South Africa beat Australia by 5 wickets at Lord’s to win the World Test Championship and clinch their first major ICC Trophy in 27 years.
The Proteas entered the fourth day of the final needing another 69 runs to make history. Carrying the burden of a trophy drought and the ever present chokers tag, an easy South African win was far from expected. But that is what Temba Bavuma and his men delivered.
It didn’t begin well for South Africa on the penultimate day. Skipper Bavuma was sent back to the pavilion by his counterpart Pat Cummins early on, as he managed to add a solitary run to his overnight score of 65. This would have sent jitters down the Proteas camp, with wounds of painful defeat in the T20 World Cup final still fresh.
But this time they had a calm Aiden Markram on the crease. With a legion of South African legends watching on from the stands and in the commentary box, Markram ensured this would their time.
Mitchell Starc did get the wicket of Tristan Stubbs, but Markram and David Bedingham carried on without much trouble. The Aussies did get in a couple of close shouts and lost both their reviews. Markram took his side to 250 and Bedingham brought down the equation to less than 20.
Every run was cheered loudly by the South African faithful. The fans, who had grown accustomed to heartbreak and failure despite boasting some of the greats of the game, were now starting to believe. Markram got out with six runs left. The Australians couldn’t help but acknowledge and applaud his knock that had squeezed the defending champions out of the game.
Kyle Verreynne attempted an audacious ramp shot before playing through the covers off Starc to score the winning runs.
The crowd erupted. Graeme Smith got himself close to the action, AB deVillers celebrated in the stands and Shaun Pollock was ecstatic in the commentary box.
Verreynne and Bedingham may not have the pedigree or the legendary status of their predecessors yet, but they will go down as the two players who were on the pitch when the Rainbow Nation had its finest moment in Test cricket.
Sherjeel Malik is the editor at FanHaat with a writing experience in multiple sports. He oversees the editorial and content coverage at FanHaat and writes often around combat sports, football and other marquee sports. A professional highlight of his career was when WWE’s Paul Heyman shared one of his articles on his social media.
Apart from writing, editing and watching sports, he likes to indulge in reading fiction, watching war documentaries and is a fan of Liverpool FC
