CricketZA

South African bowling coach Charl Langeveldt feels that despite South Africa being mollywhopped from pillar to post the entire summer in Tests, there are positives and reasons for hope. It started with an absolute battering in the sub-continent at the hands of a rampant Indian side, there was a brief respite for a minute as Fortress Centurion stood tall, and then continued through three beatings of increasing severity against England.   “When I started with Cricket SA in December‚ we had a Test series against England which did not give us a lot of time as a unit to gel as a team‚” said Langeveldt, himself a former Test cricketer" “We had a lot of youngsters coming into the setup and that was really hard. “In saying that I also think there were lots of positives from the Test series. I think the guys played really well in patches but as a unit we couldn’t get it together as a bowling and as a batting unit.” Langeveldt was added to the Protea backroom staff with less tha...

In boxing they say Father Time is undefeated, an idiom which  essentially means that there is no fighter alive who has ever managed to defeat the onslaught of the passage of time. Reflexes get slower, the ability for the brain to tell the body what it's seeing slows just enough to allow gaps that were once huge openings now pass by without incident.  Twelve months ago, Faf du Plessis would have been on top of the world. Sure, South Africa had just lost to Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka, but they had beaten both Australia and India within 3 months of each other, and then they would go on to whitewash Pakistan to complete a rare series whitewash. There could have been an argument that had du Plessis retired then and there, he would arguably have been South Africa's greatest Test match cricket captain of all time.  What happened next beggars belief. Firstly, Sri Lanka came to town. At the time, Sri Lanka had lost five Test matches in a row, and had only...

Rassie van der Dussen and nightwatchman Anrich Nortje put a stop to any thoughts England had of a quick morning session with a dogged half-century partnership which  helped lift South Africa to 197/7, and the lead to over 300. The lead, which already appears insurmountable will likely balloon past 350 in the next session with the mood and form which Quinton de Kock is in. He is currently at the crease with Vernon Philander. de Kock has already taken a liking to Jofra Archer's pace bowling dispatching him for three sixes and a four. The English will be hoping for a miracle on a ground which  has never seen 300 chased, and has only seen 200 scored by the side batting last once in  the last 10 years.

For all the talk of the changes which were being introduced to the South African cricket team, Day One of the domestic summer revealed the same problems. Joe Root won the toss, and inexplicably decided to bowl first on a deck which has a reputation for being incredibly up and down towards the end of the game. When you opt to bat last in Centurion, you really do basically have to roll the opposing team, and set yourself up to either bat only once, or only chase like 100 to win on the final day. With South Africa already on 278/9, chances are pretty high that this will not be a situation where England will only bat once. From that perspective, you could argue that honours were even on day on. Add in that England won the toss, and you could say that South Africa won the day. With that said, however, it did seem like much of the same problems remained. South Africa, who it must be remembered are in the middle of a five-game losing streak, showed many of the same batting frailties which...