Kagiso Rabada is an all-time Test great, and at Lord's on the World Test Championship final he showed why, writes Ben Gardner.
In the build up to the World Test Championship final, one question the Australian press felt it necessary to ask was whether Pat Cummins and co. should sledge Kagiso Rabada over his recent ban for testing positive for cocaine. Let’s set aside the moral question and ask the practical one: why on earth would you want to fire this guy up?
At Lord’s, a zen Rabada proved just as devastating as the irate iteration. The Rabada roar is fierce enough to have almost earned him a ban in 2020. This time, wickets were greeted with arms outstretched, eyes closed or looking skyward. They were bathed in, relief the overwhelming emotion, at taking a chance he feared he might have spurned with his indiscretion. “I think the biggest thing I took away from it is having gratitude for playing the game that we love,” Rabada said last week. “I'm just glad to be playing again…”
This was the performance of an all-timer determined not to let the grandest day of his career go by ungrasped. Forget the events of the past few months for a moment. For years Rabada, now past his 30th birthday, would have wondered if an occasion like this would ever come. South Africa flunked out of the 2019 World Cup, and the 2023 World Cup semi-final was simply another verse in their litany of heartbreak. Last year contained a T20 World Cup final that hurt even more. But white-ball tournaments come and go, and Test cricket has always been the format in which Rabada’s ultra-attacking instincts have been on brightest display. It’s where he deserved a showpiece occasion, a chance to claim an era-defining prize.
In the oldest format’s modern narrative, Rabada’s chief role has been as the beast-slayer, puncturing the Big Three just as they’re dreaming of something dynastic. He claimed seven at Lord’s in 2022 as the first man to best Bazball. There were twenty in three matches against India in 2021/22, when Virat Kohli arrived on the cusp of world domination, seemingly on the path to complete a clean-sweep of Australia, England and South Africa and instead saw his captaincy curtailed, yelling his frustration into the stump mic. Rabada took 11 in the match at St. George’s Park against Australia in 2018, the defeat that pushed Steve Smith’s men over the sandpaper cliff. But, arriving as he did after the end of the Graeme Smith era, Rabada has never been in a side that threatened to be the world’s best themselves. At Lord’s, he had a shot at a crown befitting his brilliance, and seized it.
And he seized it in a fashion fully his own. As he walked from the field, ball held aloft, there was some discussion over what made Rabada so good. He’s sharp but has never been the very quickest. Others have greater mastery of the finer arts of seam and swing. Control has never been his forte. So what is it?
He has a combination of pace and movement few can match, but it’s how he channels his gifts that makes the difference. Rabada’s great strength, simply put, is wicket-taking, an indefinable quality but one that can’t be dismissed. He’s always on the hunt, never not asking the question.
It’s an attitude that has made him, statistically, the most threatening bowler in Test history, bar none. Eighty-six bowlers in the game’s history have taken 200 or more Test wickets. Rabada is the only one to do so at a rate more frequently than once every seven overs, and he’s a full half an over better than that mark.
This was the version of Rabada that took centre stage at the Home of Cricket. His first spell was six overs, 2-9. His second, six overs, 0-26, and his last ended four balls into his fourth over, three wickets snared for 16. Differing results, but each containing a snapshot of his brilliance.
The first was defined by a battle with Usman Khawaja, determined to fight fire with ice and melted by the heat. He faced the entirety of Rabada’s first three overs, was beaten twice, including by the first ball of the game, and failed to score once. Marnus Labuschagne took strike for Rabada’s fourth over, and took a single off its second ball. Rabada had Khawaja in his sights again, and this time wouldn’t let him go, squaring him up with wobble seam, and finding the edge to first slip. Khawaja had faced 20 balls, 19 from Rabada, and fallen without scoring. Three balls later, Cameron Green succumbed in similar fashion, except second slip completed the dismissal.
The second saw Australia attack, and yet, on another occasion, would have broken the game open for South Africa. Undeterred by Steve Smith’s seizing on some chances to score, he kept going for the throat, and would have had Beau Webster lbw had Temba Bavuma chosen to review.
The third arrived with the door ajar thanks to an ill-advised reverse-sweep from Alex Carey, and Rabada duly crashed through. Webster might rue his choice of shot, edging a wider ball behind, but even Rabada’s ‘worse’ balls, at his pace and with his constant movement, come with threat. Having nicked off three of the top six, Rabada then changed his line to snap off the tail. Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc had no answer, their stumps smashed. It was in this spell that Rabada overtook Allan Donald on South Africa’s Test wickets chart. Dale Steyn remains top, 106 away, but within reach.
Unfortunately for South Africa, where they have one undisputed great in their arsenal, Australia have three, and by stumps they had accounted for the top four between them in 22 unremitting overs. This may yet be a game that ends up as another Protean what-if. But Rabada, at least, has proven himself a champion.
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