Australia captain Pat Cummins won the toss and chose to field against South Africa on Sunday at St George's Park. Rain soon started, delaying the second Test match. Many locals stayed away, while the few spectators who arrived mostly wore yellow. Keshav Maharaj was dropped for the first time ever.
Australia tour of South Africa, 2026
by Telford Vice •
Moments after Pat Cummins won the toss — like he did at Kingsmead — and chose to field — like he didn’t do at Kingsmead — the grim grey sky started sniffling © Getty
Moments after Pat Cummins won the toss — like he did at Kingsmead — and chose to field — like he didn’t do at Kingsmead — the grim grey sky started sniffling © Getty
“Oh!” The cab driver seemed shocked as St George’s Park hove into view. “There’s a game on?!” Indeed. There was. South Africa versus Australia. Sunday was the first day of the second Test, don’tcha know.
Clearly the driver didn’t know. Neither, it seemed, did many residents of Gqeberha — the spectators trickling towards the gates were, uniformly, dressed in yellow. Except for one small gaggle of locals who wore T-shirts with a picture of a tearful Steven Smith on the back that was captioned: “We saw you crying on the telly.” But maybe most of the good people of GQ know better than to get out of bed too early on a day like this.
Moments after Pat Cummins won the toss — like he did at Kingsmead — and chose to field — like he didn’t do at Kingsmead — the grim grey sky started sniffling. The dreariest drizzle strengthened into proper rain, and with no wind to speak of it looked like it would hang around as long as the almost six hours Aiden Markram batted for in Durban. In vain of course; Australia won by 214 runs.
By the time the start was halted in its tracks we knew a few things. The most interesting of them was that Pat Cummins borrowed a tape measure and a lick of paint from South Africa’s bowlers to mark out his run-up. Imagine Dennis Lillee and Ian Botham fraternising so flagrantly? And on the morning of a match no less. How the game has changed! For the better …
Another interesting thing: Keshav Maharaj was dropped for the first time in his Test career. From his debut in the decidedly spin unfriendly confines of the WACA in November 2016, Maharaj has played in 63 of a possible 78 Tests. In that time he has become, unquestionably, South Africa’s first-choice slow bowler; a genuine operator in a cricket culture that, before he arrived, looked on spin as something sinister and suspicious.
Yet his name was not in the XI Temba Bavuma handed over to Cummins. Maharaj was also left out for a Test against Pakistan in Centurion in December 2024. Thing is, that doesn’t count as dropped because South Africa decided to go all-seam and Maharaj was the only specialist spinner in the squad.
This time the home side had a choice. And they made it: Simon Harmer was picked ahead of Maharaj. That’s a seismic change in the way South Africa have gone about their business in recent years. Quite why is difficult to fathom. Both Maharaj and Harmer were ineffectual in the same attack at Kingsmead.
Harmer has the better Test average at St George’s Park: 12.16 versus 23.87. But prior to this game, he has played only one Test here compared to Maharaj’s seven. In first-class terms Maharaj has taken 55 wickets at 20.25 at St George’s Park compared to Harmer’s 106 at 24.65. But Harmer has bowled almost two-and-a-half times as many deliveries here. It was his home ground for the first 11 seasons of his career, after all.
The famous St George’s Park brass band, which seems to be beloved and detested in roughly equal parts, sent their first efforts into the soggy air 20 minutes after what should have been the start of the match. Miraculously, it seemed, the scene brightened considerably as those notes hit the clouds.
Then Adrian Carter, who has tended this ground’s pitch and outfield for almost 30 years, appeared. In shorts and floppy hat. As always. Whatever the weather. He was followed by his groundstaff, who were cheered onto the field. Gradually, carefully, possibly too slowly, the covers were swept, peeled away and removed.
While all that was going on a set of highlights were played on the big screen. Not of the Kingsmead Test, of course. But of last year’s WTC final at Lord’s, which South Africa won by five wickets. History, they tell us, is written by the victors.
The sun broke through the gloom like the yolk of a perfectly poached egg, and we heard the happy news that play would start at noon. Happy for those who play and follow cricket, that is: the Eastern Cape is in the grip of a potentially catastrophic drought. People are discouraged from using more than 40 litres of water a day, and the city is strewn with posters enforcing the message.
So not everyone would have been disappointed that, as the players warmed up again — couldn’t they pop themselves into a microwave for a few seconds? — the grim greyness gathered again. There’s a game on? Maybe.