Zimbabwe v South Africa in 2025: When Brian Lara’s world record wasn’t broken

Zimbabwe v South Africa in 2025

Test matches (2): Zimbabwe 0, South Africa 2

Virginia Woolf warned of “the damned egotistical self”, but modern elite sport is usually all about ego: get that win, chase those records, prove your superiority, gloat. With the exception of striving for victory, Wiaan Mulder did none of the above when, in the second Test at Bulawayo, he declared 34 runs shy of surpassing Brian Lara as the highest run-scorer in a Test innings. He was satisfied with claiming fifth place on the list with his undefeated 367, the best by a South African.

Mulder later spoke of “letting someone like Lara” keep his record, a perspective apparently shared by South Africa’s coach, Shukri Conrad. Mulder continued: “He’s one of the greatest to ever have played the game, so he deserves that.” Lara begged to differ, as Mulder subsequently told SuperSport: “He said I’m creating my own legacy, and I should have gone for it. He said records are there to be broken, and he wishes if I’m ever in that position again I actually go and score more.”

The massive innings led to a thumping victory, and a 2-0 series win after 153 on debut from 19-year-old Lhuan-dre Pretorius put South Africa in charge in the first Test. Keshav Maharaj captained in that one, but picked up an injury that kept him out of the second, and Mulder stepped up. He was South Africa’s third captain in three Tests, Temba Bavuma having missed the trip because of the hamstring injury he suffered during the World Test Championship final at Lord’s. Several of the successful team were rested for this trip, which did not form part of the next WTC cycle. After reducing the new world champions to 55-4 on the first morning, Zimbabwe might have been dreaming of an upset – but Pretorius and Corbin Bosch turned the match around, and Mulder dominated the next.

South Africa’s touring party to Zimbabwe, 2025

*KA Maharaj, DG Bedingham, C Bosch, MP Breetzke, DT Brevis, T de Zorzi, MZ Hamza, KT Maphaka, PWA Mulder, S Muthusamy, LG Pretorius, L Senokwane, P Subrayen, K Verreynne, CE Yusuf. Coach: S Conrad.

Maharaj strained a groin muscle during the First Test; Mulder captained in the Second, and Muthusamy was added to the team.

First Test at Bulawayo, June 28-July 1, 2025

South Africa won by 328 runs. Toss: South Africa. Debuts: DT Brevis, LG Pretorius, CE Yusuf.

Thanks to their exploits at the Under-19 World Cup and in T20 franchise cricket, Dewald Brevis and Lhuan-dre Pretorius were already familiar names before making their Test debut. Most of the hype had been about Brevis, but it was Pretorius who took his chance more solidly here, batting for almost three and a half hours for a punchy 153. A lusty left-hander, he is on the stout side of sturdy, if not quite in the Colin Milburn mould – though he attacks the bowling with similar gusto. He supplanted Graeme Pollock as South Africa’s youngest Test century-maker, was their seventh to make a hundred on debut, and became only the fourth man – after Gundappa Viswanath, Dirk Wellham and Prithvi Shaw – to score centuries on first-class and Test debut, having hit 120 for Titans against Warriors in December 2024.

Pretorius was able to bat freely for much of his innings because he didn’t have to worry about what was happening at the other end: Brevis took 51 off 41 balls, before Bosch – dropped on two and 97 – hit his maiden first-class century, as South Africa shot past 400. Maharaj declared before the start of the second day, and his team were batting again before the close. With seamer Codi Yusuf (South Africa’s other debutant), Mulder and Maharaj himself all bowling well, Zimbabwe were dismissed 167 behind. The craggy left-hander Williams’s 137, his sixth Test century, represented more than half their total; Ervine’s 36 was the next-best. Bennett, who had made an impressive century in Zimbabwe’s recent Test in England, was hit on the head by Maphaka, and retired shortly afterwards; Masvaure stepped in as a concussion substitute. South Africa built quickly on their lead, with Mulder making his second Test century. Runs down the order – including 51 from Maharaj, despite a groin strain that would keep him out of the second Test – stretched the advantage to 536.

If anyone had forgotten that bowling was Bosch’s stronger suit, he reminded them in Zimbabwe’s second innings with a dozen dazzling overs as penetrating as they were pacy. He nabbed Welch with the first ball of the fourth day, having dismissed Kaitano with what had proved the last of the third: he finished with a first-class-best 5-43, and the game was over about an hour after lunch. The match award went to Pretorius, but it might easily have gone to Bosch. “I still need to pinch myself,” he said, having taken a wicket with his first ball and hit an unbeaten 81 in his previous Test, against Pakistan at Centurion in December 2024. “I’ve had a magical period.”

Player of the Match: LG Pretorius.

Second Test at Bulawayo, July 6-8, 2025

South Africa won by an innings and 236 runs. Toss: Zimbabwe. Debuts: K Matigimu; L Senokwane, P Subrayen.

Overshadowing all else was a colossal innings from Wiaan Mulder, South Africa’s latest stand-in captain. He cruised to 367 not out by lunch on the second day and, against a hapless attack, seemed to have Brian Lara’s Test-record 400 not out at his mercy. But he declared, apparently after coach Shukri Conrad suggested: “Let the legends keep the really big scores.”

Captaining because Bavuma and Maharaj were injured, Mulder rewrote the South African record books during an innings that lasted nearly eight hours, and included 49 fours and four sixes from 334 balls. It was only their second Test triple-century, after Hashim Amla’s 311 not out against England at The Oval in 2012, and the fifth-highest in any Test, behind Lara, Matthew Hayden (380), Lara again (375) and Mahela Jayawardene (374). He reached 300 in just 297 balls, the second-quickest Test triple after Virender Sehwag got there in 278 for India against South Africa at Chennai in March 2008.

Mulder’s side had slipped to 24-2 after being put in, but he shared hundred partnerships with Bedingham, Pretorius and Verreynne, and called a halt at 626, which made the result a formality. Kundai Matigimu, the debutant Zimbabwe seamer, was fined 15 per cent of his match fee for “inappropriate and dangerous” conduct after picking up the ball in his follow-through and hurling it back towards Pretorius, who was hit on the wrist.

Zimbabwe’s bowlers did not stray too far in line or length but, on a pitch that refused to help seamers or spinners, they were as threatening as a toothless poodle. Mulder reached his century off 116 balls an hour after lunch, and raised his bat for 200 – the second hundred flowed off 98 deliveries – soon after the evening drinks interval. The declaration next day caught everyone by surprise, not least the Zimbabwean batsmen: Kaitano fell to the first ball of the innings, and Myers – who had come in for Brian Bennett – in the second over. They were 88-6 by tea, and following on about an hour later. Williams again supplied the lone resistance: no one else passed 25. Yusuf and Prenelan Subrayen, an off-spinner playing his first Test as Maharaj’s replacement, posed most problems.

Zimbabwe lost only one more wicket in the hour before stumps, but were still 405 away from making South Africa bat again. They reached lunch on the third day with seven wickets intact, but those disappeared for 67 after the interval. Welch laboured two and a half hours for 55, eventually edging slow left-armer Muthusamy to slip. Five then crashed for 18 to the guile of Yousuf and the pace of Bosch, before Muthusamy ended the match on the stroke of tea when Chivanga was caught at short leg by Mulder, the man of the moment.

Player of the Match: PWA Mulder. Player of the Series: PWA Mulder.

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