While South Africa are unbeaten after six games at the 2026 T20 World Cup, it hasn’t all gone their way and one person remembers the one near-miss more vividly than anyone else.
“I’m glad we won that game against Afghanistan. Otherwise, I would have blamed myself for sure,” Kagiso Rabada said after the win against West Indies, his first interaction with the media at this tournament. “On the positive side, I made it interesting but if we had lost that game, I would have taken it quite heavily, to be honest.”
Rabada infamously overstepped when he took what would have been the final wicket in South Africa’s group match against Afghanistan in Ahmedabad. His misstep gave Noor Ahmed a reprieve and Afghanistan tied the match, leading to two Super Overs. Rabada wasn’t involved in either of those and watched nervously from the dugout as Lungi Ndidi and then Keshav Maharaj bowled the decisive overs of a game that South Africa eventually won.
What has he learnt from that? “Get behind the line. Simple as that,” Rabada said.
He has since been in the shadows of South Africa’s performances, with two wickets from five games before the match against West Indies. With four to his name now, he has been the least rewarded of South Africa’s quicks but does not seem to mind taking a back seat. “That’s just the game of cricket,” he said. “When you think about it and you think about how many times it actually goes for you, and how many times it actually does, (you realise) more often than not it goes for you. Unfortunately now it hasn’t been, but the most important thing is that we’ve been winning.”
The wickets Rabada hasn’t taken have been gobbled up by his team-mates. Lungi Ngidi and Marco Jansen sit third on the overall charts. Ngidi is now level with Tabraiz Shamsi as South Africa’s leading wicket-taker in the format.
“I’m extremely happy for Lungs,” Rabada said. “He’s been under quite a lot of scrutiny over the past two to five years and that’s what you have to deal with as an athlete. He’s responded incredibly well.
“Sometimes the territory that we’re in as cricketers or athletes is pretty brutal because when you’re doing well, everyone reminds you of when you’re doing well. When you’re not doing well, it just feels twofold. So as an athlete, as a cricketer, I’m incredibly proud of how he’s actually turned that around for himself. And I’m extremely happy for him. He’s a good friend of mine.”
Rabada was similarly supportive of Ngidi on his Test comeback at the World Test Championship final at Lord’s last year. Ngidi was a surprise pick in the XI after he last played a Test ten months earlier and had a poor first innings. Rabada’s advice to him was to “have a milkshake, a steak and watch a movie and come back.” Ngidi broke the game open with three wickets in the second innings. He has since been South Africa’s standout white-ball bowler and could even be called the leader of the attack.
Rabada has long carried that mantle, albeit sometimes reluctantly, and seems happy to share it around. “It’s a network because everyone has their own individual strengths that they bring to the game. For instance, no one can bowl that off-cutter slow ball that Lungs can bowl, no-one can bowl the knuckleball like Plank (Marco Jansen) does or swing it back like he does or myself or Corbin (Bosch). We each have our own individual strengths,” he said. “And then it’s about trying to get the most out of that and having different options whether you’re under pressure or whether you are attacking. But the biggest thing is to encourage everyone’s strengths. And then we’ll sort of work out as a unit how we want to go about it holistically.”
The Ngidi slower ball has made waves in the tournament and Rabada has no intel into how to bowl it himself. “It’s incredibly hard. Everyone’s just asking him, ‘what do you do, what do you do?’ And he says it’s really simple, but it’s difficult,” Rabada said. “Everyone has a different strength. And that’s what makes us unique as cricketers. All we’re going to do is try our best. Trying doesn’t make you a loser.”
South Africa are currently the opposite of losers but there’s some way to go in the event, with the knockouts to come. Does Rabada think this is the one they could win? “We’ve got a team that’s pretty experienced, mixed up with a bunch of young players as well, and also some on the bench. If you look at how everyone’s been going recently, you take confidence out of their individual performances and that’s been translating into the games that we’ve played,” he said. “I guess it’s just about doing more of the same and hoping that it falls our way.”
