Only six survivors from the 2018 series, which Australia lost 1-3, are still in the squad for the upcoming three-match series that starts on Friday in Durban. For the first time since that infamous incident shook Australian cricket and the world cricket on a broader scale, Australia return to South Africa for the first time for a Test series. The famous pace trio (Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood), Nathan Lyon and their then-skipper and now stand-in captain Steve Smith are the five that played that infamous Cape Town Test, still present with the team.
Coming into South Africa for the 2026 series, captain Cummins had warned his side of a possible hostility from the crowd but also believed that people would have moved on. For South Africa, they have five players from that 2018 series that are still playing.
“There might be a little bit of hostility,” Cummins had said during the Keepin’ it Cricket podcast last month. “It (Sandpapergate) was kind of really spoken up (in past series), and it was almost a bit underwhelming,” Cummins said about the reaction from Proteas fans. “(But) it can’t be louder than an Ashes series Birmingham, the Hollies Stand at Edgbaston, that gets pretty rowdy. However, he believed that the dust would have settled by now, as focus will remain on cricket once the first ball is thrown. Temba Bavuma, Keshav Maharaj, Wiaan Mulder, Aiden Markram and Kagiso Rabada remain part of the South Africa squad.
