Un-freaking-believable: Jansen, Rabada sum up South Africa's historic WTC win

Marco Jansen and Kagiso Rabada were nearly lost for words as South Africa ended a 27-year wait for an ICC title, beating Australia by five wickets in the World Test Championship Final at Lord's on Saturday morning.Until now, the 1998 ICC KnockOut Trophy had remained South Africa's only major global success—often remembered with caveats and overshadowed by years of heartbreak. That long, frustrating wait is now over. After so many near misses, this was a defining moment—one that will resonate far beyond the boundary ropes. It is a result that will be widely celebrated, not only as a triumph for South Africa, but as a significant boost for Test cricket outside the traditional powerhouses of India, England, and Australia.advertisementAiden Markram and Kagiso Rabada starred with bat and ball respectively, while Temba Bavuma extended his unbeaten run as Test captain, as the Proteas emerged triumphant in the final of a global event - their first since readmission in 1991—after enduring decades of disappointment.
Jansen and Rabada, both part of the South African side that fell short in the 2023 ICC World Cup semi-final against Australia and again in the 2024 T20 World Cup final against India, admitted that nerves were running high in the dressing room before the long-awaited dream of winning the World Test Championship was finally realised.SA vs AUS, WTC Final: HighlightsJansen hailed Markram and Bavuma for their "un-freaking-believable" performances in the WTC Final."In the change room, there were a lot of nerves. A lot of guys quiet, myself included, but to have the fans here, to hear them cheer us on, every single ball, every single run, you can't ask for anything more. Families are here as well, we're just so happy we could do it. (Markram was) un-freaking-believable. What a player, what a guy to have on your team. He's a fighter. Temba, both of them, fighted tooth and nail. I think that's what dreams are made of. Dreams are meant to be achieved," Jansen said.advertisementIn the final itself, Rabada was the driving force, taking five wickets in the first innings and adding four more in the second. Rabada recognised the magnitude of the win for the South African team, while also taking aim at critics who had questioned South Africa's pedigree to defeat a side of Australia's calibre at Lord's."I can't describe into words how I feel at the moment, just extremely happy. Throughout that entire season, I think, we planned really well, we worked really hard, and I think we deserved to get into this position. There were people saying that we weren't good enough opposition, but I think that's rubbish. We came here, we played the best team and I think Australia have been magnificent all season and we had to be on our A-game to beat them. Thank you for your support these last four days felt like a home game, so thank you, guys, for turning out," Rabada said.

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Indian Express

3 hours ago

• Indian Express

Why Temba Bavuma was chosen as captain by Cricket South Africa all those seasons ago

