ICC World Test Championship Final 2025, South Africa Vs Australia Highlights : South Africa Secured 1st ICC Title in 27 Years with Epic Victory Over Australia in WTC Final .

WTC FINAL 2025, SA Vs AUS ,Lord’s, London : South Africa Secured 1st ICC Title in 27 Years with Epic Victory Over Australia in WTC Final .

South Africa win first ICC title in 27 years as they overcome Australia to win World Test Championship (WTC) final 2025. Aiden Markram struck a memorable ton, and skipper Temba Bavuma played through injury to score his way to a gritty 102 runs across the match, as SA, set a target of 282 on Day 4, lived to fight another day. It is the Proteas’ maiden WTC title. Ball dominated The in-form Kagiso Rabada took nine wickets in the match. South Africa Secured 1st ICC Title in 27 Years with Epic Victory Over Australia in WTC Final .

TOSS-

South Africa won the Toss and  chose to bowl.

PLAYING XI-

South Africa Squad:

Aiden Markram, Ryan Rickelton, Tristan Stubbs, Temba Bavuma(c), David Bedingham, Kyle Verreynne(wk), Wiaan Mulder, Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj, Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi

Australia Squad:

Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Cameron Green, Steven Smith, Travis Head, Beau Webster, Alex Carey (wk), Pat Cummins (c), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood

DAY -1

Moments earlier, in the first session, Rabada and Jansen served a course in line and lengths after Bavuma had opted to bowl on a cloudy morning, bowling three maidens on the trot. Marnus Labuschagne got Australia moving with three couples off Jansen and though Rabada bowled a hat-trick of maidens to Khawaja, he finally got his reward when the left-hander edged to the cordon for a 20-ball duck. The Cameron Green No.3 experiment did not work as the batter departed to Rabada, brilliantly caught by Markram at second slip. Then Smith and Labuschagne found the fence a couple of times, negating a good spell of bowling from Rabada (6-4-9-2) and latterly they saw off the fearsome duo of Lungi Ngidi and Wiaan Mulder as the tourists reached the first drinks break without any further scares.

Smith hit a few boundarires early in the second hour of play and went about rebuilding with Labuschagne. But South Africa made sure the union was only brief. Jansen resumed the attack half an hour into the second hour, changing to round the wicket and found Labuschagne’s edge to the ‘keeper and ending a stubborn 30-run stand. Travis Head and Smith collected a boundary each off Jansen as they began the recovery job all over again. Smith was the beneficiary of the umpire’s call when he crossed too much to an incoming Jansen delivery and was struck on the pad. Jansen then made an important breakthrough just before Lunch as he saw off Head, caught down the legside on what turned out to be the final ball before the break.

The onus is on Smith to take the game forward for Australia when this second session gets underway and all eyes will be on how he handles the deliveries of South Africa’s leading bowler Rabada. He began by dancing down and cutting well towards the thirdman fence for a four, played one in the air to another four. Webster had two slices of luck – an umpire’s call, on the impact, reprieved him from being out leg-before when struck on the pad by Jansen and South Africa did not review for lbw off Rabada and replays showed him to have been out. Smith went to his half century with another slashing cut for four off Rabada and also counter-attacked Maharaj, pulling him for four as the fifth wicket pair raised their fifty partnership.

Doing well to pull things back after a hesitant start, Australia ran out of steam all over again as wickets came quickly in the third session. Carey and Webster shared a 46-run partnership before Carey was bowled by Keshav Maharaj trying to reverse sweep. Cummins was dismissed next over, bowled by Rabada as Australia collapsed to 199/7. Webster kept Australia ticking along, collecting two fours off Rabada when he pulled and glanced. But Rabada had the final say, picking up his fourth wicket when he had Webster caught at first slip. Then came the turn of Lyon, as he was bowled by Jansen and this was followed by Rabada cleaning up Starc, as Australia collapsed, losing five wickets for just 22 runs post Tea.

