Ken Borland

How the 1st day of the long-awaited Test series between 2025 World Test Champions South Africa and losing finalists Australia went in Durban.

A dull (in terms of the weather) afternoon in Durban saw Australia reach 187 for six in 65.2 overs before bad light stopped play midway through the final session. Anrich Nortje, playing in his first Test since 2023, had earlier taken two wickets in three balls to plunge the tourists into deep trouble on 124 for six and have the sparse number of South African supporters in sheer delight.

Matt Renshaw (46*) and captain Pat Cummins (33*) showed great determination to keep an excellent Proteas attack out for the remaining hour-and-a-half, but the thrill of seeing a genuine fast bowler return to the Test arena, and enjoy success, had been the highlight of the day.

Having not added to his tally of 70 Test wickets at 26.71 since March 2, 2023, Nortje made a brilliant double strike that left the home side the happier of the two and also allowed him to be full of smiles in the post-play press conference.

“I thought I wasn’t going to get a wicket for the next few weeks the way every ball passed the bat,” Nortje said with the sort of hard-done-by-ness that seems to be hard-wired into fast bowlers.

But after that the 32-year-old was all smiles, delighted just to be out in the middle competing in a format he described as “the best there is”.

“It was good to get the first wicket, it got the blood flowing again, but first and foremost it’s great just to be out there, especially wearing the baggie which was getting a bit worn out just lying at home. Aiden Markram actually said it seems to be part of my game that I don’t get wickets for a while and then I get two very quickly.

“I would have liked to have finished that last spell before bad light and I enjoy the hard graft of coming back for a third or fourth spell, when you have to dig deep,” Nortje said after returning figures of 13.2-2-40-2 on Friday. The way he kept his speeds up above 140km/h spoke to his excellent conditioning.

There are many different excuses given for the poor crowd attendances at Kingsmead, ranging from it being the government’s fault for tanking the economy to the Indian Ocean’s fault for looking so inviting, but it was inexcusable that such a long-awaited series, between great rivals and the finalists of the last World Test Championship, should commence at 9.30am under the bluest of skies but with a backdrop of sheer apathy from so-called cricket lovers.

Marco Jansen and Wiaan Mulder had some unruly moments with the new ball after Australia had elected to bat first, but at least they had a plan. Visiting openers Nic Maddinson and Travis Head are both left-handers, and the tactic early on was clearly to swing the ball back into their pads, looking for lbw.

South Africa should have reviewed when Mulder did just that in the fourth over, but the Proteas declined. Hawkeye showed it was very much out.

Mulder, who moved the ball impressively, did get a wicket four overs later when a delivery swung down leg, Head (9) tried to flick it away but edged the ball on to his thigh, from which it travelled into the gloves of Kyle Verreynne.

Jansen, who also used his ability to extract steep bounce to good effect, removed Maddinson for a 33-ball duck as he threw in a fuller, wider delivery, the left-hander’s eyes lit up and he inside-edged the ball into his stumps.

The debate over Maddinson’s selection has not quite reached the halls of Australia’s government, but it is astonishing. The bare facts are that he turns 35 in December, has not played a Test since 2016 or any red-ball game since March 2025. In his previous three Tests, he batted four times and scored just 27 runs.

On the plus side, Maddinson did survive for 50 minutes in what turned into a probing examination of technique and cha​acter.

From 24 for two, the veterans, Marnus Labuschagne (37) and Steve Smith (25) took Australia to the brink of lunch with a 60-run stand. It looked like the boasting rights for the session would go to the visitors.

But with the last ball before lunch, Mulder managed to nip a delivery into Labuschagne’s pads, the South African-born player trying desperately to get outside the line of off-stump, but his review showing he had just failed (umpire’s call).

Three balls after lunch, Mulder was in the gully to snaffle an edge from Smith’s bat off Jansen, the tall left-armer having thundered a lifter into his gloves the previous delivery.

Alex Carey (14) provided some stabilisation with Matt Renshaw for the next hour, before the return of Nortje and his dramatic one-two.

Carey was removed by a beautiful delivery – perfect length, Carey did not get forward and then the ball moved away and across the left-hander, Markram taking the catch at second slip.

Beau Webster clipped his first ball through midwicket for four, but his second saw him trying to defend well outside off-stump, the delivery straightened and he was caught behind. Umpire Richard Kettleborough, who had a tough day, ruled not out probably because the bat had hit the pad, but another excellent review showed the ball had found the other edge of the bat too.

