CricketZA

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 ...

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...

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...

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 v...

With Graeme Smith formally announced as the permanent Cricket South Africa Director of Cricket, focus has shifted to the next most important role in the national set-up. Test captain. Smith indicated earlier today that Quinton de Kock would not be the Test captain, according to SA cricket Magazine . "It's not going to be Quinton," he said, citing De Kock's responsibility as the country's limited-overs captain as well as being wicketkeeper and a key batsman. "Quinton will be our white-ball captain but from a workload and mental capacity aspect we want to keep him fresh. From personal experience I know that captaining all three formats is challenging and we don't want to overburden him." In some respects this is an understandable move. As the wicket-keeper and de facto lynchpin of the batting line-up, one could argue, quite convincingly that de Kock is stretched as is, especially considering that he is the captain of the limited overs sides. ...

Cricket South Africa have formally announced that former Protea cricket captain, Graeme Smith has been appointed as Director of cricket in a permanent capacity. Smith, 39, has signed a two-year contract which will run through until the 31st of March 2022. The move will come as a relief for South Africa, who have endured a difficult 12 months on the cricketing front, having lost seven out of their last eight Tests, and enduring an embarrassing group stage World Cup elimination. "Graeme has made a huge impact with his energy, expertise, hard work ethic and characteristic determination and passion he has brought to the position during the six months he has served in an acting capacity," CSA Acting Chief Executive Jacques Faul said on Friday.  "Although there is certainly a great deal of work to be done, as reflected by the performances of our various national teams, he has certainly put our cricket on an upward trajectory that provides light at the end of the tunne...

Cricinfo once described Graeme Smith as "Meaty, Mighty and Muscular", quite fitting given the fact that he is 6'4. His nickname, "Biff" is born from the way he muscles a cricket ball. Basically, Graeme Smith is if "Power and Aggression" was a person. But there's a little more to Smith than just sheer force. There's also an almost reckless sense of bravery. Much like the good Lord, this bravery giveth (after all, you need to be quite brave to accept the job of national team captain at the humble age of 22). It has also most definitely taketh (South Africa found themselves 27/5 in a World Cup Semi-Final while playing "Brave cricket"). There was obviously a high level of Cricket and general intelligence, and there was definitely a sense of ambition. Born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa to Graham (yep) and Jane Smith, Smith showed early leadership qualities from a young age while attending King Edward VII. Having moved down to...