Cricket-South Africa strike confident note ahead of WTC final
Cricket - World Test Championship Final - South Africa Practice - Lord's Cricket Ground, London, Britain - June 9, 2025 South Africa's Marco Jansen during practice Action Images via Reuters/Andrew Boyers
LONDON (Reuters) - South Africa are quietly confident of an upset victory in the World Test Championship final with coach Shukri Conrad warning defending champions Australia not to underestimate his inexperienced batting line-up.
South Africa go into the five-day clash at Lord's, which starts on Wednesday, as underdogs but Conrad struck an optimistic tone at a press conference on Monday.
"The inexperience is very apparent in terms of the number of tests played and their place in the ICC rankings. So, I think it's pretty normal that the chat is all about the bowlers when you've got guys like Kagiso Rabada, ranked two in the world, and Marco (Jansen) and (spinner) Keshav (Maharaj)," he said.
"But I think there's a quiet confidence among the batting group. They got a lot of confidence, with hundreds for different players at different stages. So yeah, while there might not be superstar names among them, I think as a collective we're pretty confident."
South Africa's path to the WTC final has been questioned, given they played only 12 tests over the two-year 2023-25 cycle while Australia played seven more. South Africa also did not meet Australia or England and booked their place with series wins over Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and West Indies.
"Enough has been spoken about that to be honest," Conrad said. "We are here and that's all that matters and now we get a chance to walk away as the world test champions, playing Australia. It doesn't get any bigger than that."
"We are quietly confident going into this game that we can pull one over them. We're a confident bunch, we play well as a unit, and if there are any vulnerabilities among them (Australia), I'm sure we'd be able to exploit that," Conrad added.
(Reporting by Mark Gleeson, Editing by Ed Osmond)
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