When the World Test Championship came into the FTP in 2019, Enoch Nkwe was at the helm of South Africa team as its team director. He was then demoted as an assistant coach unceremoniously before he quit the post for good. In 2022, he returned as director of cricket overseeing a significant transition in white-ball and red-ball cricket with split coaches. The 42-year-old, gleeful after the Proteas won the WTC beating the mighty Australia, speaks to The Indian Express about the road that South Africa took to become new WTC champions and why Temba Bavuma was chosen as captain. 'It's not the colour, it's the character,' he explains. Excerpts Definitely this is very powerful. This is impactful. We have seen what CSA has done and the impact that he has had as a leader. In the cricketing space, he is now taking the belief to a new level among the kids in the township, who never believed that they can actually play cricket, become batsmen and also captain the country and lead them to becoming world champions. Now all the young kids and especially the ones in disadvantaged areas will get that belief. Even generally the young kids of today, they are going to start looking at this whole thing with a different lens because they can believe that it doesn't matter which background you come from, you have the opportunity and you can do it. It is what Temba has done. He has restored so much faith and belief in the individuals and it just goes to show it is not about colour. It is about the character. You put the right person with the right character in a position to lead the people and inspire the nation, and that is the result you get. He has been great at that. He's been fantastic at that. He did it and continues to do it for Proteas cricket. Q. What made you go with him as a captain? What pulled you towards him? The one thing about Temba is, he has always been a team man. He goes about his business very quietly and always puts the team first. And having worked with him before when I was a coach and also how he has blended well with Shukri I just knew it's gonna work. It's one of those you know… The strong chemistry and the dynamics were good between the two. Shukri has been very supportive of him as well. He has been fantastic through thick and thin. As a team we went through lot of challenges in 2020, 2021 and 2022. He was always the man who came forward and protected the team. He would rather take the punches for the team than letting the team take the punches. He got a lot of criticism and but for me, he stood firm and that's a sign of a great leader. It was just a matter of time he got rewarded in terms of the work that he's put behind all those years and show them the way through the struggles and all the challenges. Q: Winning the WTC has been your target since 2019. After different roles, you have achieved the target. How did you get here? We had a vision then and our thing was always looking at the WTC and the 2023 World Cup and how we need to put a strategy in place to try and win those two majors. Unfortunately, things obviously changed a little bit in between. My roles changed, but the blueprint remained the same. When I came back, it was all about how to take it forward by bringing in some new ideas. We had the WTC 2025 and the 2027 World Cup which we are hosting. When I took the role in 2022, we re-strategized by splitting the coaching role with an eye on 2023 World Cup and the 2025 WTC. We needed different strategy and the ones who we brought ended up producing the best performance by any South African team in the 2023 World Cup and the WTC. In successive white-ball World Cups we saw the team heading in the right direction and in red ball cricket, we had quite a nice generation of players coming through and Shukri Conrad (head coach) did great work. Obviously after the New Zealand tour there was a lot of criticism because we sent a C team for the tour. After that tour, Shukri and myself did re-strategize to find a way to reach the final. And here we are winning 8 of the remaining Tests. From my conversation with Shukri, I felt quite confident we could go all the way, because he had the plans in place. Q: It was also the time you were playing mostly two-match Test series and were losing some of the talents. How concerning was that? Test cricket has remained our one priority and we wanted to make sure that the best players were available for selection for each of those matches. Playing two-match series was a concern, but we knew it the moment the FTP came out. We wanted to maximise it and at the same time the SA20 was also important for us and outside of Test cricket, we played India A and West Indies A which helped us bridge the gap and make sure it keeps going forward. Shukri also ensured that he kept driving the belief in the Test team and within the individuals. I believe that was extraordinary because we had batsmen making huge scores in the journey. The character of the team was the biggest thing for me. It was powerful… even with the ball, we had a complete team performance where everyone bought into the plan and found ways to win games. It was evident right through. By the time we played Sri Lanka and Pakistan at home, the confidence was high. Q: Also does playing just