During the first session on day four of the World Test Championship (WTC) 2025 final, South Africa defeated Australia by five wickets, to win their first ICC trophy in 27 years at the Lord's in London.

In pursuit of the 282-run target, Aiden Markram was the star of the show with the bat for South Africa, scoring a fantastic hundred, to play a key role in taking South Africa over the finishing line in the run chase against Australia for a major title victory.

For the unversed, after winning the toss on day one, Temba Bavuma, the captain of South Africa, decided to bowl first and his decision paid huge dividends for the team, bowling out Australia for 212 runs in the first innings on the back of a five-wicket haul from Kagiso Rabada. In difficult conditions for batting on day one, Steve Smith looked the most fluent batter for Australia with his fifty, while Beau Webster (72 off 92) top scored for the defending champions with some luck early in his innings, sharing a 79-run stand for the fifth wicket with the former.

In response, South Africa's first innings began poorly, losing four wickets for 30 runs after Aiden Markram was cleaned up in the first over by Mitchell Starc without troubling the scorers. A partnership of 64 runs between Temba Bavuma and David Bedingham for the fifth wicket brought some serenity to the South African batting effort before Australian captain Pat Cummins ran rampant with the ball, registering figures of 6/28, to bowl out the opposition for just 138 runs.

With a valuable lead of 74 runs in hand, Australian openers Usman Khawaja and Marnus Labuschagne shared an opening stand of 28 runs, to put their team in a commanding position before their batting innings started to fall away drastically. The defending champions found themselves at 73/7 at one stage before Alex Carey (43 off 50) shared a vital eighth wicket stand of 61 runs with Mitchell Starc, to bring their team back into the match.

At the start of day three, Mitchell Starc, who stayed unbeaten with a fifty to his name, had a partnership of 59 runs with Josh Hazlewood, to put Australia in a commanding position after scoring 207 runs in their second innings. While chasing 282-run target, South Africa lost the wicket of Ryan Rickelton cheaply before a 61-run stand for the second wicket between Aiden Markram and Wiaan Mulder steadied the ship for them.

After that, it was the Aiden Markram and a limping Temba Bavuma show with the bat, sharing a 147-run stand for the third wicket, to put South Africa in winning position after the former got his eighth Test hundred. While Bavuma lost his wicket for 66 off 134 on the fourth morning of the WTC final 2025, Markam ended up losing his wicket for 136 runs in 207 balls with 14 fours shortly before Kyle Verreynne hit the winning runs.