Durban, Oct 13: Josh Hazlewood’s career-best 6-49 helped Australia win the first cricket test by 214 runs at Kingsmead and finish off South Africa on the final day Tuesday.
Hazlewood took four of the six wickets Australia was hunting for on day five.
A target of 421 was always improbable for South Africa and the world champion Proteas were cleaned up less than an hour after lunch and within five overs of Australia taking the second new ball.
South Africa was all out for 206 after 284 in the first innings.Middle-order batter Matt Renshaw was easily the standout player with 190 runs in Australia’s first innings of 390 and 82 in the second total of 314-6 declared. Renshaw’s part-time spin also netted the first two wickets of his test career.Opening batter Aiden Markram led South Africa’s fourth-innings resistance for nearly six hours with a 237-ball knock for 75 before he was ninth man out. Markram was caught behind off an inside edge to Mitchell Starc. He was initially given not out but Australia reviewed.
Hazlewood broke the defiant stand between Markram and Wiaan Mulder that started late Monday and endured for nearly two more hours on Tuesday.
The end of Mulder’s 110-ball innings for 29, after resuming on 5, brought in Kyle Verreynne, who was dismissed on 1 three balls later.
Renshaw also began a second stint and Verreynne tried to cut him but gave Steve Smith a slips catch and Renshaw his second wicket of the innings, and of his career.Smith did not take the field on Monday evening after he was hit on the helmet while batting and underwent a concussion test. He came out to field on day five after medical reports cleared him.
Markram and Marco Jansen safely reached lunch after a morning session in which South Africa scored only 64 runs in 32 overs, banking on survival against an Australia attack that was squeezing the Proteas on a fifth-day pitch that did not break up as expected.
South Africa hopes were pinned on Markram, who has a history of thwarting the Australians in the fourth innings. He defied them for 143 in another lost cause in Durban in 2018 but scored 136 to overcome Australia in the 2025 World Test Championship final at Lord’s. This was the first test between the teams since then.
Markram in the morning became only the second batter in the match after Renshaw to score a half-century and had 69 by lunch.
But he lost partners rapidly after Australia took the new ball in the 82nd over.
Jansen was beaten through the gate by a Hazlewood nip-backer on 35, and Simon Harmer went in the same over to a riser that brushed his glove and shoulder and that Carey had to leap high for. That gave Hazlewood his 15th test five-for.
Markram went in the next over and the match finished in the over after that when Hazlewood claimed his sixth wicket of the innings.
Renshaw had 2-30 and Starc and Pat Cummins a wicket each.
The second of three tests starts on Sunday at Gqeberha. (AP)