The SA20 franchise tournament is taking precedence over the Test team and a rich red-ball history is now in danger So this is how it ends. Not only with a whimper and the impotent shrugging of shoulders, but under thick globules of sponsored maximums, reflective uniforms and suffocating excess. Like geese with bloated livers we’ve had a thing we love stuffed down our throats so that there’s no room for nourishment. If this is indeed how South African Test cricket dies then let’s be quick about it.Cricket’s landscape would be unrecognisable without South Africans. Not only have the Proteas provided some of the greatest exponents of the craft, but exports and expats have shaped the destinies of other nations as...
ODI series will last less than a week – a far cry from 13,000-mile round trips made by steamer and 60-hour coach journeysA philosophical question: does England’s one-day international series in South Africa really count as an overseas tour? The first match takes place on Friday, the last on the following Wednesday. Two of the games are at the same ground in Bloemfontein and the other within day-tripping distance – you can get to Kimberley in less than two hours on the bus. It will be the briefest, slightest cricketing incursion an England team has made to the country. Perhaps, in a modern age of peripatetic players and bite-size schedules, any tour less than a week in length could be...
From now on everything will be geared around making a success of the latest 20-over franchise – it’s quite a riskThe future arrived at a quarter to three on a miserable Tuesday afternoon in January. It was ushered in live on Sky Sports Cricket by Mark Nicholas. He was at Newlands where Paarl Royals were playing the Mumbai Indians Cape Town in the first game of the new SA20. According to the league commissioner, Graeme Smith, they dropped the ‘T’ from ‘T20’ deliberately. There are a lot of these leagues out there now and, Smith said, the South Africans hoped this would help theirs stand out from the crowd. Another starts in the UAE on Friday when the Dubai Capitals...
With a series win in the bag, injuries to consider and a looming visit to India, the hosts have the freedom, scope and necessitySydney is a place for experiments. Attending your first Mardi Gras parade, fomenting the Rum Rebellion, paying $4m for a dilapidated single-front terrace house: it’s all about opening your eyes with something that you may never have anticipated. There will be experiments for the third Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground this week, then. The Australian men have already won the series against South Africa, so they have the freedom. They are missing two first-choice players through injury, so they have the scope. And they are eyeing a difficult visit to India in a month’s time, so...
The tourists’ ineptitude with the bat is in stark contrast to the potency of their bowling although the MCG pitch could help reduce the disparityEverywhere you look there is decay. Things that once worked no longer do as they should. Rare success stories are inflated beyond their merit. Failures are greeted with accepting shrugs. Short term fixes are in short supply. Twist a narrative enough times and any international sports team will neatly embody the country it represents. That is not necessary when analysing the Proteas and their struggles with the bat. If anything, the comparisons with South Africa are a little too on the nose.For the daily electrical blackouts see routine batting collapses. For the failed promises of the...