CricketZA

As recently as 12 months ago, Aiden Markram would have been maybe the prohibitive favourite in the race to Test Captain of the South African national team, but the last year has seen him deal with various issues. There are three things you could argue that the captain of a team in a sport as captain-dependent as cricket cannot be:  - Injured  - Ill-disciplined  - Out of form Unfortunately for Markram, he has displayed each of these disqualifying factors to various degrees recently. It should be remembered that while Markram may indeed have been dropped anyway from the third Test vs India due to his poor form, he wasn't even considered for selection because he had broken his hand. And by that I mean he smashed his hand against an unnamed object following his dismissal in the second test vs India. Not exactly the sort of origin story which is often seen in many captain's autobiographies, Worse, still, the reason he broke his hand was out of frustration due to a run of...

In a recent interview, former New Zealand cricketer Kruger van Wyk noted how teams that do their planning should not go through transitions, and all teams should do their planning. But of course, that is not always the case, and teams most certainly do go through transitions. But this is most certainly a transition. At the moment, South Africa have lost four Tests in a row. Dating back to the dramatic Australian series, South Africa have lost three of their last four series, including this one. Of those three, two of them have been whitewashes with one Test left in this series to avoid back-to-back whitewashes. It isn't just the results that indicates struggle and difficulty. The batting line-up is not settled. Theunis de Bruyn has played over 10 Test matches, and his average seems to somehow be sinking, which is saying something, considering the fact that it was pretty low to start off with. The search for Temba Bavuma's ideal batting position seems to be never ending, but...

Some players are earmarked for greatness from a young age. For whatever reason, the powers-that-be in a given cricket association decide that player is unique, an outlier, and as such must be given every possible chance to succeed. One can see this internationally with Mitchell Marsh, who despite being a middling bowler and statistically the worst number six batsman of all time, is not only a regular in the Australian side, but was even made vice-captain a year ago. He was then dropped soon after because, surprisingly, being made captain did not improve his poor batting. While not quite as historically poor as Mitchell Marsh, Aiden Markram has had a similar career trajectory, being promoted to roles he might not have been ready for because he was a prodigious talent. Lest we forget that he was promoted to ODI captain in Faf du Plessis' absence for the ODI series vs India, despite having played a grand total of one(!) One day Internationals up to that point. This is not to say...

Due to the ever expanding international fixture list, it is becoming more and more difficult to squeeze full tours in, so international teams have taken to completing tours in pieces. Not the worst idea, but it does mean we are left with things like seemingly arbitrary one-week tours, over three games, which have no discernible benefit. But, this is the lead up to a World Cup year after all, and with that comes a few questions that need to be answered before the big thing actually happens. Is Aiden Markram our answer at #4?  The retirement of AB de Vlliers has created a power vacuum of sorts in the national team. Now shorn of the value of one of the five greatest ODI players of all time as well as unarguably the most destructive, possibly of all time, but most definitely in his era, the team has spluttered along a bit at the death. It must be said,that AB was present for when India completely ran us over at home, 5-1, in the ODIs earlier this year, with only our Pink ODI kit...