two-match series in the new cycle help you retain the best talents? You don't have much Test cricket, so they can play the T20 leagues around as well? We signed off the FTP in 2022 so we knew the next four years this is what it looks like. For us, it was like how do we make this work. We know that from one cycle of the WTC to the next cycle there's an amount of games we are having and we're going to make do with it and see how we best manage our players. In this situation I guess it might help, we don't know. It might help because there's so much cricket being played, but we want to try and obviously better the Test cricket content in the next cycle after 2027 so that we play more Tests. Hence we're negotiating to improve the tally in the next cycle. But we have got 14 Tests and we are going to do our best to try and win as many as possible and be in the finals again and retain the championship. Q: Will the planned Test match fund help Cricket South Africa? From our point of view, there are always talks of how do we improve our Test cricket and bring in more three or four-match Test series. That should be great for global cricket as well because more the Test cricket, the better the sport is. It is a spin off because the best T20 cricketers in the last 15 years have all been great at Test cricket as well. If it is stronger, cricket is stronger across formats. We saw it at Lord's, how much people love it. It was exciting and that's what we want. Yes, the WTC format can be improved, and I don't know what structure it can be, but there are definite encouraging signs to build on. I'm hoping that you know there will be even a much more improved structure, come the next cycle and we can even play more Test cricket. Q: Making Temba Bavuma the captain wasn't a popular choice when CSA made the appointment. With the WTC win, he has left an undeniable footprint in South Africa's history. How much does it mean to the Black community? Definitely this is very powerful. This is impactful. We have seen what CSA has done and the impact that he has had as a leader. In the cricketing space, he is now taking the belief to a new level among the kids in the township, who never believed that they can actually play cricket, become batsmen and also captain the country and lead them to becoming world champions. Now all the young kids and especially the ones in disadvantaged areas will get that belief. Even generally the young kids of today, they are going to start looking at this whole thing with a different lens because they can believe that it doesn't matter which background you come from, you have the opportunity and you can do it. It is what Temba has done. He has restored so much faith and belief in the individuals and it just goes to show it is not about colour. It is about the character. You put the right person with the right character in a position to lead the people and inspire the nation, and that is the result you get. He has been great at that. He's been fantastic at that. He did it and continues to do it for Proteas cricket. Q What made you go with him as a captain? What pulled you towards him? The one thing about Temba is, he has always been a team man. He goes about his business very quietly and always puts the team first. And having worked with him before when I was a coach and also how he has blended well with Shukri I just knew it's gonna work. It's one of those you know… The strong chemistry and the dynamics were good between the two. Shukri has been very supportive of him as well. He has been fantastic through thick and thin. As a team we went through lot of challenges in 2020, 2021 and 2022. He was always the man who came forward and protected the team. He would rather take the punches for the team than letting the team take the punches. He got a lot of criticism and but for me, he stood firm and that's a sign of a great leader. It was just a matter of time he got rewarded in terms of the work that he's put behind all those years and show them the way through the struggles and all the challenges. Q: We saw Heinrich Klaasen announce his retirement recently with a home World Cup just two years away. At their high point, we see good talents suddenly exiting the scene by ignoring central contracts. How concerning is this? It's always going to be disappointing when players of such caliber leave the national team or not sign the national contract. We are always open to try and accommodate. Some of them are happy to just be freelancers but be available for the national team. Some of them retire completely from the game. But one thing we're doing now is the next best talent that we keep finding from our school system and inter-provincial system — which we are quite blessed with — we need to prepare them to transition up. So we are building a stronger feeder system, where even if an international player moves on, there is another player who is ready to step up. That's been our focus in the last three years because we did expect certain players at certain times to be leaving the national team or becoming freelancers. That's the reality of the new world. Since we are blessed with good talents which are coming through, we need to nurture them and empower them to make sure they are ready for Proteas.

