CRICKET POLL

The WTC final at Lord's in June was almost a month away when South Africa's squad was announced on Monday, but Shukri Conrad came out swinging regardless: "I don't think we need to do anything out of the extraordinary to beat Australia."

No doubt he meant ordinary. Then again, there isn't much about Conrad's approach to the game that isn't extraordinary. He has taken a middling team of comparatively few caps and even fewer stars to the brink of glory. He has made them believe in themselves. He has made the dressing room a place of ideas. He has made Test cricket fun.

And that with a threadbare playing schedule. Only Bangladesh played as few matches as South Africa - 12 - in the 2023-25 WTC cycle. The South Africans won eight to finish on top of the standings. Bangladesh won half as many, and ended up seventh out of nine. In all, under Conrad, South Africa have won 10 of their 14 Tests. Two of their three losses were suffered by the SA20-ravaged side that went to New Zealand in February 2024.

"If we were able to achieve this with the scarce schedule we've had, imagine what we'd be able to do if we had a proper schedule," Conrad said.

The South Africans were helped by the Big Three's refusal, generated by self-interest and greed, to play other teams as often as they play each other. Consequently Conrad's charges are in the final despite not having faced England or Australia, home or away, and not having toured India. Who's fault is that? Not South Africa's. Not the ICC's. Instead, blame the Big Three. Now two of them look silly.

It was embarrassing enough for all three that a team as decidedly un-Big Three as New Zealand should have won the inaugural WTC final, in Southampton in June 2021. A modicum of propriety was restored when the Aussies prevailed at the Oval two years later. But the fact that the biggest of the Big Three, India, were beaten in both finals - and aren't even in it this year - can only help drive significant change in the competition's format in future.

Conrad, you might have guessed, isn't a fan of the concept of three teams to rule them all: "I think only in their own minds have they dubbed themselves the Big Three. I don't think anybody else has. We certainly don't respect Pakistan less than we do Australia, or India.

I don't think it's a big anything. New Zealand went to India and beat them three zip. Sri Lanka won a Test match in England. West Indies won a Test in Australia. So are they really the Big Three?"

All of those results were achieved between January and November last year - firmly in the Big Three era. That, by Conrad's logic, is a wake-up call.

"We need strong Test cricket, which is the lifeblood of the game around the world. The other formats rely on Test cricket. It's still a shop window for a lot of players who want to make it in the other formats. So the ICC needs to take this in hand and ensure that the global Test game is looked after, rather than attend to the whims and fancies of a few nations."

Whatever you think of Conrad's argument, it's refreshing to hear such strong resistance to the status quo in an age when meek acquiescence of the decrees of the powerful, real and imagined, has become not only the norm but the sole survival mechanism for those perceived, and who perceive themselves, as weak.

But even Conrad accepted that his team would go into the final as underdogs". That was "not because of ability but experience". Too right. Australia's squad of 15 hold 772 Test caps between them. South Africa's? A piddling, by comparison, 367. Or less than half as many as their opponents.

Nathan Lyon and Steve Smith have each played more than 100 Tests and Mitchell Starc is four away from that milestone. Of South Africa's 15 only Kagiso Rabada, Temba Bavuma and Keshav Maharaj have passed 50 Tests. Rabada, their most experienced player, is still 30 caps away from 100.

Yet Conrad's defiance seems unbound: "We're not just happy to compete - we never only just wanted to make a final. But in order for you to win a final you need to be in it."

So far, so good, so extraordinary.