South Africa clinched a 176-run victory in the third Test at Newlands, securing a 2-1 series triumph that propels the team to the top of the world rankings and second place in the World Test Championship standings. The result follows a tightly contested series where, for the first 14 days, the teams appeared evenly matched, making the eventual margin of victory significant. For the first 14 days of this gripping series that kind of detail was seized on in an effort to put a sliver of daylight between the teams. Because there is so vanishingly little to separate them. Hence them being beaten so emphatically was shocking, these teams really were that good.
Kagiso Rabada dominated the early stages of Australia’s pursuit of 288 runs on the 15th day.
In the first over, he dismissed Matt Renshaw and trapped Marnus Labuschagne leg-before-wicket.
By the seventh over, Rabada claimed his 350th Test wicket when Travis Head edged a drive to Marco Jansen at gully, leaving Australia at 22/3. This milestone made Rabada the fastest bowler in history to reach 350 Test wickets, achieving the feat in 13,808 deliveries. Where Marco Jansen took the catch to reduce the Aussies to 22/3, in the seventh Rabada completed his domination of the top order by inducing a wild drive from Travis Head that took the edge and flew to gully. Dale Steyn, who is next on the list, needed 911 more balls to reach the milestone.
Australia struggled throughout the final day, collapsing to 60/7 by lunch. The morning session saw Cameron Green run out, while Alex Carey, Cooper Connolly, and Mitchell Starc fell to Simon Harmer. Harmer proved lethal, claiming those three wickets in just 29 deliveries without conceding a run. Three balls of the morning session remained at Newlands on Friday when Wiaan Mulder backed away from the stumps with Mitchell Starc well into his magnificent impression of a swan swooping towards the bowling crease. Starc slowed, stopped, turned around, went back to his mark, and started off again. This time because Starc’s towel had escaped his waistband and landed on his run-up, clearly in the batter’s eyeline, again Mulder held up a hand and retreated. That he did so without removing a batting glove was impressive in its own small way. Because, when you’re wearing batting gloves, just about all your hands are able to do is hold a bat. Almost everything else is like trying to get a carrot into a keyhole. Losing Cameron Green to a runout and Alex Carey, Cooper Connolly and Starc in the last 37 deliveries of the session, australia shambled to 60/7 at lunch. But also due to the Aussies’ lack of attacking sensibility, harmer’s startling economy was partly of his own making. Green shared stands of 17 off 36, 18 off 51, two off 11 and 18 off 50.
The visitors attempted a defensive strategy to shield captain Pat Cummins from Rabada, but the tactic failed to yield momentum. Harmer, who switched ends to the Kelvin Grove End, bowled Green for a painstaking score. Cummins and Nathan Lyon later added 45 runs, but Harmer eventually trapped Cummins leg-before, followed shortly by the dismissal of Josh Hazlewood, whose off-stump was uprooted. And so the plan was to protect Cummins from South Africa’s ace, rabada has dismissed Australia’s captain seven times in 10 Tests. Green and Cummins had amassed a painstaking two off 73 balls when Temba Bavuma found a novel way to put an end to the silliness.
Harmer’s performance earned him career-best figures of 6/16 in the second innings and a 4/104 haul in the first, marking his first 10-wicket match haul in Test cricket. His decisive spell triggered celebrations among the crowd of 9,729 spectators.
The match atmosphere remained charged, with a young spectator briefly invading the pitch to claim a stump before being escorted away by security. In a stark contrast to the disrespectful behavior seen in a 2018 series where supporters mocked David Warner’s family with masks, the atmosphere at Newlands featured more positive fan engagement, including a child wearing a mask of Temba Bavuma’s face to celebrate the win.
The series, which had seen both teams trade emphatic victories—Australia winning by 214 runs at Kingsmead and South Africa by an innings and 31 runs at St George’s Park—concluded with this decisive performance. The tactical tension of the series was evident even in the final session, characterized by long delays and subtle gamesmanship regarding the stumps and bails by players like Mitchell Starc and Ryan Rickelton. The non-striker, was having none of that, ryan Rickelton. Nevermind by those margins, they needed to be to emerge from complex situations to earn victories. Good players take advantage of favourable situations to bend the game in their favour.
