diff --git a/tests/kafkatest/tests/streams/base_streams_test.py b/tests/kafkatest/tests/streams/base_streams_test.py
index 256693ca44ce1..2cfe27bd7384f 100644
--- a/tests/kafkatest/tests/streams/base_streams_test.py
+++ b/tests/kafkatest/tests/streams/base_streams_test.py
@@ -95,8 +95,7 @@ def wait_for_verification(self, processor, message, file, num_lines=1):
                    timeout_sec=60,
                    err_msg="Did expect to read '%s' from %s" % (message, processor.node.account))
 
-    @staticmethod
-    def verify_from_file(processor, message, file):
+    def verify_from_file(self, processor, message, file):
         result = processor.node.account.ssh_output("grep -E '%s' %s | wc -l" % (message, file), allow_fail=False)
         try:
           return int(result)