Kagiso Rabada has been officially ruled out of contention to play South Africa’s first Test against Australia, which starts in Durban on Friday. Rabada sustained a hamstring injury during winter training, and he has not played a match since the IPL at the end of May. He has also not appeared in a Test since South Africa’s tour to Pakistan last October.
Rabada did return to bowling ahead of the Test series, playing in South Africa’s intra-squad training match at the weekend. He also had a second training session at Kingsmead on Thursday. However, South Africa have opted to give him extra time to reach full match readiness ahead of an eight-Test home summer.
“We did go the conservative route and give him a couple of extra days to get as close as he can be to 100% fitness,” Temba Bavuma, South Africa’s captain said. However, he would not commit to whether Rabada is a certain starter for the second Test, which starts on October 18.
“We’re confident in our medical team to get him to the place where we need him to be but they haven’t officially handed over Kagiso, if I could put it that way,” Bavuma said. “He’s under their control. Obviously for us, as soon as he gets the green light, we expect him to be within that starting line-up.”
In Rabada’s absence, South Africa have named an XI which included Anrich Nortje, who will play his first Test since March 2023. Nortje, who is no longer centrally contracted to CSA, has not bowled more than eight overs in a match since April 2023. However, he has been impressive at the Durban nets and put in a particularly speedy display on Wednesday, which secured his spot in the team. At the optional session on Thursday, most South Africa players turned up to train. Only Bavuma, Maharaj, Bosch and Ryan Rickelton were absent.
“A guy like Anrich is hard to ignore. He’s X-Factor,” Bavuma said. “There’s not many guys around who are bowling 150-plus and as a batter, that’s not something I would look forward to. He fits in very well into our approach from a bowling point of view with regards to the fast bowlers.
“He doesn’t have the weight of overs under his belt of bowling with red-ball cricket but he has been doing work with the bowling coaches. The time that we’ve had here [in pre-series training] as well, he’s been very impressive in the nets so I think it was a calculated call to give Anrich Nortje a go.”
With Nortje’s history of injuries, especially back stress fractures, his workload management will also be under the supervision of the South Africa medical staff. “Like all the [South Africa] bowlers across this jam-packed season, the guys will be managed as well as they can. For me, to be honest with you, [my focus is on] what’s happening tomorrow.”
Nortje will lead an attack that includes two other quicks: Marco Jansen and Wiaan Mulder. The latter was preferred over Corbin Bosch as the second allrounder. “Wiaan gives you a little bit more with the bat,” Bavuma said. “In that position, No. 6 or 7, you need someone that can score big runs. Wiaan has shown he can do that. With the new ball as well, in terms of the role that we see him playing, we believe that he can be effective. He’s a good slip catcher as well, so I think that also counts in his favour but the overriding factor was his ability with the bat.”
The team management’s expectation is that the slower coastal wickets will suit the duo. “Those two spin twins have added another dimension to our bowling attack. As much as we’ve always been about fast bowling, but when conditions have allowed for spinners to come into the game, they’ve been able to play an effective role,” Bavuma said “There’s a healthy competition between them, so that always helps.”
South Africa’s top seven will see Aiden Markram open the batting with Ryan Rickelton. David Bedingham, who scored two hundreds for Western Province against the Dolphins in the second round of first-class fixtures this season, will bat at No. 4, followed by Bavuma, Tristan Stubbs and Kyle Verreynne. Uncapped batter Marques Ackermann will have to wait for his debut, along with Gerald Coetzee, Dane Paterson, Senuran Muthumsamy, Bosch and Rabada on the bench.
South Africa’s XI for the first Test against Australia
1 Aiden Markram, 2 Ryan Rickelton, 3 David Bedingham, 4 Temba Bavuma (c), 5 Tristan Stubbs, 6 Wiaan Mulder, 7 Kyle Verreynne (wk), 8 Marco Jansen, 9 Keshav Maharaj, 10 Simon Harmer, 11 Anrich Nortje
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