Cricket Calls

India Tests take aways

2025-11-26T01:33:00.000-08:00

2-0 in India is indeed an epic Test series win. The Protea's first since 2005. The records and accolades have been amply enumerated elsewhere. Moaning about the easy run to the WTC final last cycle may stop now, or at least once the English and Aussies are done with the other Test tour ongoing and take some notice of results in other parts of the world.

What other takeaways can we call?

Shukri Conrad has found his inner P-Div
The 'grovel' comment was as cringeworthy as anything said in a presser by everyone's least favourite Snor. Bavuma and Conrad have been walking on water for a couple years now, but WTF Shukri?! I can only hope that when the time inevitably comes to eat those words, you take it as in your stride as well as Tony Greig did.

Picking allrounders
Both coaches loaded the team with allrounders. It worked for Conrad, less so for Ghambir. One coach got a lot of heat for the selections, and it wasn't the one who was winning.

Rabada misses out
Visiting quicks in India usually don't really mind missing out injured. But this time KG may have experienced a tiny amount of regret. For someone already in the GOAT discussion a record of 9 wickets at 44 in India stands out as a low point, and chances to rectify those numbers don't come along every day.

WTC cycle is ... progressing fast
Seems it's barely started, yet we're nearly halfway through? These away points will surely help the Proteas greatly.

Long wait for the next Test action The world champion Proteas play again soon... as soon as September 2026, when Australia come and visit. India on the other hand are in a hurry and head to Sri Lanka in ... August next year.

What a crowded Test calendar we have.

Photo retro: 2007-09-12 - Aus vs Zim at Newlands

2025-09-19T06:27:00.000-07:00

This was the first match in Group B of the inaugural ICC T20 World Cup. Australia batted first and meandered to 138/9, Symonds and Hodge scoring most of it. T20 was pretty new but even then it was clear this was a below-par score. Still with an attack of Lee, Bracken, Clark and Johnson Australia wouldn't have been unduly worried.

Brendan Taylor had other ideas, and hit 60 (45) to take the Zimbos to a memorable 5 wicket win. Australia still qualified top of Group B by thrashing England in their next game. Pictured are the scenes shortly after the victory - the Zimbabweans about to launch into a victory lap, the Australians stunned, and the ground staff rushing to cover the pitch under overcast skies.

This was one of two games I attended during that tournament. My middle brother was in town and came along; we were somewhat coincidentally joined by two young ladies. At least one of them was a cricket fan. We were seated in the lower stands just between the WPCC and the sitescreen. Not my favourite viewing location, but it did put Bro in position to catch one of Taylor's two sixes (not clean as it rebounded off a hand in front of us). We were expecting a low key encounter and were pleasantly surprised at being at such a memorable victory.

Afterwards we went for milkshakes because the ladies wanted to, then we dropped them off and went drinking in Claremont.

Photo was taken on my Fujifilm Finepix A350, without too much zoom.

On The Nature Of All Rounders

2025-09-02T23:15:00.000-07:00

All rounders are crickets most valuable players. Arguments over them rage longer than plain batsmen and bowlers.

One of the reasons is that all rounders are hard to pidgeon-hole into buckets. After all, every cricketer is an all rounder to some extent. Everyone can bat and bowl, that's how we learn cricket growing up. We've all played in school cricket teams where half the team bats in the top order and bowls all the overs while the other half can't bat or bowl at all.

Another reason is that all rounders are so vital to team composition. Generalising across formats, a team usually needs at least five guys who can bowl, one guy to keep wicket, and as many guys as possible who can bat. How you optimise team composition given those constraints and the varying skills of the players available is a key problem facing coaches and captains.

I've had this post parked in draft for years, not quite able to put my thoughts into words without sounding like a rambling reddit fanboi as I categorised the different types of all rounders and then speculated on the nature of team composition.

Luckily Jarrod Kimber has laid this all out way better than I could. Enjoy:

Two Tier Cricket, in the news

2025-08-07T00:10:00.000-07:00

Here we are, some years later, and two out of three WTC champs have gone teams outside the big three.

The big brains at the ICC have decided that this isn't really what they intended from this format. So inevitably two tier Test cricket is again on the agenda. A "working group" has been formed.

Lots of corporate speak in that article. I decided to post a helpful table of translations.

