If South Africa needed a reminder of the scrutiny that comes with being World Test Champions, their series against Australia has provided it. Having drawn in Pakistan and won in India in their first two series since their World Test Championship (WTC) triumph at Lord's last year, they were now up against their closest challengers and the No. 1-ranked Test side in the world. They lost the opening Test, but responded with an emphatic performance to draw level in the second, showing just what it takes to live up to their billing as champions.
From 110 for 6, South Africa amassed a first innings total of 425 for 9 and had the luxury of declaring, then bowled Australia out for 99 and enforced a follow-on against them for the third time in nearly 40 years and finally knocked them over by an innings and 31 runs. Are South Africa serious about Test cricket? You bet they are.
"Sometimes as a team we forget that the target is on our back and everyone wants to have a go at us. Everyone wants us to show our mettle as the current world champions, and everything that we do is under the microscope," Temba Bavuma said at the post-match press conference. "Our performance in Durban was a realisation of that, but also a realisation of what it means coming up against super strong opposition."
Related
Last week's Kingsmead Test was South Africa's first at home in 19 months, following the New Year's Test of 2025 and first red-ball fixture in almost a year. They were without Kagiso Rabada, their pace spearhead, who was recovering from a hamstring injury and put faith in a batting line-up that last performed too long ago for it to matter, and they seemed undercooked. Bavuma, at the time, described it as a level of intensity that players were not accustomed to and mentioned "cobwebs" that needed dusting off.
They made changes to the top seven, dropping two players who were instrumental to their WTC success, Tristan Stubbs and Kyle Verreynne, and also left out Keshav Maharaj, their most successful spinner since readmission.
Now Rabada was back. "He's massive value," Bavuma said. "When he's on the field, he assumes that responsibility and pressure of leading the attack and I believe it allows everyone else to kind of go about and do what they need to do. A guy like Marco (Jansen) in the first innings, him taking a five-for. And then in the second innings, Wiaan Mulder with crucial wickets. That's what a leader does. KG is not a big guy in terms of speeches. He'll speak whenever he sees fit. But with the figure that he is, you know, he is inspiring in a lot of ways."
He also brings an element of fight that turns South Africa from nice guys who want to compete, and do, into fierce opponents who give nothing away. Rabada wasted no time having words with his nemesis Steven Smith, and led a more forceful approach from South Africa.
While they didn't intend on being overly in Australia's face, there was a gear shift at St George's Park which Bavuma acknowledged. "Part of it is being aggressive in situations, not necessarily having to have a word with opposition or look for fights, but be aggressive in how we approach it: play for the team and be ruthless in doing so," Bavuma said. "There's obviously certain individuals within the team who enjoy a little argy-bargy and you allow those guys to go about doing that within the rules."
Unlike eight years ago, when Rabada brushed shoulders with Smith and then screamed in his face in dismissing him, this time there was only celebration among his team-mates when he got Smith out in the second innings. Rabada was impactful, but others had been too. Jansen's all-round performance was worthy of an award on its own - and he did get one for the hardest working player in the post-match presentation - and Mulder has proved effective as a medium-pacer who has the backing of his seniors. But at the end of it, this victory was largely built on Bavuma's career-best and the way he came back from scores of 3 and 1 in Durban, to scale the heights of 179 in Gqeberha. A week ago, Bavuma said he would look at his own performances and there's no doubt he did.
"When you're there alone in your room, you can't kind of lie to yourself. You analyse your batting innings. You look at it from a technical point of view, if there's anything that sticks out. From a mental point of view, you tune yourself to making sure that you're ready for battle. You're out to compete," he said. "And if the opportunity is there, you want to make the play for the team. For me, it was a lot of that from a mental point of view. I spent the time in the nets as well to try and find something, some sort of a rhythm or feeling that I was confident that I could go into the game with."
Mostly, he wanted to adjust the mentality that he said caused South Africa to suffer a heavy defeat in Durban, with the knowledge that they are much better than that performance and much closer to the champion team they are labelled as. Now that they have found that again, they will carry it into the series decider in Cape Town, which starts next Tuesday.
"From a pride point of view, from a belief point of view, we've definitely strengthened that by being able to perform like this," Bavuma said. "From a pressure point of view and an expectation point of view, that's probably going to keep increasing for us it's just to keep embracing that and keep going towards the pressure rather than kind of allowing it to hit us in the face."