South Africa’s players have “massive belief” they can pull off a sensational victory in the World Test Championship final, says batter David Bedingham.<\/b><\/p>\n
Australia initially put themselves in a strong position on day two, dismissing the Proteas for 138 in response to their own first-innings total of 212.<\/p>\n
But South Africa roared back into the contest in the second half of the day as Australia collapsed to 144-8 – a lead of 218 – to leave the match on a knife edge.<\/p>\n
Australia captain Pat Cummins said the contest is “50-50” in terms of who will emerge as victor.<\/p>\n
And Bedingham, who top scored for South Africa in their first innings with 45, said his side will not be daunted but instead relish an “amazing chance” to secure a famous win at the home of cricket.<\/p>\n
“We’re all very, very excited about the opportunity to win. It could go either way,” Bedingham said.<\/p>\n
“When they started batting in their second innings, I think we would have definitely taken 144-8. <\/p>\n
“So we are very confident and I think there’s a massive belief in this team.”<\/p>\n
If Australia fail to add any more runs on day three South Africa would still be facing the fifth-highest Test run chase in Lord’s history.<\/p>\n
Bedingham believes a positive approach from his side’s batters will be the best way to take on the challenge when they get the opportunity to bat on day three.<\/p>\n
“I think we definitely showed more intent today. I think that will probably be the way we go about it,” he added.<\/p>\n
“The main thing is just to 100% commit if you’re defending or attacking. As soon as you get caught in two minds against these attacks, I think you get found out.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Africa’s players have “massive belief” they can pull off a sensational victory in the World Test Championship…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4101],"tags":[1406,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-180572","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":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180572","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=180572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}