Category: Cricket

Australia and South Africa had plenty of reasons to be grateful to their respective spearheads as the WTC final progressed at a rapid pace

You would have to call the combination incongruous. In one of the clips doing the digital rounds before the World Test Championship, there was Pat Cummins on Jeremy Clarkson’s farm programme, having apparently just raided the activewear section, the men around him wearing those vests that help rich people believe themselves to be rugged outdoor types. It’s hard to imagine much affinity between the two, sitting presumably at a wooden farmhouse table over Clarkson’s rustic bean soup and a heel of crusty bread, talking their way to a cordial entente about carbon emissions. But there was the Australian captain nonetheless, affably rolling an arm over while a farm type plonked a rubber ball on to a nearby shed, the bowler smiling in that way that suggests a shrug as Clarkson sledged him in a most British fashion.

By the second day of the World Test Championship final, affable Cummins was not in attendance. We’re used to that half smile, half shrug: even after some galling Test losses, Cummins has offered the perspective that the game is a game, that the players tried their best, and that losing is often the price of trying to win. He declines to be drawn into the hype that frames sport as everything. But this time was different, if only by a few degrees. It’s not that there was anger in the performance, but there was something uncharacteristically flinty.

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Pat Cummins squared his shoulders, stared his inquisitor in the eye and broke into a smile.

Australian wicketkeeper Alex Carey has avoided another Lord’s controversy after South African batter David Bedingham evaded what would have been a bizarre dismissal on day two of the World Test Championship final.

All eyes are on the World Test Championship (WTC) Final right now but Australia’s Test team could look quite different when the squad heads to the West Indies later this month.

The World Test Championship final is poised for an epic conclusion after South Africa’s fast bowlers flipped the contest on its head on a rollercoaster second day at Lord’s, with the Australians crumbling in a dreadful collapse.

When Oscar Piastri invited a handful of Australian cricketers to tour the McLaren factory outside London last week, insiders at the leading F1 team were in a spot of bother.

Australian wicketkeeper Alex Carey has added another chapter to his fabled history at the home of cricket, producing regrettable moments with the bat and in the field on day one of the World Test Championship final against South Africa at Lord’s.

Amid the crisis that befell Australia on the opening morning of the World Test Championship Final at Lord’s, Steve Smith stood out as a beacon of surety set to sail to the rescue again.

South African superstar Kagiso Rabada’s heart sunk when he first learned of the blunder that could cost South Africa the World Test Championship.

The World Test Championship decider between Australia and South Africa is shaping as a compelling affair after a bowler-dominated opening day at Lord’s, with the final in the balance after the Aussies launched a final session counter-attack.

Kagiso Rabada added his name to the Lord’s Honours Board for a second time before Australia’s world-class pace attack dismantled the South African top order as Pat Cummins’ men seized control of the World Test Championship final.

On the eve of the World Test Championship final between Australia and South Africa, both teams trained under overcast skies at Lord’s on Tuesday before the weather started to clear.

Australia has retained the Urn, triumphed over India on home shores and beaten almost everyone else to qualify for the World Test Championship Final beginning at Lord’s on Wednesday night, AEST.

Australian white-ball veteran Moises Henriques sees Pat Cummins’ side as “hot favourites” to retain the 2025 World Test Championship (WTC) Final against South Africa, starting Wednesday at Lord’s.

It may be a strange time of year for an Australian, and a strange tournament structure, but the decider is vindicated further each time it is played

In Australia it is winter, and it is footy season. AFL, NRL, the works. The autumn was passing strange, with unnervingly high temperatures and the Gold Coast Suns in the top four. But now it is June, and feeling more as it should, with nights in the southern half of the continent dipping deep into single degrees. The Raiders must be breathing out steam on Canberra mornings, half remembering dreams of ending a premiership wait. And strangely positioned among all this, the Australia Test team is getting ready to play cricket.

Australian winter tours happen, but outside the occasional Asian or Caribbean jaunt this century, they’re confined to quadrennial visits to England. Two years ago, the first time Australia qualified for a World Test Championship final, that match came directly before an Ashes series. As well as turning the supposed culmination into an incongruous appetizer, it also made the WTC final melt into the Ashes summer.

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