London: Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins And Josh Hazlewood pushed South Africa towards the wall by picking four wickets for just 43 runs in 22 overs on day one of the World Test Championship Final at the Lord’s Cricket Ground on Wednesday Starc bowled a superb opening spell, taking the wickets of both South Africa openers early. Earlier, Kagiso Rabada claimed 5-51 and moved past Allan Donald to be at fourth spot on South Africa’s all-time wicket-takers list as the side bowled out Australia for 212 .

Australia had entered the third session at 190/5 in 50 overs, but Rabada wrapped up the innings in post-tea session in just 36 minutes. For Australia, Beau Webster top-scored with 72 while Steve Smith hit 66. Supporting Rabada in his pursuit were Marco Jansen’s 3-49, while Keshav Maharaj and Aiden Markram took a wicket each. In the post-tea session, Alex Carey fell straightaway as his attempt to reverse-sweep off Keshav Maharaj resulted in his stumps being castled for 23. Rabada then came in to knock off Pat Cummins, before having Webster edging to first slip. After Jansen castled Nathan Lyon through the gate, Rabada bursts through Mitchell Starc’s defences to end Australia’s innings. Previously, from the word go, Rabada and Jansen nailed their lengths from the word go to keep Australia on a tight leash. Rabada rattled Australia in the seventh over by Usman Khawaja and Cameron Green in the span of four balls. He first came in from round the wicket to extract Khawaja’s edge and have him caught at first slip, as the batter fell for a 20-ball duck. Rabada then got one to shape away from Green and the edge was caught by low-diving third slip, as the batter fell for four on his return to Tests after nearly a year. Lungi Ngidi, back in Test match action after 10 months, and Wiaan Mulder continued to be tight in their lines and lengths to keep Smith and Labuschagne on a tight leash.

Brief Scores

Australia 212 in 56.4 overs (Beau Webster 72, Steve Smith 66; Kagiso Rabada 5/51, Marco Jansen 3/49) against

South Africa.