T20 leagues have 'softened' rivalries, says Harmer — and Durban just proved him right

Two days before the ball was bowled at Kingsmead, Simon Harmer sat in a pre-series press conference and said what everyone in modern cricket already knows but nobody wants to say on the record.

He talked about how T20 franchise leagues — the IPL, the Hundred, SA20, the CPL — have turned international opponents into off-season teammates. How the sledging has gone quiet. How rivalries that once defined entire eras of Test cricket have been replaced by fist-bumps between players who shared a dressing room three months ago.

He added that he didn't expect Australia to be soft. He was right about that part. Pat Cummins's team were ruthless. South Africa were not. And nobody was there to watch.

The first Test between the world's top-two ranked teams opened on a Friday morning in Durban. The sun was out. The pitch had pace and carry. The series was the first between these nations in South Africa since the Sandpapergate tour of 2017-18 — eight years of history, intrigue, and narrative weight packed into one fixture.

Roughly 3,800 people turned up. Kingsmead holds 25,000.

Ticket sales for the first day had been projected at 7,500 to 8,000, but live broadcast footage told a grimmer story — entire stands sat empty. By Day 3, it was worse. The defending WTC champions and the team ranked No. 2 in the world were playing for the ICC World Test Championship 2025-27 in front of what looked like a school sports day crowd.

Commentators questioned it. Fans on social media called it embarrassing. Some demanded that Kingsmead be stripped of the right to host marquee Tests altogether. One former broadcaster called the scenes "really worrying times for Test match cricket."

The on-field performance made the attendance look generous.

South Africa's bowlers — Nortje, Mulder, Jansen — had Australia 124 for 6 on the first morning. Six wickets in the bank, the opposition reeling, and the game there for the taking. This was the moment where a truly hostile Test team puts its foot on the throat.

Instead, Matt Renshaw scored 190. He batted for 397 balls. He rebuilt the innings with Pat Cummins (43) and Nathan Lyon (27) and dragged Australia to 390. The rescue act was stunning, but the fact it was allowed to happen tells you everything about where South Africa's competitive instinct has gone.

By the time Renshaw added 82 in the second innings and took 2/30 with his part-time off-spin, the match was a procession. Australia declared on 314/6, set a target of 421, and Josh Hazlewood's career-best 6/49 finished the job on Day 5. South Africa were bowled out for 206.

Harmer's observation cuts to the heart of a structural shift in world cricket. Thirty years ago, a South Africa-Australia Test series was theatre — Allan Donald bouncing Steve Waugh, sledging matches that spilled into press conferences, crowds that came to watch combat as much as cricket. The Sandpapergate series of 2018 was the last time these two teams genuinely despised each other, and even that was over ball-tampering, not competitive intensity.

Now? Mitchell Starc and Aiden Markram play together in franchise leagues. Pat Cummins knows half the South African squad from IPL dressing rooms. Players share WhatsApp groups, training tips, and flight lounges. The on-field hostility that once made Test cricket appointment viewing has been replaced by mutual respect — which sounds noble and looks, from a distance, like an empty stadium.

This isn't just a South Africa problem. England-Australia Ashes crowds remain strong because the cultural rivalry transcends cricket. India-Australia Tests fill grounds because of the sheer volume of Indian fans. But everywhere else, Test cricket is quietly dying in the stands while thriving in broadcast deals. Durban just made the quiet part loud.

Before this becomes a "bring back the aggression" thinkpiece, the reality is more complicated. Durban's attendance problems are not new. Kingsmead has struggled to fill seats for years, and the factors are structural: a Friday-morning start in a working city, economic pressure on South African households, and a national team that — despite winning the WTC — hasn't built the kind of connection with casual fans that the Springboks rugby team has.

The scheduling didn't help. Forty-nine overs were lost to bad light in the first three days. If you paid for a ticket and watched two sessions disappear to umpires pointing at the sky, would you come back on Day 4?

And franchise cricket isn't entirely to blame for the lack of intensity. South Africa were missing Kagiso Rabada, and Bavuma was dismissed for 1 in the fourth innings — caught at short leg off Renshaw's off-spin. The defending WTC champions' collapse wasn't caused by being too friendly with the opposition. It was caused by batting collapses, bowling plans that let Renshaw bat for nearly two days, and a mental fragility that has nothing to do with IPL camaraderie.

The second Test starts on Saturday, October 18, at St George's Park in Gqeberha. South Africa trail 0-1 in a three-match series. The WTC standings are at stake. And the venue — a smaller ground in a cricket-passionate city — might give them the atmosphere Kingsmead didn't.

But the deeper questions Harmer raised won't disappear with a change of venue. If the world's No. 1 Test team can't fill a ground for its biggest home series in eight years, what does that say about the format? If players know each other so well from franchise cricket that the old tribal hostilities have faded, does Test cricket lose its unique selling point?

Harmer saw it coming. He just didn't expect his own team to be the case study.