CricketZA

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 Phi...

In the wonderfully entertaining Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Brad Pitt's title character notes that "In the end, you start to think about the beginning". Philosophically, this tends to be the case. As the end of anything draws nearer, we tend to remember the spring of that thing, be it a relationship or a life. In sport though, in the end, we tend to think about the end. This can be seen no clearer than in the case of Hashim Amla. A career which had over 18 000 runs and 55 centuries - both marks good for #2 on the all-time list in South African terms - seemed to really drag on by the end, with many calling for Zubayr Hamza to become his successor as it became clear that the well had run dry. Very few people, if any, called for him to stay once he did retire, and there has been no clamoring for his return in the way there was and continues to be for his 2004 debut alumni, AB de Villiers . Some of this obviously is because AB de Villiers was a superstar in global terms, and as ...

Hashim Amla recorded his first ever golden duck in Test cricket history yesterday. In isolation, this is not in and of itself a catastrophe. But it may be indicative of a great of the game in terminal, almost irreparable decline. Hashim Amla, great as he may be, has not averaged over 50 in a calendar year since 2014. To be fair, this does include two years, in 2016 and 2017 where he averaged 48.6 and 47.4 respectively. Still, given the fact that Hash has averaged around 26 in the last 14 months, it is hard to argue that the bell isn't beginning to ring ever louder. In 21 away Tests since 2014, Amla averages 28 at a strike rate of 38. The nadir of his away experiences were reached when Amla, once the Foreign King of Asian conditions averaged 10 in Sri Lanka. Ten. Deca. So Amla has been playing pretty far below par away from home for the last five years. But the problems have begun to extend home. In 12 tests at home, since the turn of 2018, Amla averages 29.85. He has not hit a ...

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...