Tough And Nasty, Australia And South Africa Is Cricket’s Best Rivalry

There are more hyped series. Pick out any involving India, Australia and England for starters.

They might generate more attention, headlines and frequency but none are consistently as compelling and competitive as when Australia and South Africa clash.

Since South Africa’s readmission 30 years ago, perhaps only the 2001-02 series in Australia underwhelmed in an outlier. But that was perhaps Australia’s best team in their golden period – maybe the greatest ever Test team assembled – and even in that series South Africa had their moments even though they were ultimately over matched.

Apart from that, every series has been compulsory viewing with little separating two similarly matched teams from countries quite alike with one another. Perhaps because of the familiarity, they now how to get under each other’s skin like no other manifesting in often spiteful encounters.

None more so than when they last played each other in Test cricket during the infamous 2018 series, where Australia were caught tampering with the ball in a cheating scandal that upended Australian cricket with the bloodletting still ongoing almost five years later.

It led to the lengthy suspensions of then leaders Steve Smith and David Warner as well as Cameron Bancroft, who was embarrassingly caught on camera trying to hide sandpaper down his pants.

This series has revived those chilling images for Australia with the scandal providing fresh legs recently with Warner withdrawing his bid to challenge the leadership ban.

It’s a saga that continues to fester and haunt the Australian team, which probably won’t totally go away until Smith and Warner retire as many questions remain unanswered about the events before the scandal, the incident itself and the roundly criticized investigation by Cricket Australia.

All of that looms as ammunition for South Africa, who have been able to rile Australia to an unmatched degree. For a long time, their barbs were merely laughed off by Australia who not only were better at sledging but they backed it up on field to continually torment South Africa.

But the tables have turned somewhat with South Africa winning three straight series in Australia – something no touring team has done since the legendary West Indies team 30 years ago.

Their success in the tough terrain of Australia has been built on brilliant pace attacks and hardnosed batters, who have been able to thwart the home team’s bowlers and banter.

But this looms as a harder challenge with South Africa’s batting order looking brittle and they lack a great Test batter which they’ve had a slew over the years. A lot rests on skipper Dean Elgar who along with Temba Bavuma is the only batter with Test experience in Australia.

Elgar, an uncompromising batter in the mould of South Africa’s greats but perhaps without the polish, believed there would be fireworks between the teams in the middle.

“Hopefully (the series) is played in good spirit. I know there will be moments, no doubt where there’re going to be a few feisty encounters,” he said.

Whether Australia take the bait only time will tell as they’ve tried to clean up their act post Sandpaper scandal, particularly under mild-mannered skipper Pat Cummins who is a new age athlete very much the antithesis to the macho Australian cricketer stereotype from yesteryear.

South Africa have a pace attack that should rival Australia’s in what could become a bowl off although Australia have the edge in spin through Nathan Lyon, who claimed his 450th Test wicket last start against West Indies in what was essentially a glorified warm-up.

But Australia’s batting appears far more formidable led by Smith and Marnus Labuschagne, who are almost impossible to dislodge right now. Although Warner has been in a prolonged Test rut and South Africa’s high-voltage attack will fancy their chances against their arch-nemesis.

Forcing Warner to call time on his Test career would be at least a nice last laugh for South Africa, who start as underdogs but history says they can’t be discounted.

After all, South Africa and Australia is cricket’s best rivalry that rarely disappoints.