ICC WTC 2025 Final: The World Test Championship (WTC) final is going to start from June 11 between South Africa and Australia (Australia vs South Africa). This match will be played at the historic ground of Lord's. The New Zealand cricket team won the first WTC title, while the Australian team became the winner for the second time. On both occasions, India had to be content with being the runner-up. This time Australia, led by Pat Cummins, will go with the aim of defending the WTC title. On the other hand, South Africa, under the captaincy of Temba Bavuma, is going to go with the resolve to end the wait of more than two decades for the ICC title.

Australia is the only team that has won all four ICC trophies (ODI World Cup, Champions Trophy, T20 World Cup and WTC). It is even more difficult to defeat them in the finals of any ICC tournaments. The team has reached the finals of ICC tournaments 13 times and has been successful in winning the title 10 times out of these.

The South African team is known for slipping after coming close to victory in important matches and due to this they have been named 'chokers'. The team has won only one ICC tournament so far. The team won the Champions Trophy title in 1998. This South African team has a good mix of experience and young players and the team would like to get rid of the tag of 'chokers' by winning this match to be played at a neutral venue.

This South African team has a good mix of experience and young players and the team would like to forget its past failures through this match played at a neutral venue. The team used the maximum number of 30 players in the 2023-25 ​​cycle of the WTC. Most of these players turned out to be run-scorers or wicket-takers at the right time. The team is ready to play the WTC final with seven consecutive Test wins. It had confirmed its ticket in December last year itself.

At the same time, Australia team has 10 players from the playing-11 that played the last WTC final against India except David Warner. Medium pace bowler Josh Hazlewood could not play that match due to injury. However, he is ready to replace Scott Boland who was part of that team. Hazlewood recovered from a shoulder injury and played an important role in making Royal Challengers Bangalore the IPL champions last week. He performed brilliantly in the IPL by taking 22 wickets in 12 matches.

Marnus Labuschagne will be seen opening with Usman Khawaja. Labuschagne's form is a matter of concern for the team, but all-rounder Cameron Green has made a brilliant comeback by scoring three centuries while representing Gloucestershire in county cricket after returning from surgery. There is no dearth of experience in Australia's bowling. The team includes four bowlers from Australia's all-time top 10 wicket takers. These include Nathan Lyon (553, third), Mitchell Starc (382, fourth), captain Pat Cummins (294, eighth) and Hazlewood (279, 10th).

The biggest challenge for Australia will be to deal with Kagiso Rabada. Rabada will also create problems for Australia's openers. He has dismissed Khawaja five times in 10 Test matches. Rabada has 327 Test wickets to his name. He will expect better support from Marco Jansen. Left-arm fast bowler Jansen has taken 29 wickets in six matches in the WTC cycle. Lungi Ngidi and Dan Paterson will be the third option for fast bowling in the team. Ngidi has reached there after playing IPL, while Paterson has recently played county cricket.

Adem Markram and Ryan Rickelton will open the innings for South Africa while captain Bavuma will bat at number four. David Bedingham, the highest run-scorer for the team in the current WTC cycle, proved in the practice match against Zimbabwe that he has recovered from a finger fracture in April. However, the record of both the teams at Lord's ground has been excellent. South Africa has faced only one defeat in seven matches while the Australian team has not lost a single match on this ground in the last 10 years.

AUS vs SA Head-to-Head Records in Test CricketTalking about 'head-to-head', a total of 101 matches have been played between Australia and South Africa so far. Australia has won 54 of these matches, while 26 matches were in favor of South Africa. 21 matches between the two countries ended in a draw.

Australia's Playing-11 for WTC Final: Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Cameron Green, Steve Smith, Travis Head, Beau Webster, Alex Carey (wk), Pat Cummins (c), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood.

South Africa Playing-11 for WTC Final: Temba Bavuma (c), Aiden Markram, Ryan Rickelton, Wiaan Mulder, Tristan Stubbs, David Bedingham, Kyle Verrynne, Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj, Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi.

Lord's Cricket Ground Pitch Report

The pitch of Lord's Cricket Ground is also called the Mecca of cricket. The Lord's pitch helps the fast bowler in the beginning. Fast bowlers get bounce and swing on it. When the pitch gets old, the batsmen can also play big innings after getting set. In Test cricket, as the game progresses and the pitch dries up, spinners also come into action and take wickets. The last Test match on this ground was played in 2024 in which England defeated Australia by 190 runs.

So far 147 test matches have been played on this ground. During this time the team batting first has won 53 matches here while the team bowling first has won 43 matches on this ground. The average score of the first innings in this ground is 310, second innings 299, third innings 256 and fourth innings 157 runs. The highest score of this ground is 729 while the lowest score is 38 runs.