Time of India

5 hours ago

• Time of India

Historic India versus England Mixed Disability T20 Cricket Series starts in England on June 21

Jaipur: History will be made when the first-ever mixed disability T20 series between India and England starts in England on Saturday (June 21) at Taunton, the home of Somerset County Cricket Club. During the landmark seven-match T20Is tour, the teams will also play a match at the iconic Lord's Cricket Ground on June 25. Led by Mumbai's Ravindra Gopinath Sante, India's mixed disability team arrived in London for the tour on June 15. The 16-member team, picked by the Differently abled Cricket Council of India (DCCI), has prepared for the series by playing three practice matches against the England Lions Mixed Disability team at the Budleigh Salterton Cricket Club in Exeter. Virendra Singh is the vice-captain of the team, while the team's head coach is former Rajasthan captain Rohit Jhalani. Before travelling to England, the Indian team had a week-long preperatory camp at the Jaipuria Cricket Academy ground in Jaipur. The team comprises six deaf, six physical disability and four intellectual disability players. This format has been approved by the International Cricket Council (ICC). by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 2025 Top Trending local enterprise accounting software [Click Here] Esseps Learn More Undo "We thank the English Cricket Board and the BCCI for providing us with all the facilities which are given to the international players for this tour. We are playing all our matches on this tour on the first-class ground of England," said Ravi Chauhan, general secretary of the DCCI. "Our preparations have been good. We are looking forward to an exciting series, which will raise the profile of mixed disability cricket," said Abhay Pratap Singh, Jt. Secretary, DCCI. In a first incident, all the seven matches of the series will be streamed live on Sony Liv. "As the BCCI secretary, Jay Shah provided us with complete support from the BCCI. We wish that as the ICC Chair, he would support this format too," Ravi Chauhan said. Before the first match at Taunton, both the teams will hold a two-minute silence and wear black armbands to pay their respects to the victims of the Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad on June 12. The highlight of the tour will, of course, be the third T20I at Lord's on June 25, giving India's mixed disability team the rare honour of competing at the iconic 'Home of Cricket.' The date and the venue both make for a tremendous coincidence- 42 years back, India, led by the legendary Kapil Dev, had clinched the 1983 World Cup on June 25 at Lord's in 1983. June 25 is incidentally celebrated as the 'World Mixed Disability Day.' The other standout fixture of the tour is scheduled for July 1 in Bristol, where the Indian mixed disability team will play their English counterparts, followed by a T201 between the women's teams of India and England in a double-header. The Bristol match will be shown live on Sky Sports, stated Ravikant Chauhan, general secretary, Differently Abled Cricket Council Of India (DCCI) BCCI Member, Differently Abled Cricket Committee.

Hindustan Times

7 hours ago

• Hindustan Times

Teams from 'south' have Club World Cup heat advantage: Dortmund's Kovac

Borussia Dortmund coach Niko Kovac said Friday teams from the "south" have an advantage on European teams at the Club World Cup because of the current high temperatures in the United States. HT Image South American teams have impressed at the tournament and are unbeaten to this point, while Dortmund's South African opponents on Saturday, Mamelodi Sundowns, beat Ulsan HD in their first Group F match. Temperatures are expected to rise up to 32 degrees Celsius during the game at TQL Stadium in Cincinnati, kicking off at 12:00 pm local time. Kovac's uninspired Dortmund were held to a 0-0 draw by Brazilian side Fluminense in their opening match on Tuesday. "At the moment in this tournament you see that the clubs from the south, I think they have a big advantage because of the conditions, of the heat," Croatian coach Kovac told reporters. "We're respecting every team and we know this is a very good team, from Africa, from South Africa." Brazilian side Botafogo stunned Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain on Thursday, while Chelsea lost against another Brazilian team in Flamengo. Some players and coaches have complained about the heat and humidity they have been forced to play in at FIFA's expanded competition, as well as fans who have also suffered. "For the spectators in the stadium it is incredibly hot, now you can imagine how difficult it is for the players," continued Kovac. " 32 degrees when you're in the shade, and you're not even in the sun. So when you play inside the stadium you can assume it is 3, 4 or 5 degrees even hotter. "These are not excuses, it's just an explanation... this is very difficult, especially for the Europeans. The players from the south, for them it's easier because they are used to these temperatures." Kovac said his team would try to keep the ball away from Mamelodi because of the sweltering conditions in Ohio. "We need to prevent them from possessing the ball, we all know that it is going to be very warm, extremely hot tomorrow," said the coach. "We will play at noon tomorrow and we will play under the sunlight, we need to make sure we have the ball at all times. "If you have to run after the ball, it will mean a lot of effort." Kovac would not reveal if Jobe Bellingham, brother of Real Madrid star Jude, would be handed his first start, but said it was an option. "Don't forget to bring sunscreen, hat, and enough water to drink," Kovac warned reporters before departing. "Everyone on the bench will be under the sun for the entire time." Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso was hopeful of springing a surprise against Dortmund. "Upsets can happen when the mental conviction of the team is strong and their emotional connection is so strong that magic can happen," he told reporters. rbs/ea BORUSSIA DORTMUND This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.