Proteas look to Mulder and Ngidi to brace side for World Test Championship quest

The Proteas’ brains trust had two big personnel decisions to make for their World Test Championship (WTC) final team to take on Australia at Lord’s: who to bat at three and who their third seamer would be?

It’s a massive occasion – as South Africa chase their first International Cricket Council (ICC) trophy since 1998 – and big decisions needed to be made.

Coach Shukri Conrad and captain Temba Bavuma, with the rest of the decision makers, have opted for Wiaan Mulder to fulfil the first role and Lungi Ngidi the second.

Mulder has batted in the position only twice before in his international Test cricket career and Ngidi last played a Test match in August 2024, having missed the summer action through groin injury.

Outside of that match, Ngidi had played only one other match in the current WTC cycle as he fell out of favour with Conrad.

In the time Ngidi was out of action, Dane Paterson, Corbin Bosch, Gerald Coetzee and Nandre Burger staked their claims and performed admirably, but the latter three have all broken down with injuries. Ngidi has cracked the nod ahead of Paterson and Bosch, who is considered more of an all-round option.

Skipper Bavuma reasons that Ngidi is more experienced, is taller and has more pace than Paterson.

In Ngidi’s seven-year Test career, he has played only 19 matches, often due to injuries and concern over his ability to last all five days without breaking down. Ngidi has also only twice in his career bowled more than 20 overs in an innings.

But while fitness has been a concern, Ngidi’s game-breaking ability is not in doubt. Of the current crop, only Marco Jansen (21.76) and Kagiso Rabada (22) have a better bowling average than his (23.14).

The big quick is also a new-ball bowler with the skill to take wickets upfront. The extra lacquer on the leather Dukes ball – which is always used in England – means that the ball swings for longer than the Kookaburra ball, which both teams normally use when playing at home. Having three expert swing bowlers, in place of the seam-bowling Paterson, would also have played a role in selection.

Mulder’s inclusion also means that the Proteas have a fourth pace bowling option.

Number three

The number three position in any batting order is often held by one of the team’s best batters.

Rahul Dravid, Kane Williamson, Hashim Amla, Ricky Ponting and Kumar Sangakkara are a few of the iconic batters to have performed that role for their respective national teams.

On this occasion, in the biggest Test match on the global calendar, the two number threes in Cameron Green and Mulder are seam bowling all-rounders who will stride out to bat at first drop for the first and third times in their careers. Green hasn’t played Test cricket for Australia since September last year due to a back injury.

“Mulder is quite young in that position, but having played with [him] and seen the way he’s grown in the last two years within the red ball format, it’s about giving him a lot more confidence, keep backing him and just allowing him to do what he does best,” skipper Bavuma said at the pre-match press conference at Lord’s on Tuesday.

“He has an opportunity in a pressure situation, but he can take comfort in the fact that the guys are backing him and we just want him to go out and play his game.”

Green’s captain Pat Cummins has come out to bat for him, too. “Cam Green, the last few weeks he’s had, coming back in with great form, we felt he deserves a spot somewhere in the batting lineup,” he said.

“We thought three probably suits him best.”

Green has scored two centuries in his last two County Championship matches for Gloucester, and despite having never batted at three in Test cricket, averages 36.23 with the willow from 43 innings. Mulder averages 22.65 after 28.

Expert opinion

But what are the attributes a number three batter needs to excel in Test cricket? Few players could answer that question better than recently inducted ICC Hall of Fame inductee and Proteas legend Amla.

“You have to be able to handle the new ball because most of the time at number three, you end up coming in pretty early,” he said. “You’re always preparing for that.

“You have to have a good technique and you have to have the experience of batting in the top order for a long time.”

Neither Mulder nor Green has that experience, but situations like the WTC final can create a sink or swim situation. South Africa don’t have a natural number three in their ranks, so it could be an opportunity for Mulder to make the spot his own, like Amla did before him, without having to disturb the order of the batting lineup.

“When I first started at three, I was not a number three batsman,” Amla said. “I actually preferred four and five, and batting at three for South Africa was the only gap at that stage. They asked me and I did it.

“In this current team, you may not have guys that have batted three domestically, but there’s a time for them to start.

“[With] Wiaan, it might be his time. You don’t want to knock it down, but to nail it you need time to learn the position, although it’s a big final [and] it’s tough to be in the deep end like that, but he can make it work.

“Wiaan is technically sound enough and the style of cricket that South Africa look to be playing is a little bit more attacking, so in many ways your technique is not tested as much because you’re playing a bit more shots than normal.”

Like Amla, Conrad has also backed Mulder’s technique while batting in the top order, despite his statistics not supporting the move.

The inclusion of both Mulder and Ngidi is a calculated gamble, but possibly the “perfect pair” to implement what the team needs to succeed. DM

Proteas XI:

​​1 Aiden Markram, 2 Ryan Rickleton, 3 Wiaan Mulder, 4 Temba Bavuma (capt), 5 Tristan Stubbs, 6 David Bedingham, 7 Kyle Verreynne (wk), 8 Marco Jansen, 9 Keshav Maharaj, 10 Kagiso Rabada, 11 Lungi Ngidi.

Australia XI:

1 Usman Khawaja, 2 Marnus Labuschagne, 3 Cameron Green, 4 Steven Smith, 5 Travis Head, 6 Beau Webster, 7 Alex Carey (wk), 8 Pat Cummins (capt), 9 Mitchell Starc, 10 Nathan Lyon, 11 Josh Hazlewood.