CricketZA

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.

AB de Villiers had many a destructive day, but none more destructive than the day he smashed the West Indies for a 31-ball century at the Wanderers. With AB's retirement from all forms of cricket, we remember the day a genius entered the matrix

There is an old saying in Tennessee, I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee that says, we will tolerate you until we can replace you. In other words, you ability must exceed your baggage. To be clear, Mark Boucher has been nothing short of an abject failure with the Proteas. Under his leadership, the boys have shown absolutely no fight during times of trouble. The batting line-up has shown the resistance of a wet tissue paper in a storm, and the bowling attack has been, to put it midldly, insipid. There is a large section of the population which will claim that a poor bowling or batting effort does not solely lie at the hands of the coach. After all, these are grown men, and they have their own mentors in their discipline, as well as team-appointed batting and fielding coaches. I don't even disagree with this viewpoint, but Graeme Smith, the erswhile Kingmaker, or coachmaker at the Fawlty Towers known as Cricket South Africa, stated 19 months ago when he hired Boucher ...

Fifteen years ago, South Africa were set a then world-record 435 runs by Australia. Enjoy.

  There has only been one man in major international cricket history to lead a side in all formats while keeping wicket for them for any serious length of time: Mahendra Singh Dhoni. But while Dhoni had a heavy load, one which he carried like a prized weightlifter, Quinton de Kock may have an even heavier cross to bear. de Kock is the best player on South Africa's national team. It honestly doesn't matter which format we are talking about, he reigns supreme in all formats. This gift is undoubtedly at least part of the reason he was selected as the captain of the national team in all three formats. But will it turn out to be a curse? To ask him to carry the load with the bat, as the lynchpin of a fragile batting line-up. Then in the field as both wicket-keeper and captain. Finally in the media, as the face of the team may be a bridge too far for a man whose last trip as the captain of a national team saw him clash with his under-19 coach, Ray Jennings, and eventually lose his jo...

Cricket is finally back in South Africa! It will be strange to watch our home summer with no crowds, especially during the New Year’s test, but it’s better than nothing (or in my case, watching IPL commentators talk about some car for the hundredth time). The summer begins with England’s limited overs tour. We lost the T20I series and drew the ODI series when England toured earlier this year. The matches, however, were great to watch, with Temba Bavuma and Quinton de Kock’s pleasing opening partnerships, and Lungi Ngidi displaying his death bowling skills. Our fast bowlers have been unlucky with injuries in the recent past, but we should see all three of Anrich Nortje, Lungi Ngidi and Kagiso Rabada start together at some point this summer, hopefully before the Test series against Sri Lanka. Rabada and Nortje have been excellent with Delhi Capitals in the IPL, while Ngidi has struggled at CSK but remains an amazing One-Day prospect with his death bowling abilities. Beuran Hendricks has ...

From the vault of Robelinda, we found one of the rarest videos known to cricket kind. A young Allan Donald facing the Rebel Australian side in an unofficial Test. Enjoy.   

With the South Africa vs England series starting later this month, we thought it appropriate to take a walk down memory lane through some of the closest and most entertaining T20s between the two sides. In this 2017 clash at Taunton, AB de Villiers was the star as South Africa edged England in a thriller which came down to the final ball.  

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.   

David Miller has only played a single solitary match in the IPL, and it was not a particularly good, or lengthy sojourn out to the middle. A duck early in the competition has been the extent of his contributions for the Rajasthan Royals this year. Some would say this is evidence of a long-standing IPL decline. On paper, its hard to argue against that being the case. He only has one year averaging over 30 in the last five seasons, compared to four straight years in his first four years in the competition. Similarly, his strike rate has not climbed above 130 once in the last five editions, compared to four straight seasons over 130 in the beginning. It is fair to say that the David Miller star, which was once on of the brightest in the IPL galaxy (he was a player who regularly fetched over a million dollars) has waned and may possibly be facing an outright dwarfing as he is in maybe the worst place to be in all of sports - a benched player on a bad team. Certainly, if my interest was in ...

 As some of you may have heard, AB de Villiers and Karen Zoid teamed up to write maybe the cheesiest song of all time.  The quality of AB's voice had us wondering how much of that was down to quality production, and how much was down to de Villiers being a great singer. So we found this little acoustic version of the Ronan Keating song, "When you say nothing at all", and well, you be the judge...

 AB de Villiers has released a single, with Karen Zoid and the Ndlovu Youth Choir.  The music video features cameos from Virat Kohli, Kagiso Rabada and Dale Steyn, among others. Enjoy 

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...

AB de Villiers once  said he thought the IPL was bigger than the World Cup , an almost outrageous claim considering the fact that, gun to head, most non-Indian cricket fans would not be able to even guess who won the 2019 IPL, let alone the 2018 version. Now this could certainly be seen as an expected line of thinking from a man who continues to dominate in the IPL, yet has not played a T20 for his country since 2017, but we wondered if there was more to that? Now, it should be noted that doing better in one field than another does not indicate preference. I love money as much as I love gaming, but I play PlayStation every night, and I seem to never have money. That said though, we thought it was worth a look to see if AB plays T20 internationals with the same verve and chutzpah as he does in the IPL.  AB de Villiers batting T20 batting records   IPL T20 matches 166 78 Runs 4734 1672 ...