On the third day of WTC Final 2025, Australia lost a big opportunity when Steve Smith left an easy catch of Temba Bavuma. Smith herself was also injured while dripping catches in slip off Mitchell Starc. These are the same Bavuma who broke a big record after this.
On the third day of the World Test Championship final going to the game at Lord’s, an interesting turn came in the second innings of South Africa when Steve Smith dripped Temba Bavuma’s catch. The ball going out of Mitchell Starc’s off stump took the edge of Bavuma’s bat and went straight to Smith standing in the slip, but he could not catch the catch and injured himself while falling.
This opportunity came when Bavuma was on just 2 runs. Due to this drop catch, he got a new life and took advantage of this and took the record of scoring the most runs in the World Test Championship for South Africa. He broke Dean Elgar’s record of 1935 runs.
Earlier in Australia’s second innings, Mitchell Starc showed amazing with the bat and returned unbeaten after scoring 58 runs. Along with Josh Hazlewood, he added 59 runs for the 10th wicket to reach the score to 207. South Africa has a target of 282 runs to win. For South Africa, Kagiso Rabada took 4 wickets in the second innings, while Lungi Angidi got 3 successes. Now it has to be seen how heavy this drop of Smith is for him.
Both teams are as follows
South Africa’s playing xi:
Aden Markram, Ryan Reclon, Triston Stabs, Temba Bavuma (captain), David Bedingham, Kyle Verraine (wicketkeeper), Vian Mulder, Marco Janson, Keshav Maharaj, Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Angidi.
Australia’s playing xi:
Usman Khwaja, Marnas Labushen, Cameron Green, Steve Smith, Travis Head, Bu Webster, Alex Kerry (wicketkeeper), Pat Cummins (captain), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lion, Josh Hazlewood.
