{"id":810520,"date":"2026-10-22T16:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T16:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/810520\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T16:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T16:24:10","slug":"south-africa-vs-australia-hosts-win-by-an-innings-and-31-runs-to-level-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/810520\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa vs Australia: Hosts win by an innings and 31 runs to level series"},"content":{"rendered":"

Second Test, Gqeberha (day five of five)<\/p>\n

South Africa 425-9 dec: Bavuma 179, Jansen 85; Boland 5-81<\/p>\n

Australia 99 & 295: Head 121; Rabada 4-77, Mulder 3-64<\/p>\n

South Africa won by an innings and 31 runs<\/p>\n

Scorecard<\/a><\/p>\n

South Africa broke Australia’s resistance in the final session to complete a famous victory in the second Test and set up a series decider in Cape Town.<\/p>\n

Travis Head made 121 for Australia and Scott Boland survived 166 deliveries for 40 runs in an attempt to escape Gqeberha with a draw – the tourists’ hopes also boosted by the first session being wiped out by rain. <\/p>\n

But the Proteas stuck to their task to take the six wickets needed to win by an innings and 31 runs as the light faded late on the last day.<\/p>\n

Premier paceman Kagiso Rabada finished with 4-77 while Marco Jansen, whose 5-33 on day four put South Africa in the ascendancy, took the final wicket as Australia were dismissed for 295. <\/p>\n

But all-rounder Wiaan Mulder also played a crucial hand, bowling with accuracy and finding movement off the pitch to dismiss Head, Boland and Australia captain Pat Cummins. <\/p>\n

Some of South Africa’s great Test wins have come against Australia – notably in the last World Test Championship final two years ago and a Test on this ground in 2018 in the infamous Sandpaper series. This must surely rank highly among them. <\/p>\n

They were heavily beaten in the first Test in Durban and when 40-4 and 110-6 in their first innings of this Test, there appeared only one winner in this series.<\/p>\n

Instead, the contest has been turned on its head by Bavuma’s epic 179 and South Africa twice dismissing Australia, setting up a tantalising finale in Cape Town.<\/p>\n

The third Test begins on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Second Test, Gqeberha (day five of five) South Africa 425-9 dec: Bavuma 179, Jansen 85; Boland 5-81 Australia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":810521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[59,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-810520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-gb","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}