Skip to main content

Watch: David Miller scores the fastest T20 international hundred

In the second of out feel good series. We look back on David Miller scoring a 35-ball hundred against Bangladesh. A look back on better times.
Post a Comment

Kolpaks welcome back - Graeme Smith


Cricket South Africa Director of Cricket, Graeme Smith announced this morning that South African cricketers who have taken Kolpak contracts would indeed be welcomed back should they choose to return. Smith said in a video press conference,

With Kolpak coming to an end, I guess the willingness is always to have our best players in the system," Smith told reporters via a video conference.
"It is up to the players to come back into the system and to make decisions on their careers.
"From our perspective, we want to encourage all our best players to play here domestically, and then give themselves the opportunity to be selected for the national side."

Great Britain is set to leave the European Union at the end of this year, a move which has the unintended consequence of ending the Kolpak rule. Under the Kolpak rule, players from a country which has agreements with the European Union, like South Africa, are not considered foreign players, a distinction which proves very valuable in the County set up as only one overseas player is allowed per match day XI in county cricket. This rule was adjusted a little in the proceeding years, but for the most part, it still means the same thing. Smith continued,

We don't ever want to exclude players from being part of our system and we understand that the landscape of the world game is very different now to what it was," Smith continued.
"Open minds and how we look at these things is going to be key to how we keep our best players. How we keep them motivated and in our game."


At the moment, there are over a dozen South African cricketers on Kolpak deals in the United Kingdom. Most notable among them being Simon Harmer, who was voted one of the five leading cricketers of 2019 by Wisden and former Protea prodigy Simon Harmer. Having talent at this level will most certainly be a welcome boost as the Proteas attempt to begin their ascent back to supremacy whenever cricket returns.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Watch: Hansie Cronje slaps Shane Warne all around the Wanderers

As one of the greatest cricketers in history, Shane Warne has generally had the upper hand when it came to most battles, but on this fateful day at the Wanderers, it didn't matter what he bowled, he had to fetch it in Row Z.   
4 comments
Read more

Theunis de Bruyn might not be very good

The last time Theunis de Bruyn was in the subcontinent, he scored a fourth innings hundred in Sri Lanka. A fourth innings ton in the subcontinent buys you a lot of time, especially in tours to the sub-continent. The reason is pretty simple, the fourth innings of a game is when the pitch is at it's most decrepit, Asian pitches generally take turn sooner than non-subcontinental pitches, so it does reason that if you score a ton in the fourth innings in Asia, you must by definition be some sort of genius level player of spin.  That is the only reason Theunis de Bruyn is on this tour. We would not be in favour of dropping him after just the one Test, but his dismissal in the first innings, a big booming cover drive against Ravindra Jadeja, with light fading and the day nearly done, was both reckless and unnecessary. Yes, batting is about scoring runs, and as such if balls are in slots which  players identify as their strong zones, they should feel within their rights to have ...
2 comments
Read more

We are keeping Quinton down

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...
1 comment
Read more