Pundit	Corpo Jargon Quote	Translation into English
Richard Thompson ECB Chairman	"There has to be a sense that common sense needs to play out here."	"Playing anyone other than India and Australia is stupid of us."
	"The World Test Championship could work better than it does."	"Can't have the freeloaders winning the thing, can we?"
	"What you do need is a schedule that makes a lot more sense than it currently does."	"Why spend valuable match days playing minnows when we could be making bank playing the Ashes twice a year?"
Todd Greenberg CA CEO	"The real challenge here is what role do we [the big three] all play."	"Why spend valuable match days playing minnows when we could be making bank playing the Ashes twice a year?"
	"It's incumbent on all of cricket to help."	"F*ck 'em, and the devil take the hindmost."
	"...everyone's got a very open mind to this because they know that we're going to need some level of change in order to extract value."	"Those guys know who calls the shots, and it ain't them. Bring me some more caviar and champers."

Photo retro: 2023-12-21 - SA vs India at Boland Park

2025-08-01T00:23:00.000-07:00

This was the third of three ODIs. India had batted first and put up a good 296. Photo was taken from the south western grass bank near the score board. I wouldn't swear to who was batting there but it was near the start when there was still hope, so likely de Zorzi and one of Reeza Hendricks or Aiden Markram.

Hope didn't last and India went on to take the game by 78 runs and the series 2-1. Both teams moved to Newlands next to start the Test.

More memorable for me was solo parenting three small kids through the event. The daytime temp hit 38C, and dropped sharply at sundown. One child lost a tooth midway through the first innings. Two got in trouble with security for sneaking out to fetch a ball hit too far (yes, this is thing one can do at Boland Park). I spent most of the second innings queueing to buy pizza (maybe not a bad thing given the RSA collapse), and overall spent way too much on confectionary and bottled water and way too little on beer.

As you can tell from the horrendous focal length the pic was taken with my smart phone at the time. It was a Samsung A73.

Zim tour take aways

2025-07-24T07:03:00.000-07:00

So the Proteas played some games in Zimbabwe. What can we take away from this? In no particular order...

Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo is a beautiful venue
Glorious to see red ball cricket in a venue like that. Village charm etc. The crowds looked to be having a good time too.

Wiaan Mulder and Brian Lara disagree about batting records
Was the declaration the right decision? I don't know, but I think we all know that if Mulder was batting against Australia, 1-0 up in a two match series, he sure as hell wouldn't have declared.

L-Dre Pretorius is a pretty good batter
At least for biffing first class bowlers on a flattish pitch. Still, I liked what I saw so far. He seems to have loads of time and all the shots.

Corbin Bosch is a pretty good all rounder
At least ... you know. Although looking at the list this is still a great achievment. It's a short list, and plenty others are against the minnows of the time.

Zim have got some money to spend
Why else would they be playing all this Test cricket? Cool, cool. They have some promising young players, I hope it works out for them.

There is also T20 tri series. It's not quite done yet but I guess my takeaway from that will be that tri-series were kind of weird in the 90's and have not improved since. And that NZ are much better than the Protea's B team and Zimbabwe's A team.

Two tier cricket - update

2025-07-01T02:56:00.000-07:00

Is Test cricket still two-tier?

Let's go look at the FTP.

Jul '25 - Jun '26
TESTS
T1 v T1	10
T1(h) v T2	6
T1(a) v T2	3
T2 v T2	6

The answer is: largely yes.

The big 3 are playing each other a lot. England are just gonna stick with that.

India graciously host WI, NZ and RSA.

Australia are somewhat surprisingly visiting the Caribbean, slumming it there for 3 whole Tests. I assume the WTC is to thank for this.

Some T2 series happen.

Photo Retro: 2006-03-18 - SA vs Aus at Newlands

2025-06-24T07:07:00.000-07:00

One of the first cricket photos I took. Pictured is Shane Warne bowling to Jacques Rudolph, taken from the Railway Stand at Newlands.

SA had won the preceding ODI series 3-2, with the last ODI on 12 March being the famous 438 game in Joburg. This was the third day of the first Test.

