The Spin | South Africa in the Test Championship final should be celebrated not belittled
The Spin | South Africa in the Test Championship final should be celebrated not belittled
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Claim the Proteas got there ‘on the back of beating pretty much nobody’ shows lack of respect for their achievements. South Africans were still celebrating their side’s passage into the World Test Championship final, secured after the fast bowler Kagiso Rabada cosplayed as Brian Lara in a nerve-jangling two-wicket win against Pakistan, when Michael Vaughan sought to pour cold water over the parade.
![[Ben Stokes walks off after being dismissed during the thrd Test against New Zealand in Hamilton]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/66de3d71c506f4eceb3e4f6ac6eb06c73c799466/0_147_4826_2895/master/4826.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Speaking on Fox Cricket the former England captain, who left his post in 2008 after losing a home series against South Africa, declared that the Proteas got to the final “on the back of beating pretty much nobody”. He said Temba Bavuma’s team didn’t “warrant being in the World Test Championship final with whom they have played over the last two years”.
![[Colin Cowdrey gets in some batting practise on the deck of the SS Iberia en-route to Australia for the 1958-59 Ashes tour.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f25e9adad97a3e9cb7d183ebd01ab90a216f4702/0_383_3445_2116/master/3445.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
All triumphs have caveats. Would England have won the 2019 World Cup without a lucky bounce off Ben Stokes’s sliding bat in the final? Would Vaughan have received an OBE if Glenn McGrath hadn’t rolled his ankle in the warmup before the second Test of the 2005 Ashes? We’ll never know, but there is a difference between what-ifs and straight falsehoods, and Vaughan’s comments require closer scrutiny.
It’s true that South Africa’s road to Lord’s circumnavigated trials against England and Australia. But they thumped India by an innings in Centurion to make it impossible for them to lose that series and were unbeatable almost everywhere else. Their wins against the “nobodies”, as Vaughan would call them, include wins away against the West Indies, who beat Australia in Brisbane, and Bangladesh – their first series win in Asia in a decade. They also claimed clean sweeps at home against Sri Lanka, who beat England at the Oval, and Pakistan, recent winners against Baz’s Ballers. Had they not sent a weakened team to New Zealand to make sure their star players stayed at home for a lucrative T20 franchise competition, there is every chance they would have maintained their unbeaten record against the Black Caps.
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