Lords: A delighted South African team silenced Lords by defeating Australia and lifting the ICC World Test Championship trophy. There were still five wickets in hand when the last ball was bowled, and the players poured out onto the ground with a shock of disbelief founded on twenty-seven long years of cup-lessness.
In pursuit of an intimidating 282, Aiden Markram’s 136 sits firmly in the middle like an obstinate oak; captain Temba Bavuma, playing closer to the storm centre with his 66, does not move an inch and then does not move an inch when requested by more junior colleagues to speed up. Kyle Verreynne squeezes the winning runs through cover and is nearly run over by team-mates who still reek of dressing-room soap.
South Africa’s bowlers begin the victory in tandem, almost courteously, with Kagiso Rabada taking 5 wickets for 51 and Lungi Ngidi taking 3 wickets for 38. Australia crumples to a total of 212, and then records another series of slips, falling to a total of 207. Rabada secures the second innings by taking four wickets, leaving the scoreboard displaying 9 next to his name in the wickets column.
Marco Markram concluded the day at bat, as the scoreboard indicated that no runs were required. Century He became the first South African to crack three figures in a World Test Championship final. Player-of-the-Match awards came soon after, an award he would later claim was from the dressing room and all the fans back home who were foreseen on their screens.
Captain Temba Bavuma pushed the silver Championship Mace under one arm and wondered why any sun that showered Adams Park seemed suddenly personal. He said it would take a while for the day’s enormity to sink in, maybe longer than the trip home.
Over at the other end of the park, Pat Cummins was prowling the crease with the intensity of a seamer few can muster. In the first over against South Africa, he took 6 wickets for 28, becoming the ninth player to reach 300 Test wickets almost effortlessly.
Mitchell Starc, in the outdated mode that only some Australians still support, blasted a refreshing 58 and came back later to convenient totals of 3 for 66. Even so, Cummins ultimately acknowledged that the batting performance was insufficient to support the bowlers’ workload.
This victory comes 20 years after the last ICC trophy by South Africa, the 1998 Champions Trophy, and through that time the team has pursued ghostly terms such as ‘chokers’ with mixed results. Today, the gleaming Test Mace repositions in the same cabinet, serving as a tangible reminder of the occasional writing of new chapters. The spectators in the camp vow to use the momentum for whatever world stage is next.