‘Rubbish’: Kagiso Rabada Slams Talk That South Africa Had No Strong Opposition After WTC Final Win

South Africa has a rich history of fast bowling, with a lineage extending back generations through the likes of Allan Donald, Makhaya Ntini, Dale Steyn - and lately, Kagiso Rabada. Rabada went somewhere that none of those before him had, winning a premier ICC trophy, leading South Africa against the odds to beat Australia against the odds at Lord's, winning the World Test Championship in June 2023.

In the final itself, Rabada was the main man, taking 5 wickets in the first innings, and contributing with 4 more in the second. Following a controversial month for the lead man, this performance was nothing short of a statement performance, creating history for his team.

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After the result, Rabada did appreciate the significance of the win for the team - but also did not hold back from taking shots at their critics, pointing out that South Africa reached the pinnacle of Test cricket despite the ever present doubters and those belittling their achievement.

“I can’t describe in words how it feels at the moment. Obviously extremely happy, throughout this entire season we’ve played really well, we’ve worked really hard. I think we deserve to get into this position,” said Rabada on his on-field interview.

“People were saying we weren’t playing good enough opposition, but I think that’s rubbish. We came here and we played the best team. Australia have been magnificent all season, and we had to be on our A-game to beat them,” said the 30 year old, who was their leader with the ball as the figurehead by ending with 9-110, our bowling eyes out over all 5 days and employed every trick in the book our of sheer guts.

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Rabada the hero in WTC final with ball

South Africa were viewed as the underdogs in this match, given their fairly straight forward run to the WTC Final. Nonetheless, lifting the trophy required them to perform at their best on the biggest occasion, which had not happened for 27 years.

This victory at Lord’s, which maintained South Africa's winning streak of four consecutive series and eight Tests matches unbeaten, was probably something that the South African cricket administration would have preferred to take little or no note of, as they had already made strong points about how they were not offered enough marquee series against the big three cricketing nations from one end, but at the same time were criticized for not having played any strong opposition leading into the finals.

When South Africa reached the finals, the criticism was irrelevant for Temba Bavuma and his men, who put in a terrific performance fighting and surviving against opposition to take the bull by the horns and complete a famous historic Test victory.

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