Opinion

Journalist, author and columnist October 30, 2026 — 6:00pm

October 30, 2026 — 6:00pm

The South Africa-Australia series has been, by any reckoning, a classic of the reduced three-Test genre.

It has offered everything Test cricket lovers cherish: savage momentum switches, memorable individual feats, and the sense, every session, of unpredictable possibilities branching out.

Each side has been down, up, down, up again . It has taken place in a mostly agreeable time slot for Australian viewers, and sleep is followed by eagerness to hear about the overnight surprises.

Although the teams may not have the class of their forebears – only Kagiso Rabada of these Proteas would have made the teams of 2008-2013, and Australia’s batting is literally hit-and-miss.…