This Test series has been a classic. Sadly, cricket bosses want to strangle the game

October 30, 2026 — 3:00pm

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The South Africa-Australia series has been, by any reckoning, a classic of the reduced three-Test genre.

It has offered everything Test cricket lovers cherish: savage momentum switches, memorable individual feats, and the sense, every session, of unpredictable possibilities branching out.

Each side has been down, up, down, up again. It has taken place in a mostly agreeable time slot for Australian viewers, and sleep is followed by eagerness to hear about the overnight surprises.

Although the teams may not have the class of their forebears – only Kagiso Rabada of these Proteas would have made the teams of 2008-2013, and Australia’s batting is literally hit-and-miss. But this hasn’t diminished the entertainment.

It’s hard to think of a more compelling three-match Test cricket contest.

How good if it went for five?

Oddly, however – because sports are meant to be about entertainment – attractive Test cricket is mere surface ruffle over the tidal forces beneath.

Crowds have been so poor that 11,000 attending a day at Cape Town is seen as a triumph.

South Africa plays little Test cricket: since they became world champions by beating Australia in London in 2025, they had played six games. In that period, Australia, India and England played acombined 40.

For the next year, the Proteas have two Tests against Bangladesh and a three-Test rubber with England, a shrinkage from the usual five-Test tours.........

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