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After the two months of action in IPL 2025, the stage is set for the final of the World Test Championship between South Africa and Australia. The match will be played at Lords Cricket Ground from June 11 to June 15. As Australia will be looking to defend their Test mace, they will be hoping for their star batter Steve Smith to step on a big occasion and play a match-winning knock.
Ahead of the much-awaited final, Australian skipper Pat Cummins confirmed that Steve Smith will continue to bat at number four in the contest against South Africa. “I can confirm that Smudge (Smith) will be batting at four. Everyone else, I’m not willing to confirm, but I can confirm Steve Smith will be number four," Cummmins said in his conversation with The Grade Cricketer on Prime Video Australia.
2 WTC titles would be incredible: Pat Cummins
This will be Australia’s second appearance in the final of the World Test Championship. In the previous edition, they defeated India in the final of the previous edition at The Oval in 2023. Now, the Pat Cummins-led side is on the verge of becoming the first side to win two back-to-back titles.
“After winning (in 2023), there’s a lot of talk of trying to retain it. Go and defend it. It’s not tangible until you actually make the final. Now that we’ve made it, it’ll be pretty cool to win another ICC trophy,” Cummins said.
“You’ve really got to be a complete team over a couple-year stretch to make the final. We just missed out on that first year (2019-2021), but I think we are a better side now than we were back then.”
“I think two (WTC titles) would be incredible. One, I think, is still a pretty good demonstration of how good we’ve been over the past few years," the Australian skipper added.