How Renshaw and Cummins progress on the second morning will decide whether Australia have capitalised on a good toss to win.

Nortje has made a decision of his own during his lengthy injury absences. Just like getting a new haircut for your first day back in the office, he is modelling a slightly new action.

“After the T20 World Cup last year and the IPL, my action wasn’t looking great. When I compared it to old footage I could see how bad it was, in terms of my action, my angles and the flow of my arms.

“So I decided to make it right so I could be more consistent and help my body to prolong things. I decided that I had to change things up, I couldn’t go back to what I was doing in 2020 otherwise muscle memory would just take over again and I’d be back where I was.

“So I’ve been working on a new action, the angles of my run-up, my jump and how my arms flow. It might look the same but it’s not, technically it’s slightly different. My action is always a work in progress, I’m never 100% satisfied, but it feels better than ever and I’m very happy with where I’m at,” Nortje said.

And so he should be. As should the Proteas after a successful opening day of the series.

It was not much more than a half-day at the office for the Proteas as they returned to action in the third Test against Australia, but it was already shaping up to be a day of toil as the home side reached 147 for two when bad weather stopped play at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Wednesday.

Only 47 overs were able to be played before the umpires controversially took the players off, for the second time, at 5.50pm, having earlier gone off at at 2.17pm local time. On both occasions the rain did then arrive, but the reluctance of the umpires to keep playing on a grey, overcast day was unfuriating.

That was far from the most contentious bit of decision-making on the opening day though. Shortly before the play was stopped, Marnus Labuschagne edged left-armer Marco Jansen low to first slip, where Simon Harmer seemed to have scooped up a fine catch.

Neither Labuschagne nor the umpires were 100% sure though, with third umpire Richard Kettleborough being called into play, the soft signal being out. Having watched numerous replays, the Englishman felt the ball had touched the ground, but the conclusive replay, zoomed in from the front, was strangely absent.

Labuschagne survived on 70, but five minutes later, the crucial replay suddenly emerged and showed that Harmer did get his fingers under the ball. One wonders why the host broadcaster could not have provided the telling replay when the TV umpire needed it.

Labuschagne added just nine more runs to his score before the lionhearted Anrich Nortje managed to drag some life out of a featherbed pitch, a phenomenal delivery with pace, bounce and away-nip being edged behind. His luck certainly turned as the umpires took the players off the field straight after his dismissal.

Usman Khawaja was playing a classy opening batsman’s knock with 54 not out, showing plenty of fine judgement in his stroke-selection, but also effectively putting away anything loose as he collected six fours. Steve Smith had just come to the crease but had not faced a ball yet.

Khawaja and Labuschagne added 135 for the second wicket in impressively efficient fashion, taking charge after lunch as they added 70 runs in 15 overs. In the morning session, Khawaja and Labuschagne had been focused on getting in and ensuring the advantage of winning the toss and batting on a dry, easy-paced pitch that offered little movement, was not squandered.

Nortje had been the supplier of South Africa’s other wicket on the first day, David Warner (10) edging high to Jansen at first slip as he played a rather loose slash outside off-stump.

The Proteas pacemen gave little away with the new ball, but the task became ever harder for them. Spinner Harmer provided some anxious moments for the left-handed Khawaja and he and Keshav Maharaj could be the key bowlers for the rest of the innings.

Harmer has replaced Lungi Ngidi in the attack, while South Africa have brought in Heinrich Klaasen for Theunis de Bruyn, who returned home for the birth of his first child.

The fitness of South Africa’s batting line-up for Test cricket was once again called into question as they were bowled out cheaply for the second time in the third Test against England, with the home side rushing to the brink of victory until only poor light stopped them at The Oval on Sunday evening.

This was despite restricting England to just a 40-run first-innings lead and a first-wicket stand of 58 between Sarel Erwee (26) and Dean Elgar (36). England’s pacemen once again bowled superbly to dismiss South Africa for just 169 in their second innings, leaving them with a target of 130 for victory, and openers Zak Crawley (57 not out off just 44 balls) and Alex Lees (32*) batted in dashing fashion to get them to 97 without loss in just 17 overs. England will need just 33 more runs on Monday’s final morning to win the Test and the series.

It was a sad ending to the day for the Proteas after they had enjoyed a magnificent morning session.

