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.

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 ...

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.  

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 ...

  Time was once when Dale Steyn was arguably the best pace bowler in T20. From his debut in 2007 until 2014, Steyn averaged 15.98 at an economy rate of 6.45. In T20 terms, that is a supernatural level of productivity. It showed in his IPL purchases as well, as Steyn was regularly auctioned off for prices in excess of a million dollars. From the first IPL tournament until 2014, Steyn had never gone at more than 8 runs an over. Indeed from 2008-2014, he went at an economy rate of 6.6. Almost unheard of level of efficiency from a pace bowler at the time, and even now.  That was then, however. The biggest mistake a team can make is to be married to the past. Someone once said, "The past is a wonderful place, but you can't live there". We live in the present, and at present, continuing to persist with Steyn would be a mistake. Since the clock struck midnight on the 31st of December 2014, Steyn has provided a steady diet of average to below average T20 cricket. Even now, as we ...