{"id":931629,"date":"2026-10-17T16:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-17T16:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/931629\/"},"modified":"2026-10-17T16:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T16:22:09","slug":"rabada-returns-as-s-africa-seek-to-bounce-back-against-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/931629\/","title":{"rendered":"Rabada returns as S.Africa seek to bounce back against Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.afp.com\/en\/urn:newsml:afp.com:20261017:6dc6449f-c5ef-4208-9acf-e746ce3d2221\" rel=\"http:\/\/cv.iptc.org\/newscodes\/ninature\/picture nofollow noopener\" shape=\"rect\" target=\"_blank\"> <\/p>\n<p>                  <\/a><br \/>\n                 Fast bowler Kagiso Rabada will return to the South African team for the second Test against Australia starting at St George&#8217;s Park on Sunday, captain Temba Bavuma said.<\/p>\n<p>Rabada did not play in the first Test in Durban, where South Africa were beaten by 214 runs, but trained with the team as he completed his rehabilitation from a hamstring injury.<\/p>\n<p>With the possibility of rain on the first two days of the match, both Bavuma and Australian captain Pat Cummins said they would delay finalising their teams until Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>But Bavuma said Rabada was &#8220;raring to go&#8221; and pointed to the fast bowler&#8217;s outstanding record against Australia.<\/p>\n<p>Rabada has taken 58 wickets at an average of 21.39 in 11 Tests against Australia, including nine wickets when South Africa won the World Test Championship final at Lord&#8217;s in 2025 and 11 in the corresponding match in 2017\/18 when South Africa bounced back after losing the first Test in Durban.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The bowlers feed massively off him,&#8221; said Bavuma. &#8220;There&#8217;s an aura and a lot of belief in KG (Rabada) and that rubs off on the other players.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Bavuma indicated that batsmen Matthew Breetzke and the uncapped Marques Ackerman would both play in a re-jigged batting line-up as South Africa seek to bat for longer periods after a poor batting performance in Durban.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The first innings was where we fell short,&#8221; he said. &#8220;To concede a lead like that on a wicket like that was rather criminal.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cummins said Matt Renshaw was set to continue batting at number five after his man-of-the-match returns of 190 and 82 in Durban.<\/p>\n<p>Normally an opening batsman in Test cricket, Cummins said Renshaw deserved credit for his willingness to play a new role. &#8220;He just said, &#8216;yep, no worries, whatever the team needs&#8217;.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cummins said Cameron Green was still not ready to play after suffering an abdominal injury in the one-day series against South Africa last month, although Josh Inglis was &#8220;close&#8221; to being ready to play after recovering from a broken finger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fast bowler Kagiso Rabada will return to the South African team for the second Test against Australia starting&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":931630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-931629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=931629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/931630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=931629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=931629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=931629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}