Stop sniping, South Africa have earned their place in the WTC final

The Weekend Stat: Since the start of the 2023-25 World Test Championship qualifying group, South Africa’s men have scored 14 centuries in 12 Tests, and posted a collective batting average of 30, the third best in the competition (behind England and Australia).

In their previous 35 Tests, from mid-2018, they had scored 13 centuries, and collectively averaged 23.6, the second worst of the nine regular Test-playing nations, only fractionally ahead of West Indies.

A foundational principle of the World Test Championship was to encourage more teams and players to commit to the five-day game, to find or create space for the sport’s most demanding challenge in the face of the ravening, calendar-guzzling maw of short-form franchise cricket.

South Africa’s cricketers did so. They qualified for the final in first place, narrowly ahead of defending champions Australia and way in front of the rest, with a regenerated batting line-up grafted on to the enduring quality of their bowlers. Their presence in the final at Lord’s on Wednesday should be a cause for celebration and congratulation in the Test-loving community.

But it seems much of the cricket world is lodged somewhere in a Bermuda Triangle of gripe, oscillating between confusion, resentment and scepticism.

Clearly, the World Test Championship format is flawed. Any competition that takes two years will naturally struggle for narrative coherence.

The teams have played different numbers of matches, from 12 (South Africa and Bangladesh) to 22 (England), with their position decided by percentage of possible points won. Each team played only six of the other eight. South Africa did not play either Australia or England, currently first and second in the ICC World Team Rankings.

In having a flawed format and a significant degree of competitive unfairness, the World Test Championship sits alongside, among other things, a majority of all sporting competitions ever played.

Even allowing for their relatively benevolent schedule (and it remains unclear why this is more unfair than, for example, vastly superior financial or playing resources), South Africa are deserving finalists both on their own merits, and due to the failures of others.

If we count only matches against the teams South Africa did play in the World Test Championship cycle – India, Pakistan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan – the Proteas’ record (won eight, lost three, drew one) is second only to Australia (won 11, lost two, drew one).

Moreover, if South Africa had played Australia in the qualifying stage instead of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka or Pakistan (all of whom they beat 2-0), and lost 2-0 to the Baggy Greensters, they would still have qualified for the final, in second spot. The other teams in contention all fell away, with India losing six out of eight Tests from October to January, New Zealand losing two at home to England in December having astonishingly won 3-0 in India, and England at times apparently forgetting they were in the competition at all.

During their recent struggles, the Proteas’ bowling remained consistently good. Their collective average in the current tournament – 24.3 – is second only to India’s, aided in part by not facing the toughest opponents in the toughest places, but outstanding nonetheless.

Their individual bowlers are elite. Of the 257 seamers to have bowled at least 400 overs in Tests since 1970, Marco Jansen (73 wickets at 21.7) currently has the seventh best average, and Kagiso Rabada (327 at 22.0) the eighth best.

Since 2021, 22 spinners have bowled more than 100 overs outside Asia, of whom none has a better average than Keshav Maharaj (65 wickets at 24.1). The more striking aspect of South Africa’s campaign has been their batting, which had previously sunk to its lowest level in almost 100 years.

In this World Test Championship, it has stirred. Nine different players scored centuries (only four did so in each of the previous two competitions).Of all the batters in the two final squads, only Temba Bavuma averages over 50 in the past three years (albeit having played only 12 Tests). Kyle Verreynne, having made one century in his first 18 Tests, scored three in six matches in the 2024-25 season, as many as any other Test keeper has made in the past four years. Ryan Rickelton made 259 against Pakistan in January, the highest score by a Test opener this decade.

Tristan Stubbs, a volcanic T20 striker with no commercial need for Test cricket, made two patient, disciplined Test hundreds. In January 2024, Aiden Markram played one of the most extraordinary Test innings – 106 off 103 balls versus India in Cape Town, out of a team total of 176 all out, against a rampant Jasprit Bumrah, in a match in which no other South African scored more than 15 in either innings. David Bedingham, who has averaged mid-50s for Durham in the County Championship, made a brilliant Test century against a high-grade New Zealand attack.

Despite administrators who sent them to play in New Zealand with, essentially, a third XI, and who have responded to their team’s successes by not scheduling any home Tests for their forthcoming summer, South Africa have assembled a side that, although underdogs, could challenge and even beat an Australian team with a magnificent bowling attack but an uncertain top three.

Whatever happens, cricket should rejoice in the fact that a competition which should and must be improved in numerous ways has nonetheless achieved something of what it set out to achieve.

Photograph by Matthew Lewis-ICC/Getty