Opinion
Durban: At least before the light fades about 4.30pm each day, Kingsmead in Durban looks to be the ideal place to watch Test cricket.
Located near the water and to the north of this tour’s other venues, it boasts plenty of sunshine and warmth for spectators and players alike.
With this backdrop, it is understandable that many broadcast viewers have seen the blue skies and wondered why the Kingsmead stands and grass banks have been much more empty than full this week. Nathan Lyon voiced his own surprise after day three.
“I was expecting more of a crowd, if I’m being honest with you,” he said. “When you’ve got the Australian cricket team competing against South Africa in South Africa, No.1 and No.2 going at it, I was expecting a bigger crowd, but no, they’ve been pretty quiet to be honest.”
So does nobody care about Test cricket here?
The answer is that yes, Durban has traditionally struggled to draw in the same kinds of Test crowds likely to be seen in Cape Town for instance, or Johannesburg or Pretoria on the high veldt. Notably, the turnout was poor for Jacques Kallis’ final Test here in 2013.
But in 2026, things are more complicated still.
South Africa’s economy is severely depressed, with unemployment running at 33 per cent. As one small example, my Uber driver on night three delayed our departure for a few minutes because he had to buy more internet data to power the app’s GPS map. Many more are living similarly, moment by moment, amid mounting crime rates.
This week, Durban has witnessed a series of civil disturbances and riots near the centre of town, amid protests against immigration levels. Occasionally, smoke from fires lit as part of those protests has been visible from the Kingsmead area, though both teams and most travelling spectators are staying in the well-off Umhlanga district to the north of downtown Durban.
All these explanations have been doing the conversational rounds of the hospitality boxes at the ground, as well as in the stands where Australian tour groups have often been more vocal than the thinly spread home supporters.
However, there is another reason that should give Australians cause for some introspection before making a simple comparison with the huge crowds that typically roll up for Test cricket back home: this series is being played in October.
Since South Africa’s readmission to cricket in 1992 and Australia’s first tour in 1994, tours here have usually taken place in February and March. The one exception was a two-match series memorable for Pat Cummins’ Test debut in 2011. And South Africa’s strong preference is to play Tests as they will later this summer against England, in December and January, a time slot for which Australia has not toured this country in 55 years.
Perhaps the most apt comparison to Australian Test matches should be made with a couple of unsuccessful attempts to play five-day games in Sydney in October in the early 2000s.
The Australia v World XI extravaganza, put on at great expense by the International Cricket Council in 2005, saw the SCG half-full at best during a game that lasted for days, returning a total crowd of 81,224, which is less than what the New Year’s Test would attract for the first two days alone.
A couple of years earlier, a less-hyped Test match against Zimbabwe drew a paltry 18,532 to the SCG over four days marked by a surprised six-wicket haul for SuperSport and SEN commentator Simon Katich, who recalls the audience for his bowling as “sparse”.
Those games also happen to be the last time a major Australian cricket centre hosted a Test match any earlier than November, with subsequent games played in boutique venues in the Northern Territory and far north Queensland.
So it may be worth considering, while watching the remainder of the Durban Test, whether Australia’s strong audiences for the red-ball game would be quite so resilient if asked to handle random scheduling, severe economic circumstances and civil unrest. It’s an open question.
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