Australian selectors made the surprise call to bring back Nic Maddinson to Test cricket arena after almost a decade after Cameron Green suffered an injury which ruled him out of Test series opener against South Africa. Maddinson had not played a first-class game in 579 days. He had a reason for it. The treatment for testicular cancer kept him on sidelines and he had recently returned to competitive cricket and scored 126 for New South Wales against Victoria last month. While Maddison’s comeback has been widely criticised, he opened the innings in the series opener alongside Travis Head and achieved an unwanted feat. Maddinson recorded a 33-ball duck, the longest by an opener in Tests played in 21st century.
Maddinson's 33-ball duck is the longest in terms of balls faced by an opener since ball by ball data is available. The last time an opener faced more than 30 deliveries before getting out for a duck was Zimbabwe's Trevor Gripper. He had faced 36 balls against West Indies in Kingston Test in 2000. The record for the longest duck by an opener in Tests belongs to New Zealand's Darrin Murray who faced 39 runs against Sri Lanka in 1995 but did not score a single run in the innings before returning to the dressing room.
Maddinson shows up and achieves feats
Maddinson made his way directly into the playing eleven with Cooper Connolly unwell. Skipper Pat Cummins backed Maddinson as well.
“I think he's really settled where his games at. He's shown good form. No Australian's had a lot of cricket in the last six months, but I feel like he's really well-placed,” Cummins said after winning the toss and opting to bat first at Kingsmead, Durban.
Maddinson returned to Test cricket after nine years and 283 days. It is the second-longest for an Australian player between two Tests. The record belongs to Bob Simpson who played a Test after nine years and 305 days. Since his last Test appearance, Australia have played 88 Tests, won the World Test Championship (WTC) final in 2023, lost another to South Africa in 2025.
No run, average drops further below
Maddinson had missed a chance to score a boundary off the first ball of the innings as Marco Jansen sprayed one down the leg side. The opener withdrew his bat and it brushed his thigh pad, beat wicketkeeper Kyle Verreynne on the way to the boundary.
Maddinson faced 29 deliveries in the first even overs and did not score a run. Head did not last long at the crease. In the eighth over, he got out caught behind off Wiaan Mulder's bowling. He scored nine runs from 19 balls. In the 11th over, Jansen knocked over Maddinson. He dragged a good length ball from outside off back to the stumps. He could not make use of the lbw reprieve he got as captain Temba Bavuma did not review. Australia lost both their openers for 24 in 10.2 overs.
Another hit for Maddinson’s Test average
Nearly 10 years earlier, Maddinson had made his Test debut at Adelaide Oval against South Africa. He was knocked over for a 12-ball duck by Kagiso Rabada. Then, he played a Test at The Gabba against Pakistan and registered scores of 1 and 4. In the MCG Test, he batted once and scored 22 runs. Before returning to the Test squad, his average was 6.75. Now, it has further slipped to 5.4 until and unless he does well in the second innings of the ongoing Test to justify his surprise selection.
Maddinson’s first-class average unimpressive to greats
Maddinson's first-class average has seen a decline. From 129 games, he has 7,832 runs including 18 tons and 36 fifties. But, his average of 37.11 does not make him a promising prospect at this stage. His first-class average has become a topic of debate. While he didn’t play in the previous Sheffield Shield season, he did not do well in the 2024/25 season either. He had scored 267 runs from eight games at an average of 17.80 and managed to score just one half-century.
Former Australian opener Matthew Hayden, who used to intimidate opponents with his attacking demeanour, had opposed Maddinson’s Test recall. He felt that the selectors are promoting mediocrity and disrespecting country’s first-class cricket selector.
“Where we are at is that we are promoting the greatest pile of mediocrity that we’ve seen in a generation of cricket,” Hayden said on the All Over Bar The Cricket podcast.
“And if we continue to lay that out and expect that a bloke averaging 35 is going to average 55 in Test match cricket, George Bailey and Tony Dodemaide, you are dreaming.
“I will just put it that simply. You are frigging dreaming. And you are piling up this dog s*** explanation, and you are, in my opinion, disrespecting first-class cricket. Absolutely dead set you are. You should be picking guys that are averaging 45 or more, and you can’t, because they don’t want to play.”
But, Bailey defended Maddinson’s selection saying they had to make the call due to injuries to players like Josh Inglis. The chief selector revealed that Mitchell Marsh’s name was discussed for a Test return as well to utilise his form in white-ball cricket. But, the T20I captain had to return for the birth of his child. Otherwise, he would've teamed up with Head as opener in Tests like ODIs.
Cummins and the team management headed by Andrew McDonald had another option. They could’ve opened with Matt Renshaw instead of Maddinson and handed Sam Harper his Test debut cap. Harper had recently showed promise with a century for Australia A against India A to earn maiden Test call-up.
South Africa vs Australia 1st Test Playing XIs -
South Africa: Aiden Markram, Ryan Rickelton, David Bedingham, Temba Bavuma(c), Tristan Stubbs, Wiaan Mulder, Kyle Verreynne (wk), Marco Jansen, Simon Harmer, Keshav Maharaj, Anrich Nortje.
Australia: Travis Head, Nic Maddinson, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith, Matt Renshaw, Alex Carey (wk), Beau Webster, Pat Cummins (c), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood.