Bavuma grit and Markram century put South Africa on brink of historic WTC win over Australia

LONDON (AP) — Hobbling captain Temba Bavuma and hundred-hitter Aiden Markram pushed South Africa to the brink of a sensational victory over Australia in a gripping World Test Championship final at Lord's on Friday.

Bavuma, elevating the drama with a strained left hamstring, and opener Markram capitalized on ideal batting conditions. They partnered for an unbroken 143 runs against one of Australia's greatest bowling attacks to have South Africa 69 runs from an historic triumph.

Chasing 282 to win, the Proteas were 213-2 at stumps on day three in a stirring bid to win a first ICC trophy in 27 years.

Bavuma was 65 not out from 121 balls, his running restricted but not his batting technique, and Markram was 102 not out from 159, easily the highest individual score of the final.

Defending champion Australia bombarded them with four of its top-10 all-time test wicket-takers — more than 1,500 wickets in total — but they couldn't part the Proteas pair, and hardly troubled them.

In South Africa's huge favor, the day three pitch flattened, offered the bowlers little and was far easier paced than the first two chaotic days, when 14 wickets fell on each. Only four wickets were taken on Friday, and none after tea.

South Africa won't go to bed entirely comfortably, though. The men’s team has a heartbreaking history in ICC tournaments of blowing winning positions. It is the reason its only ICC trophy is the ICC Knock Out in 1998.

“This would be massive for our country,” Proteas batting coach Ashwell Prince said. "Both in terms of what we want to do in test match cricket and what we want to achieve going forward. We've fallen short in some white-ball competitions with teams that have been favorites at times. History says we haven't done it yet, so we have to knuckle down.

“Not sure how I'm going to sleep tonight. Whether I can fall into a deep sleep, I'm not sure!”

It's certain serial champion Australia still believes, too.

“In the morning we've got to come back and try and form a plan,” Beau Webster said. “The boys will be looking at any advantage we can get. Strange things happen in this game.

“We tried some new things with the bowling attack but they were just too good in the end ... and both of them were chanceless so complete credit to them."

The odds were in Australia's favor when South Africa's chase began straight after lunch.

To win, a work-in-progress batting lineup needed to equal England's most successful ever run chase at Lord's from 2004.

By the time pacer Mitchell Starc removed Ryan Rickelton and Wiaan Mulder, South Africa was 70-2 but flying.

There was positive intent missing from the first innings, and the strike was rotated constantly. Australia managed only three maidens in 56 overs, all by spinner Nathan Lyon.

Starc could have reduced South Africa to 76-3 when Bavuma, on 2, thick-edged to first slip.

But a helmeted Steve Smith, standing closer than usual to the wickets because the ball hasn't been carrying to the cordon all game, couldn't hold Starc's 138 kph delivery and broke his right pinkie finger. He immediately left for a hospital, was out of the final and probably the following three-test tour of the West Indies.

Given life, Bavuma was on 9 when he hurt his hamstring 10 minutes before tea. Prince said he was adamant about continuing but noticeably limping. The captain soothed his dressing room with pulls and sweeps and hobbled runs, each one rousing the South Africa fans. Bavuma reached his 50 off 83 balls.

Meanwhile, Markram was cutting and driving to 50 off 69 balls. The best of his 11 boundaries was a late cut off Starc expertly sliced between two fielders. His reaction to his eighth test century five minutes from stumps was muted. He had enough strength to raise his bat to all sides and receive applause and a hug from his captain.

South Africa's celebratory end to Friday the 13th contrasted starkly to the deflating start to the day.

The Proteas would have expected to begin the chase by bowling out Australia, resuming on 144-8, half an hour after the start of play. Lyon was dismissed early and gave Kagiso Rabada his ninth wicket of the match but tailenders Starc and Josh Hazlewood resisted for almost two hours.

Starc achieved his 11th test fifty, and first in six years. He and Hazlewood's third 50-plus partnership for the 10th wicket tied the all-time test record.

The stand ended on 59, Hazlewood out for 17 to part-timer Markram. Starc was not out on 58 from 136 balls. He'd entered at 73-7, when Australia led by 147, and combined mainly with Alex Carey and Hazlewood to conjure 134 more runs.

Those runs and South Africa's 20 no balls appeared to put Australia beyond reach. But Bavuma and Markram had the confidence and the pitch to defy nearly all expectations.

AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket

Australia's Mitchell Starc, left, reacts as South Africa's captain Temba Bavuma, right, and batting partner Aiden Markram run between the wickets to score on day three of the World Test Championship final between South Africa and Australia at Lord's cricket ground in London, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Australia's Steve Smith reacts in pain as he leaves the field after getting hurt while fielding on day three of the World Test Championship final between South Africa and Australia at Lord's cricket ground in London, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

South Africa's Aiden Markram plays a shot on day three of the World Test Championship final between South Africa and Australia at Lord's cricket ground in London, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Australia's wicketkeeper Alex Carey, right, reacts as South Africa's Aiden Markram plays a shot on day three of the World Test Championship final between South Africa and Australia at Lord's cricket ground in London, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

South Africa's captain Temba Bavuma reacts after playing a shot on day three of the World Test Championship final between South Africa and Australia at Lord's cricket ground in London, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)