Australia gunning for WTC repeat, South Africa seek to drop ‘chokers’ tag

While much the narrative of the English summer of cricket focuses on the upcoming five-Test series between England and India, two teams will contest the third World Test Championship (WTC) final at Lord’s this week. 

Reigning champions Australia, who beat India in a series for the first time in a decade and then blanked Sri Lanka 2-0 away, and first timers South Africa, who topped the current table with seven successive victories in Tests. 

Pat Cummins and his team-mates are aiming to become the first repeat winners of the WTC after beating India at The Oval in 2023, while South Africa are in their first such final and hoping to shrug off decades of disappointment at ICC finals. 

These two teams have not played each other since the 2022-23 season, when Australia won 2-0 at home. Since that time, across formats, Australia lifted the WTC and ODI World Cup in 2023 and made the semi-finals of the Champions Trophy. South Africa lost to Cummins’ team in the World Cup semi-finals, then bottled it in the 2024 T20 World Cup final against India, and most recently crashed out of the Champions Trophy at the semi-final stage. 

History and pedigree have Cummins and his team as favourites for the WTC final at Lord’s – where no team comes close to Australia’s winning percentage of 45 in more than 140 years of Test cricket – but Temba Bavuma and his squad will view this final as the chance to end a painful litany of jinxes and heartbreak at ICC events. 

South Africa are in the final after beating West Indies, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan in a row. Along the way, they were forced to send a weakened squad to New Zealand due to a schedule clash with the lucrative SAT20, and that series was lost 0-2. 

Their road to the WTC final has been built on the success of several new faces from the previous series with Australia, such as Daniel Bedingham who is South Africa’s leading run-getter of the current cycle with 645 runs; middle-order batsman Tristan Stubbs with 500; opener Ryan Rickleton who has 451 at an average of 56; and the allrounder Wiaan Mulder who averages 52.60 with the bat and 24 with the ball. 

South Africa will look to 31-year-old Bedingham with plenty of expectation given that he topped the County Championship Division One run chart in 2024 with 1331 runs at an average of 78, as well as Kagiso Rabada and Marco Jansen who have good numbers in England. Rabada will particularly fancy playing at Lord’s where he has taken 13 wickets at under 20 in two Test matches, including a match haul of 7/79 in a victory over England in 2022. 

Rabada – back from serving a suspension – will lead a pace attack featuring Jansen, Lungi Ngidi, Dane Patterson, Mulder and Corbin Bosch. It seems likely that Rabada, Jansen, Patterson and Mulder form the pace quartet, with left-armer Keshav Maharaj the sole spinner. 

South Africa have won two of their past three Tests at Lord’s, but it is Australia who boast a super record there in the last decade. They won in 2015 and 2023 and drew in 2019, and one pivotal figure in their team is raring to go at a venue he loves. In the past 10 years, Steve Smith owns a Test batting average of 101.8- at Lord’s with two centuries and a best of 2015.

The former Australia captain did not pick up a cricket bat in three months since Australia exited the Champions Trophy in March, but serious time with a personal trainer in New York has Smith raring to go. Smith is locked at No 4 for the WTC final with the returning Cameron Green potentially slotting in at No 3. That would mean a makeshift opening partner for Usman Khawaja, which looks like the struggling Marnus Labuschagne. 

Australia will be tempted to consider Scott Boland as one of three pacers, but it seems more realistic that the famed trio of Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood form the pace attack. Since 2015, Hazlewood has taken 13 wickets at 26.15 apiece at Lord’s and Cummins 10 at 21.10. 

But with Green unable to bowl, the Australia selectors could consider Beau Webster at No 6 given his ability to send down medium pace and spin. That leaves the veteran Nathan Lyon as the specialist spinner at a venue where he’s taken just seven wickets in three Tests at an average of over 40.