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Paine: What will decide the 2025 World Test Championship Final
Lachlan Geleit • June 11th, 2025 8:27 pm
Former Australia captain Tim Paine thinks that whichever batting lineup handles the opposition quicks best will win the World Test Championship at Lord’s.
For South Africa, that’ll be coming up against the highly-vaunted big three of Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood, while the Aussies will have to deal with Kagiso Rabada, Marco Jansen and Lungi Ngidi.
While the Aussies have a more experienced attack, Paine thinks that South Africa’s quicks are dangerous and could take the game away from the current title holders should conditions suit, particularly early on.
“I think probably their quicks (is the danger), they’ve got some really high-quality quicks,” Paine told SEN Mornings.
“Rabada and Jansen we’ve touched on, they're both tall, they're both fast and they’re both very skilful.
“They’re also picking big (Lungi) Ngidi, and him in English conditions (could be a threat). If you get a bit of overcast conditions with the Dukes ball and there's a bit of green in the wicket, he's someone that will exploit it superbly.
“I think those three are a real threat in the right conditions and Rabada is a threat in any conditions.
“I think the final will be decided by which batting lineup handles the opposition quicks the best.”
Even though Paine is wary of South Africa’s pace attack against Australia’s top order, he is expecting the Aussies to make it back-to-back World Test Championship Final wins thanks to their depth both with bat and ball.
“Yeah, I do (think Australia win),” Paine said.
“That’s barring some magic from a Rabada or Jansen dominating early with a new ball or if conditions happen to be completely against us, then I can see South Africa creating some headaches.
“But I think if you're going to line up both teams and if they both play well, I think Australia just has a little bit too much depth with both bat and ball, and again, that big game experience counts.”
The first ball is set for 7:30 pm (AEST) on Wednesday.
You can listen to every ball of the decider LIVE on SEN and the SEN app.
