CricketZA

Kyle Abbot has signed a three-year extension with County side Hampshire, which has effectively ended any hopes of a return to international cricket. Abbott, who a few days ago took 17 wickets in a First Class cricket game, stated he had no regrets about his choice to take a Kolpak contract in 2017. Abbot, who has averaged 60 wickets a season in his three seasons with Hampshire is now tied to the club through to the 2021 season. Abbot: "I am delighted to have signed a new three-year contract with Hampshire. We have a great coaching staff and bunch of players all striving to achieve success for the club, and I look forward to contributing to winning trophies in the coming years." With the threat of Brexit, there probably was an accent for players to make immediate decisions. The England Cricket Board said in an email that should England leave the European Union without a deal by the end of 2019, new Kolpak applications would become void , but they would honour all exis...

First things first, South African cricket is going through something of a metamorphosis. Hashim Amla's retirement from the game as well as Dale Steyn's retirement from Test cricket has lost South Africa about 220 Tests worth of experience. It would have been a lot to expect the absolute best version of the South African cricket team to go to India, who have only lost one home Test, not series, Test, in 7 years and win. To expect a team undergoing change to compete with serious hopes of winning is probably a little much. But, we are South Africans. Expecting too much is what we do. Always has been. On that note, it's time to speak about the elephant in the batting room. Not Quinton de Kock wasting away at 7, only coming in when the game is gone. No, the other elephant in the room. In case you missed it, Temba Bavuma has been named the team's vice captain, and with Faf du Plessis a not young 35-years old, it does stand to reason that Bavuma is the next in line to ho...

Since the day Martin Crowe nicknamed the the quartet of Steve Smith, Kane Williamson, Joe Root and Virat Kohli the "Fab Four", these four gentlemen have basically dominated the landscape of cricket to rarely before seen levels. Steve Smith has been fantastic in Test cricket, and could arguably be called the Best Since Bradman. Virat Kohli though, he's been incredible in all three formats of the game. He is the only member of the recently invented 40-50-60 club. That is, an average exceeding 40 in one format, 50 in another format, and 60 in another format. He isn't just a member of the club, he's the founding member and to date the only member.  His Test numbers are pretty impressive. In 79 Tests, he has scored 6749 runs at an average of 53. If you think that is impressive, his stats as captain are otherworldly. In 48 Tests, he has scored 18 centuries and over 4600 runs at an average of 61. The man is good. He's scored over 1000 Test runs in 3 consecuti...

Quinton de Kock is good at cricket. Everyone who plays cricket at an international level is good at cricket, but even in that hallowed territory, one can see that Quinton de Kock is exceptionally good at cricket. He boasts no obvious weakness, and there are very few good balls which he can't turn into boundary balls. He also happens to be, both on form and reputation, South Africa's best batsman, especially now that the great Hashim Amla has retired. This presents a quandary of sorts, because while de Kock's prodigious ability to take a game away from the opposition batting at 7 is not in question, the reality is more often than not, he has had to come in and repair some very creaky holes in the ship. In the history of cricket, only one team has ever had their best batsman keep wicket. Andy Flower, the Zimabwean great, was the only man who managed this feat of endurance and focus. You could arguably place AB de Villiers on this shortlist, but he only kept for 23 Tests an...

When South Africa toured India in 2015, something peculiar happened. It wasn't that we lost 3-0, having gone over a decade undefeated in overseas tours. That was sad, but all good things come to an end. What I am referring to is the fact that we went into the majority of a series with two spinners. This was not just rare, it literally has never happened before. Not even in our previous tours to India. This may seem instinctively counter-intuitive, but South Africa has had the good fortune of having elite subcontinental fast bowlers in the tank . Shaun Pollock averaged a respectable 27 in India, and 22 in Pakistan. Allan Donald averaged 16 in India, and of course, Dale Steyn's average of 21 in the subcontinent is legendary. Even an accessory talent like Morne Morkel had a respectable enough average of 32 in India. When your guns are that big, there is simply no need to have a second spinner. Especially when your first spinner is Nicky Boje or Paul Harris. Honest, hard worki...

Cricket South Africa has named Amol Muzumdar as the interim batting coach for the upcoming Test series vs India. Muzumdar, who was never capped at international level, does boast an impressive first class record with over 11 000 runs at an average of around 48. "He has moved on to become one of the top coaches in India, holding high performance coaching certificates from the BCCI, Cricket South Africa, as well as the UK through both Lancashire and Yorkshire" , CSA said in a press release. He has previously been the batting coach of the Rajasthan Royals, the Indian u19 & u23 as well as the batting coach of the Netherlands national team. He will be replacing Dale Benkenstein, who was not retained following the 2019 Cricket World Cup.