Australia beat South Africa by 214 runs on day five of the first Test at Kingsmead in Durban, bowling the hosts out for 206 in pursuit of a 421-run target to take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series. Josh Hazlewood took career-best figures of 6 for 49 to finish off the chase, with the last four South African wickets falling for just five runs after Australia had set the target on day four.
South Africa's reply never got close to the 421 they needed. Aiden Markram was the one batter to offer sustained resistance, top-scoring with 75 off 237 balls and sharing a 69-run stand with Wiaan Mulder, who made 29, in the middle of the innings, but once that partnership was broken by Hazlewood, the rest of the order went quickly. The margin of 214 runs is a comfortable, one-sided finish to a Test that had looked more competitive through its middle two days.
Hazlewood's 6 for 49 — a career-best return — was the difference between a hard-fought finish and the rout that eventually played out, with South Africa's last four wickets going down for only five runs as the innings collapsed in the closing stages. It is the kind of contribution that tends to get overshadowed by a big individual batting performance elsewhere in the match, but it was Hazlewood who turned a target South Africa were always going to struggle to reach into one they fell well short of.
Matt Renshaw's career-best 190 in the first innings and follow-up 82 in the second gave Australia the runs on the board to set up the eventual win. Renshaw's 272 runs across the two innings, for the loss of his wicket only twice, was comfortably the most substantial individual contribution of the match from either side, and the platform on which the rest of the result was built.
A 214-run win in the opening Test of Australia's first tour of South Africa since 2018 hands the tourists control of both the scoreboard and the psychological running heading into the rest of the series. For South Africa, playing without the injured Kagiso Rabada for the whole match, the result leaves the hosts needing to win at least one of the remaining two Tests simply to avoid losing the series, and both results count toward the 2025-27 World Test Championship cycle, adding further weight to anything South Africa can salvage from the trip.
The series continues with the second Test at Gqeberha from October 18, before the third and final match at Newlands from October 27. South Africa will need a response with the bat in particular, after a middle order that managed only brief periods of resistance across both innings in Durban.
Live scores and ball-by-ball updates from Gqeberha will be available on SportGod's live matches page, with data-backed match forecasts on SportGod's predictions page.
Scores, margins and individual figures in this article are verified against same-day and freshly re-checked reporting as of the close of the match on October 13, 2026.
Try Sport God AI live
Live scores, AI predictions, and fantasy — free during IPL 2026.