CricketZA

 Cricket South Africa has revealed the fixture slate for the 2020/2021 season. The season promises to be a jam-packed one with England, Sri Lanka, Australia and Pakistan all slated to tour South Africa, while South Africa has a potentially historic tour to Pakistan on the horizon following the home stand. South Africa have not toured Pakistan since 2007. The biggest shock of the fixture list sees the New Year's Test match, long the fiefdom of the Newlands Cricket stadium, being hosted by the Wanderers Cricket Stadium as CSA attempt to minimize travel.  “We are delighted to announce the schedule of men’s international cricket for the home season,” commented CSA Acting CEO, Kugandrie Govender. “It is an absolute pleasure to deliver more good news for our cricket-loving fans to consume, following last week’s confirmed tour against England and domestic season launch. “The COVID-19 pandemic predictably forced many changes to the ICC Future Tours Programme (FTP) and the traditional ...

The last time Theunis de Bruyn was in the subcontinent, he scored a fourth innings hundred in Sri Lanka. A fourth innings ton in the subcontinent buys you a lot of time, especially in tours to the sub-continent. The reason is pretty simple, the fourth innings of a game is when the pitch is at it's most decrepit, Asian pitches generally take turn sooner than non-subcontinental pitches, so it does reason that if you score a ton in the fourth innings in Asia, you must by definition be some sort of genius level player of spin.  That is the only reason Theunis de Bruyn is on this tour. We would not be in favour of dropping him after just the one Test, but his dismissal in the first innings, a big booming cover drive against Ravindra Jadeja, with light fading and the day nearly done, was both reckless and unnecessary. Yes, batting is about scoring runs, and as such if balls are in slots which  players identify as their strong zones, they should feel within their rights to have ...

South Africa ended the third day of their first Test vs India 385/8, still 117 runs behind India's first innings total of 502/7. The stars of the day were undoubtedly Dean Elgar and Quinton de Kock, with both batsmen reaching hundreds. Following the nightmare that was the 2015 Test series in India, you could have been forgiven for expecting the worst when The Proteas came out to bat. You could also have been forgiven for assuming that the worst had come to pass when the Proteas ended day two on 39/3, a harrowing reminder of the last time the boys were in India. But today went against script. Led first by Dean Elgar, the Proteas showed a value for their wickets which should stand them in good stead. It's almost a cliche to call Dean Elgar a nuggety cricketer. He values his wicket, is willing to put his body on the line during his innings, is the first to arrive at the gym and the last to leave, etc etc. The real star of the show though, entertainment wise at least, was Quin...