There were a little over 200 on the board by the time Australia called upon their much-vaunted pacemen to retrieve the situation. Starc wasted no time making an impression, accounting for a nervy Aiden Markram for a six-ball duck when the opener chopped a wide delivery onto his stumps. Ryan Rickelton and Wiaan Mulder began attempting to build a partnership but they faced some probing bowling from the threesome of Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins. Starc was himself unfortunate not to claim the wicket of Mulder as he was dropped by Carey, who missed a regulation edge. Rickelton at the opposite end had found the ropes a couple of times but when lured into a drive by Starc he nicked through to first slip.

Temba Bavuma was the victim of a not given leg-before in Starc’s over, but Mulder struggled against the the fast men who got the ball to move appreciably. He also had a thick outside edge off Cummins on and had the ball fallen short of Smith at second slip. Mulder’s tense stay, across which he faced 44 balls, came to an end when he drove at a delivery that nipped back in from Cummins to be bowled, while the same bowler had the outside edge of Bavuma’s bat two balls later, only for the ball to fall short of Usman Khawaja at first slip. The South African captain was beaten outside off several times, faced 30 balls to get off the mark and witnessed another wicket when Stubbs was bowled by Hazlewood late in the day.

DAY-2

Temba Bavuma in the morning looked a lot more assured than the evening before, playing in-between straightforward boundaries. He was trapped lbw to Josh Hazlewood but successfully challenged the onfield decision, with replays showing he had inside-edged it – much to the bemusement, and relief, of the batsman. Bavuma was so assured he even employed the aerial route a few times inside the first hour and did so emphatically when he pulled Cummins over midwicket for a six as South Africa made solid progress and did not lose a wicket before the first drinks break. Bedingham, slightly under the shadow of Bavuma’s aggressive batting, who too started playing a few shots, but the association worth 64 ended in the Cummins one as a fantastic left-catch by Labuschagne helped effect Bavuma’s dismissal 15 minutes before Lunch. Bedingham and Verreynne steadied South Africa, before they lost their way later on.

The session was interrupted by a brief rain break before the action-packed second session began. David Bedingham and Kyle Verreynne then renewed their stand, but it did not last long as Verreynne was trapped plumb in front by Cummins. Quick scratch of the head, followed by getting up, and asking for a review and deservedly so, the Australian captain, who was involved in a collision with the wicketkeeper-batter, got what he asked for. Cummins took another wicket in the same over, Marco Jansen flicking a catch back to the bowler from his first ball, and he became the first captain to take a five-wicket haul at Lord’s since Daniel Vettori in 2008 when he coaxed a telling edge from Bedingham in the 45th over for 45. Keshav Maharaj was then run out and Rabada fell to a short delivery from Cummins, who claimed his 300th Test wicket.

Labuschagne and Smith started the rebuilding work in the last session but it wasn’t that comfortable run-scoring and the South African pacers were operating with good lines even if Ngidi didn’t rediscover his rhythm. The third wicket duo were able to add 16 only before Labuschagne was lured into a drive outside off stump by Jansen and he edged it to the gloves. Ngidi then had Smith lbw, South Africa reviewing a not-out decision which was subsequently overturned. The pacer, energised by the wicket, struck again, bowling Beau Webster with Australia losing a review. It became 66/6 when Wiaan Mulder bowled Travis Head with one that jagged back in.

Fourteen wickets on the opening day were followed up with 14 more on the second day as Australia and South Africa continued to punch blows, largely through their pacemen, in the World Test Championship final at Lord’s. Pat Cummins’s incisive five-wicket haul (6-28) meant it took less than 10 overs for South Africa’s first innings to come crashing down as they were dismissed for 138 on resuming the second session at 121/5. Australia took a lead of 74 runs but South Africa fought back with gusto as Kagiso Rabada and Lungi Ngidi bowled them out for 73/7. But Alex Carey’s counter-attacking 43 saw Australia through that period, and Mitchell Starc hit a useful 61-run stand for the eighth wicket, to carry the team to 144/8 and a lead of 218 at stumps.