England had resumed their first innings on 154/7 and Kagiso Rabada and Marco Jansen needed just 16 balls to wrap up the innings for only 158.

Jansen (12.2-2-35-5) claimed his maiden five-wicket haul and showed what a bright future he has as a Test strike bowler, while Rabada showed that class is permanent as he rebounded from a poor first eight wicketless overs for 63 runs to end with 4/81 in 13 overs.

South Africa were looking good on 70/1 at lunch, but three overs after the break, Elgar showed poor decision-making as he failed to review when Stuart Broad, bowling around the wicket and angling the ball into the left-hander, won an lbw decision against him. Replays showed the ball was clearly missing leg-stump and Elgar’s battling innings ended on 36.

Veteran quicks Broad (13-2-45-3) and Anderson (15.2-4-37-2) then turned the screw with some wonderful pressure bowling and the Proteas batsmen were simply unable to get out of their hole. They lost their last nine wickets for 86 runs, with Ben Stokes (13-2-39-3) once again taking key wickets and Ollie Robinson producing a telling double-strike against the middle-order as England got the ball swinging prodigiously.

Needing just 130, England were obviously overwhelming favourites and South Africa needed early wickets and quickly. Rabada found Lees’s outside edge with the first ball of the innings but Jansen, lunging to his left at fourth slip, dropped a two-handed chance.

The bowlers, having toted around such a heavy burden in this series due to the horribly misfiring batting, just could not lift themselves to perform any miracles after that.

The Sharks finally stopped giving Leinster get-out-of-jail-free cards as they scraped a 28-23 win in their United Rugby Championship match at Kings Park on Saturday.

Wasteful Sharks

The Sharks held the upper hand for most of the game but they were extremely wasteful. It started with flyhalf Curwin Bosch missing two penalties in the first 12 minutes. They also gave away several soft penalties when in possession deep inside the Leinster 22, for things as unnecessary as shoving their own player into contact or grabbing an opposition player around the neck when their maul was only a few feet from the line. Basic errors in handling and poor decision-making when players had made line-breaks also contributed to the Sharks being their own worst enemies.

The 31st man

One of legendary former Sharks and Springbok coach Ian McIntosh’s most famous quotations is that “the referee should be No.31 on the field and not No.1”. Unfortunately, the URC decided, in their wisdom, to appoint a 27-year-old referee with just one previous game under his belt in this competition, to officiate in a crunch fixture between two of the top sides in the tournament.

In the frantic closing stages, Georgian referee Nika Amashukeli was at the centre of several controversial decisions.

Leinster were given two yellow cards in seven minutes, and Sharks fans will believe they should have had three.

The Sharks were then penalised at the scrum when it seemed clear Leinster had collapsed, setting up a daunting last five minutes when the visitors camped on their line. There were more big decisions by Amashukeli, including his on-field call of held-up after the final hooter, which the TMO did not find evidence to overturn.

Bridging the gap

The positive side for the Sharks is that they showed they can compete with the defending champions and log-leaders, who were missing their major stars. But the Sharks held the upper hand for most of the match, their scrum and rolling maul being dominant, their territorial kicking was better and they also showed tremendous penetration in their counter-attack.

Given all of that, the Sharks should have won more comfortably, but, once again, their finishing and composure in the red zone left a lot to be desired.

On the other hand, their composure in defence on their own tryline at the death, was nothing short of heroic, especially with replacement hooker Kerron van Vuuren yellow-carded.

Fabulous Fassi

Sharks coach Sean Everitt had said in the build-up to the game that the return from injury of Aphelele Fassi would be important for their counter-attack, and the fullback was able to cash in when Leinster kicked too long.

The Sharks were 7-17 down with halftime rapidly approaching when Fassi fielded a kick eight metres inside his own half, ghosted past the first defender and then weaved away on a brilliant counter-attack, before a lovely underarm pass to Jaden Hendrikse saw the scrumhalf score.

It was a moment of magic that kept the Sharks in the game.

Bosch was also dangerous running back kicks.

Scorers

Sharks – Tries: Makazole Mapimpi, Jaden Hendrikse, Bongi Mbonambi, Phepsi Buthelezi. Conversions: Curwin Bosch (4).

Leinster – Tries: Scott Penny, Tommy O’Brien. Conversions: Ciaran Frawley (2). Penalties: Frawley (3).