DURBAN, South Africa (AP) — Fast bowler Kagiso Rabada was officially out and world champion South Africa confirmed it was fielding two spinners against Australia in the first cricket test at Kingsmead on Friday.
Keshav Maharaj and Simon Harmer have been paired at a venue which has favored spin in recent years. They last played together in South Africa's last test last November, a 408-run win in Guwahati that clinched a first series win in India in 25 years.
Rabada was given as long as possible to recover from a hamstring injury. He has not played an official match since May in the Indian Premier League.
Captain Temba Bavuma would not say on Thursday whether his best seamer would be available for the last two tests.
“We did go the conservative route and give him a couple of extra days to get as close as he can be to 100% fitness,” Bavuma said. “As soon as he gets that green light we expect him to be within that starting lineup.”
In Rabada's absence, Anrich Nortje will play his first test since March 2023. He and Marco Jansen lead the pace attack with allrounder Wiaan Mulder the third seamer.
Nortje has limited his cricket diet to mainly Twenty20s in recent years but he said he's been training for a while with a red ball under the eye of national bowling coach Piet Botha to increase his workload.
“He's X-factor,” Bavuma said. “There's not many guys around who are bowling 150-plus (mph).”
South Africa will field nine of the XI that beat Australia when they last met in the World Test Championship final at Lord's in June last year. Australia lead the current WTC cycle. South Africa is second.
Australia captain Pat Cummins declined to say whether they will go with two spinners as well. Coach Andrew McDonald has said they would need a "compelling" reason to do so.
Australia looks set to play the same bowlers — Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon — from the infamous Sandpapergate scandal in 2018 when it last played a test in the republic. Cameron Bancroft was caught on TV applying sandpaper to the ball and he, captain Steve Smith and vice-captain David Warner served long suspensions.
“As a group we've moved on,” Cummins said on Thursday. “(I am) very happy with the last eight or nine years, how we've been as a group and evolved.”
South Africa: Aiden Markram, Ryan Rickelton, David Bedingham, Temba Bavuma (captain), Tristan Stubbs, Wiaan Mulder, Kyle Verreynne, Marco Jansen, Simon Harmer, Keshav Maharaj, Anrich Nortje.
See AP’s full cricket coverage here
South Africa's players watch an LBW appeal review on a big electronic screen during the third one day international cricket match between South Africa and Australia, in Potchefstroom, South Africa, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)
PepsiCo plans to raise prices on some snacks and drinks and slash corporate costs after a disappointing performance in North America during the third quarter.
The price hikes, which will hit Doritos, Ruffles, SunChips and some sodas, will be in the single-digit percentage range, and prices will still be lower than they were at the start of this year. PepsiCo said Thursday that it must raise prices to recoup rising costs for fuel, aluminum and agricultural commodities.
Many companies, including PepsiCo, have offset rising costs this year by using tariff refunds that were issued by the U.S. government after the Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s far-reaching global tariffs.
PepsiCo used its $178 million refund to do just that during the most recent quarter, but said that money will not be available in coming quarters.
Yet there are risks for U.S. companies that raise prices in the current economic environment, with so many American households already stretched financially.
PepsiCo leaned heavily into price increases to combat inflation in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company hiked prices by double-digit percentages for eight straight quarters in 2022 and 2023 before settling into more moderate price increases.
Consumers revolted and sales of PepsiCo’s drinks and Frito-Lay snacks fell. Last fall, activist investor Elliott Investment Management took a $4 billion stake in the company and began pressing for even lower prices. PepsiCo agreed and it slashed prices on Lay’s, Doritos, Cheetos and Tostitos chips by up to 15% before the Super Bowl.
Laguarta said the lower prices have brought back some consumers, but the third-quarter results remained weaker than hoped, partly due to tepid sales in Canada. Frito-Lay snack food volumes were flat in the July-September period compared with the same period last year. Beverage volumes fell 2%.
Laguarta also said during a conference call that “we don’t feel good about the beverage business.”
Sales of hydration drinks like Gatorade and energy drinks like Celsius were stronger in North America, but soda sales slumped.
“We’re putting all the urgency of the business and the focus in improving our performance in soft drinks,” Laguarta said.
PepsiCo lowered its earnings expectations for the year, saying it now expects adjusted earnings per share to grow 2.5% to 3.5%. Previously it had expected growth between 5% and 7%. The company now expects full-year revenue growth of 6%, the high end of earlier forecasts of between 4% and 6%.
Still, PepsiCo reported better-than-expected revenue for the quarter on the strength of its international business, which makes up 41% of the company's revenue. Net revenue rose 5.6% to $25.27 billion in the July-September period. Wall Street had expected revenue of $24.95, according to analysts polled by FactSet.
The company, based in Purchase, New York, said its global snack food volumes increased 4%, the highest rate of growth since 2021. World Cup-related demand for Lay's snacks was strong, the company said, and PepsiCo gained share in key markets like China and Brazil. Snack food volumes rose 11% in the Asia Pacific region, PepsiCo said.
Fast-growing categories include snacks with simpler ingredients, like Doritos and Gatorade Lower Sugar with no artificial colors or flavors, as well as protein-enhanced snacks, the company said.
Net income rose 17% to $3.07 billion in the third quarter. Adjusted for one-time items, the company earned $2.34 per share. That was higher than the $2.29 per-share profit analysts expected.
PepsiCo shares rose 2% Thursday.
FILE - Plastic bottles of Pepsi are displayed at a grocery store in New York on Nov. 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File)
