South Africa Beat Australia in Cape Town to Take the Series

South Africa beat Australia by 176 runs in the third Test at Newlands in Cape Town, winning the series. Reuters reported that Australia were bowled out for 111 in their final innings. The win also sent Australia off the top of the Test rankings for the first time in two and a half years.

A Test is a match played over up to five days, and the series was tight until the end. Australia won the first match, at Durban, by 214 runs. South Africa struck back in the second, at St George's Park, winning by an innings and 31 runs. An innings is one team's turn to bat, so that margin means South Africa scored more in one turn than Australia managed across both of theirs, with runs to spare.

The spinners decided the Cape Town match. Simon Harmer, an off-spinner who bowls with his right hand and turns the ball away from a right-handed batter, took 10 wickets for 120 runs. Harmer was born in South Africa, and he once considered playing for England before choosing his birth country. Since he returned to Test cricket in 2022, no spinner anywhere in the world has a better bowling average, a figure that shows how many runs a bowler concedes for each wicket.

The pitch helped the spinners. BBC Sport reported that the average amount of turn, meaning how far the ball deviates off the pitch, was 4.35 degrees across the Cape Town Test. That is the fourth-highest figure for a Test at the ground on record.

Australia's captain, Pat Cummins, had a hard series. He went 374 balls, or 62.2 overs, without taking a wicket in South Africa's second innings in Cape Town. Across the series his bowling average was 53.66, the second-worst of his career for a series. His expected wickets, a measure of how many wickets his bowling deserved based on the quality of his deliveries, came to 29.6. He has gone above that mark in only one of his past 20 series.

Cummins chose to bowl first in Cape Town, and that call did not work out. Afterwards he said Australia are still a "really good side", and he spoke about the batting line-up and the toss decision. Cricket Australia published his reflections on the defeat.

South Africa's captain, Temba Bavuma, was a key figure too. He made 179 in the second Test, a score that turned the series after Australia left out their leading spinner, Nathan Lyon. Bavuma was dismissed by off-spin in four of his five innings against Australia. Before 2025 he averaged 46.85 against spin, but since then that figure has dropped to 21.37.

The result has also drawn attention in England. Since Joe Root returned as Test captain, England have not picked a frontline spinner. They have leaned on four fast bowlers: Jofra Archer, Ollie Robinson, Josh Tongue and Gus Atkinson. Nottinghamshire's Liam Patterson-White, a recent recipient of an England development contract, has been mentioned as a spin option. That is talk rather than a selection, and nothing has been confirmed.

The series is over, but Australia will still be looking at what went wrong. For South Africa, the win confirms a strong home record against a side that had been ranked first.