South Africa lost their shot at winning this World Test Championship in 2022, when their board announced the team were going to play 28 games in the next four years. They lost it for a second time during the spring of last year, when they packed their reserve team off to play a series against New Zealand because their centrally contracted players had to stay back and play in a franchise tournament.
They lost it a third time when the team were bowled out for 138 on Thursday morning and they lost it a fourth when they let Australia’s tail put on 134 runs for the last three wickets, leaving them needing 282 to win. Finally, after they had just about run out of ways to lose, they won.
