Aussies will definitely sledge Rabada, Markram believes

Long before he tested positive for taking a recreational drug, Kagiso Rabada was going to be a central figure in the build-up to the World Test Championship final.

Now he has that cloud hanging over his head everyone, including Rabada’s teammates, expect the Australians to remind him of his indiscretion. 

“I’m sure [the Australians] will ‘talk’ to him. It comes with the job. Whenever people can have a dig, they will have a dig,” said Aiden Markram, who has played with Rabada since the pair were schoolboys.

Former Proteas captain Graeme Smith agreed. “Unfortunately when you make a mistake it comes with pressures of embarrassment, what people say about you and all that sort of crap. He will have to find a way to mentally deal with that.”

In that controversial 2018 series, which ended with the Australians scratching the ball with sandpaper, it was Rabada who was targeted in the second Test, when Steve Smith, knowing the South African spearhead was one charge away from a suspension, initiated contact between the pair. 

The infamous ‘shoulder barge’ of the then Australian captain, indeed led to Rabada incurring a suspension, which would have been served in third Test until Dali Mpofu helped win an appeal which overturned the sanction. 

The Australians were furious and their anger played a small role in the controversy that followed at Newlands. 

Six years later the heat between the two teams, which had built up during a decade of intense series, has cooled. Though a few protagonists remain from 2018 — including Rabada, Smith and current Australian captain, Pat Cummins — much of the bitterness from that era has passed. 

“Players on both teams have played cricket with each other somewhere and that creates a different dynamic because you get to know the person and then it becomes hard to be crude towards someone,” said Markram, who made two centuries in that series.

Nevertheless Rabada certainly expects some chirps to be directed his way at Lord’s. “Any type of verbal abuse, or if the media want to say something, that’s normal, that’s the field we play in. You can’t be ignorant to it, you have to be aware. I don’t think it is anything that is going to slow me down,” Rabada said last Friday. 

“We’ve obviously chatted,” said Markam. “Mentally, KG is one of the strongest people I know. He’s dealt with this well in his own personal space. We trust that fully. You’re talking about KG, one decision or whatever happened doesn’t change anything about the person, what he’s achieved and him as a person. We’ve come a long way. I feel I can see it in his eyes. To me, it looks like he will be completely fine.”

Rabada said he “owed” it to his teammates to address them about his positive test, but said that in the limited interaction he’s had with some, he could feel their support for him. Smith said that would be important in the build-up to the final.

“Behind the scenes the team must rally behind him, and make sure his prep is good and he is focusing on the right things,” said the former Proteas skipper. 

“He has an opportunity to bounce back and to make the most of it. He’s going to be a key figure. Everyone will be looking at him. Even if he doesn’t get the wickets that he might like to get, it will be about his performance driving other people forward as well.”