u201cI obviously know why I was selected. It doesn\u2019t make a difference to me, opinions or whatever it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier Cummins had taken five of the last six South African wickets to fall \u2013 the other was a run-out \u2013 to end the day with 300 Test scalps, becoming the 40th man, and the eighth Australian, to reach the mark. \u201cAs a fast bowler, 300 is something I always kind of thought about as a pretty good sign of durability and resilience and longevity, so I feel pretty proud to join that group,\u201d he said. \u201cI still feel like I\u2019ve got lots of miles in the legs. I don\u2019t feel like I\u2019m going to end any time soon.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The destiny of the mace may still be in the balance but David Bedingham admitted Australia\u2019s bowlers had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4101],"tags":[1406,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-179900","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\/114673598609806659","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179900","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=179900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}