DAY-3

The Lord’s pitch finally looked like taking a little bit of batting for the first time in three days, and that was just what the Australian tail ordered to keep South Africa in the field for almost the whole of the morning’s play back on Day 3. Starc had lost Lyon cheaply to Kagiso Rabada earlier in the session but he found an able partner in Hazlewood and the pair added crucial 63 runs for the last-wicket partnership which helped Australia post 207 in their second innings.

Once there, Starc further ground down the South African attack with an innings-lengthening 132-ball half-century – his eighth as a Test batter at No.9 or lower, a record for all tailenders – and though it was fluked with an edge that looped over the slips, it still left South Africa’s bowlers closer to exhaustion than wickets. Hazlewood then proved a useful ally at the other end before becoming part-timer Markram’s third wicket on the stroke of Lunch, second time around, handing South Africa a chase of 282.

Under the hot sun in London, with the wicket flattening out, as Australia had found out in the morning session, runs came easily once the batsmen knuckled down. After Mitchell Starc picked off two key wickets at either end of the afternoon session, Markram first in the company of Wiaan Mulder, then with Bavuma anchored the chase.

Bavuma, clearly suffering from a hamstring niggle just before Tea, compiled a battling half-century in 83 balls — his 25th in Test cricket — shortly after the pair had brought up their partnership of 100. Markram, who appeared in excellent form through his innings, remained calm as the target was dragged into the double-digits at the other end. He, is, of course, no Hamid, and he made his own way at his own pace in the 90s before flicking at Hazlewood to be moving towards a hundred that stands, across all formats, as perhaps the best of his career, in the penultimate over prior to stumps. Now, 69 runs short with eight wickets in hand and a pair of settled batsmen in the middle, South Africa end Day 3 in total control.

An Aiden Markram special in the company of a hobbling Temba Bavuma’s unbeaten 65 at the other end left South Africa on the verge of glory as they went to stumps on 213/2, chasing 282, on Day 3 of the 2025 World Test Championship final against West Indies at Lord’s. Australia went wicketless in the final session as South Africa gave them a taste of their own medicine, scoring at a clip and taking the overall lead with the unbeaten 143-run association.

DAY-4

Set 148 to win at the beginning of the penultimate day of the Test, South Africa remained painstakingly slow in approaching the finish line. Markram resumed where he had left off on day one, circumspect and taking no undue risks even after losing two partners at the other end.

Markram took South Africa’s score past 250 the next over, before Bedingham reduced the equation to less than 20 with a sumptuous straight drive. As with any new ball Australia took the second new one as soon as they could, and opened with Josh Hazlewood, who Markram greeted immediately with a boundary. The South African opener did fall off the last ball of the over as he found Travis Head at midwicket perfectly. The Australians shook the head of Markram instead of a wicket to celebrate and Markram walked off to a standing ovation similar to the one he received in his match winning knock at Lord’s.

 

The final six scores did not come without burning through all of that extra time at T.D. and some late drama. Australia ran out of reviews with their caught-behind appeal against Kyle Verreynne turned down when the batter attempted a ramp for the winning run. But the batsman sensationally dragged his side over the line one ball later to end a 27-year jinx in ICC knockouts for South Africa.

Brief scores:

Australia 212 (Beau Webster 72, Steven Smith 66; Kagiso Rabada 5-51, Marco Jansen 3-49) and 206 (Mitchell Starc 58*, Alex Carey 43; Kagiso Rabada 4-59, Lungi Ngidi 3-38) lost to South Africa 138 (David Bedingham 45, Temba Bavuma 36; Pat Cummins 6-28, Mitchell Starc 2-41) and 282/5 (Aiden Markram 136, Temba Bavuma 66; Mitchell Starc 3-66)  by 5 wickets.