As far as rematches go, this is less spicy than it might have been. Originally, Steve Smith and David Warner were due to go back to South Africa for a Test series in early 2021, returning to the scene of the ill-tempered and ill-fated 2018 tour that saw them both banned for a year. Instead the trip ended up being a pandemic casualty, so the first Test meeting between the sides – 18 months later on Australian soil – does dull the immediacy of the associations with times past, even if the sandpaper story is bubbling away again thanks to Warner’s abandoned efforts to have his lifetime leadership ban overturned.
Much of the personnel is the same as 2018: Smith, Warner and Usman Khawaja with the bat, Patrick Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon and Josh Hazlewood with the ball. South Africa still have Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi and Keshav Maharaj in their bowling ranks, with Dean Elgar, Temba Bavuma and Theunis de Bruyn up the order. But both of these teams have changed in character. The Australians are more settled, mature and sanguine in how they go about things on the field. The South Africans are a developing side, with infusions of fresh bowling talent to supplement a less convincing batting line-up.
