Dale Steyn, the great South African bowler, had some words on Kagiso Rabada’s five-for. “He’s always ready to pounce on anything,” he said. “That was outstanding”. It was a low scoring first day of the ICC World Test Championship final at Lord’s. Rabada got to 332 Test wickets and moved past Allan Donald to fourth on the all-time list. He got Usman Khawaja and Mitchell Starc.
Steyn said Rabada swung the ball well. He pointed out a poor shot by Alex Carey as the turning point that opened up the game for Rabada to clean up the wickets. He also mentioned Marco Jansen, “he swings the ball and hits the stumps, just like Australia did with their bowling”.
Steyn praised Mitchell Starc for his 2 wickets for 10 runs which left South Africa in a spot at 43 for 4. “He puts batsmen on edge with his pace” he said. He pointed to Aiden Markram’s indecision and said Starc has a knack of adjusting his length just enough to catch batsmen off guard.
Steyn also mentioned Starc’s experience in big games, “he builds a reputation and confidence with every game” he said. “That helps him to bowl consistently”.
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As for the game, after Australia batted first they were struggling at 67 for 4 after the first session. A good partnership between Steve Smith and Beau Webster got them to 212 but Rabada and Jansen kept the pressure on. South Africa had a rough start losing 4 wickets for 43 by the end of the day, none of their batsmen scored more than 20. Mitchell Starc took 2, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood 1 each. South Africa are 169 behind going into day two.
