JOHANNESBURG – Cricket South Africa (CSA) has congratulated the Proteas on winning the Sunfoil Test Series against Australia by a 3-1 margin after winning the final Test match by 492 runs at the Bidvest Wanderers Stadium on Tuesday.
The winning margin (by runs) was South Africa’s biggest against all opponents.
“Congratulations to captain Faf du Plessis, head coach Ottis Gibson and all the players and team management on their outstanding achievement,” commented CSA Acting Chief Executive Thabang Moroe. “
This is the first time we have won a home series against Australia since unity and to complete away and home series wins against them in the space of 17 months is a huge achievement.
“Faf is our first captain to achieve this and coming on top of the home series wins against India and Bangladesh earlier this season this completes an outstanding period of Test cricket for all involved. Indeed, apart from the ODI Series against India, our boys have played consistently outstanding cricket over a long season.
“One must make special mention of Ottis as well in his first year in charge of our national side.
“There have been many outstanding individual achievements from the likes of Kagiso Rabada, the leading wicket-taker in the series, and Aiden Markram, the leading runs scorer in the series, among others but this has been a real team effort with all the players contributing to this success.
“Vernon Philander’s performance today was quite exceptional.
“This is also the time to thank Morne Morkel for his immense contribution to South African cricket over more than a decade and to wish him well in his future endeavours.
“What has been really pleasing is the number of new caps who have done outstandingly well across the three formats and this reflects well on our talent development pipeline.
Markram, Lungi Ngidi and Andile Phehlukwayo all made their Test debuts; Markram, Ngidi, Dane Paterson, Wiaan Mulder, Heinrich Klaasen and Khaya Zondo in the ODI format; and Klaasen, Robbie Frylinck, Junior Dala and Christiaan Jonker in the T20 format.
Kagiso Rabada was named Player of the Series on Tuesday. Photo: Muzi Ntombela/BackpagePix
“The Proteas can now head to Sri Lanka for their next Test Series in the second half of the year, confident that they can continue to challenge India for the ICC No 1 ranking in this format.
“Our fans and other stakeholders can also look forward to another bumper season of Test cricket in 2018-19 when we host both Sri Lanka and Pakistan,” concluded Moroe.