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.
Watch: South Africa win a classic at Lord's to become #1
Heading into the final Test at Lord's in 2012, South Africa would have known that all they needed was a draw to seal the series. England was in disarray after Kevin Pietersen had decided that the middle of the series was the right time to give an interview regarding how difficult the task of being Kevin Pietersen was. Oh, he'd also been caught disparaging his captain at the time, Andrew Strauss to members of the Protea set up via text (somehow). Already one down in the series, with half the batting line-up horribly out of form, and a PR nightmare on the horizon, England were reeling. But they were the #1 team in the world for some or other reason, and like a weary, battle-hardened fighter about to lose his crown, this English side fashioned a final stand at the home of cricket using a mix of the old (incumbent wicket keeper Matt Prior) and the new (future wicket-keeper Johnny Bairstow). It was not to be though as the genius of Hashim Amla, and the metronome that is Vernon Philander proved to much, and the Proteas defeated the once Kings. .
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.
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 a go
On the surface, it appears that South Africa is basically all the way there with regards to creating and playing a good T20 team. They have a batting line-up with match-winners all the way down, and if this season's IPL is any indicator, they may have the best fast bowling pairing in the world in Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje. Throw in the first change talent of Lungi Ngidi along with (possibly) the ageless spinning talent of Imran Tahir, and, as they say in the South, baby you got a stew going. The one issue which the national team does have, however - and this was somewhat accentuated by the retirement of JP Duminy - is a reliable fifth bowler who doubles up as the all-rounder. It's not so much that we don't have options in the fifth bowler set up, we do, it's more that each of them has something that other would ideally have more of, and yet neither of them quite represent the full package in a way which would really be ideal. Now, it should be noted that South Afr
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