The Proteas had batted first and folded for 205 with Stuart Clark taking a fiver on debut. A creditable effort by a Proteas bowling lineup in transition restricted Aus to 308. SA second innings went no better ending on 197. Aus chased a target of 95 down with seven wickets in hand and would go on to win the series 3-0.

I can't say I remember the day clearly, but it's likely I would have spent it drinking Bosun's Bitter and getting sunburnt.

Shot was taken with a Fujifilm FinePix A350. I'd bought the camera in December 2005 at the beginning of a summer road trip back to the Eastern Cape. EXIF tells me it was taken at f4.7, 1/500s, ISO64, and a focal length of 17.4mm. The latter can't be right - it would surely have been more like the 105mm maximum supporting the advertised "3x optical zoom".

World Test XI, June 2025

2025-06-19T05:35:00.000-07:00

What better time than the end of a WTC cycle.

1. YBK Jaiswal
2. UT Khawaja
3. KS Williamson
4. JE Root
5. HC Brook
6. RR Pant (wk)
7. RA Jadeja
8. PJ Cummins (c)
9. NM Lyon
10. KG Rababa
11. JJ Bumrah

12. SPD Smith

It's a tough era for opening batters. I maintain that specialist openers are important. Resisting the urge to make like most teams and just shuffle your other batters into the position means that an unproven Jaiswal and a fading Khawaja get the spots, Ben Duckett being the next in line.

The rest of the team is a lot simpler. Williamson, Root and Brook are an easy middle order to pick. Steve Smith just misses out and carries the drinks instead.

The Indian pair of Pant and Jadeja are the top ranked keeper and all rounder respectively. Yes I want a specialist keeper, Mohd Rizwan misses out.

Lyon beats Noman Ali to the spinners spot. Bumrah, Rabada and Cummins would surprise nobody as the pace lineup, with Hazelwood the man missing out.

I've been won over to Cummin's captaincy so he gets the arm band ahead of some other strong candidates in the team.

WTC Winners 2025

2025-06-17T05:13:00.000-07:00

Honestly, my best day as a cricket fan since Kepler's Eastern Province beat Clive Rice's Transvaal (by an innings) to win the Currie Cup for the first time in 1989, a match in which my childhood batting hero Philip Amm (RIP) made 214.

Life as ever is busy with various other priorities and projects. I'm going to try and make more regular updates here. After all opinions are for free, and I've got a bunch.

Two-Tier Cricket Has Arrived

2021-02-03T00:28:00.003-08:00

It's been discussed and rejected before, but like it or not Two Tier International Cricket is here. It was coming anyway and the Covid-19 pandemic has made it the de facto reality.

The Tier 1 teams play each other, and the Tier 2 teams play each other. Occasionally a Tier 2 team gets an Exhibition Tour over at one of the Tier 1 nations place, where they are expected to provide spirited but ultimately futile resistance.

State of play at the time of writing: England's brave venture into Sri Lanka is the only T1 visit to a T2 team. And that was clearly intended as a warm up in Asian conditions for the upcoming English visit to India.

	Mar 20 - Feb 21
TESTS
T1 v T1	4
T1(h) v T2	6
T1(a) v T2	2
T2 v T2	7

Is it likely to change?

Nope

	Feb ‘21 - ‘22
TESTS
T1 v T1	5
T1(h) v T2	2
T1(a) v T2	0
T2 v T2	3

Happy 2019

2019-01-02T05:07:00.002-08:00

My it's been a while. Let's do Alan's World Test XI!

1. FDM Karunaratne
2. D Elgar
3. KS Williamson (cpt)
4. V Kohli
5. CA Pujara
6. Shakib al Hasan
7. Q de Kock (wk)
8. R Ashwin
9. PJ Cummins
10. K Rabada
11. JM Anderson

12th man: RA Jadeja

With Warner banned, Karunaratne sneaks in to join Elgar as the specialist openers. Williamson captains from number 3. And with Smith also banned Pujara joins Kohli in the middle order.

Shakib gets the all rounder slot at 6, one above de Kock who only gets the gloves because both Buttler and Bairstow don't seem to be keeping in Tests any more.

The pace attack of Rabada, Cummins and Anderson picks itself. Honestly you could pick the next three in line (Philander, Abbas, Boult) and not lose much at all.

Ashwin actually lags Jadeja on the rating table right now, but already having included Shakib (and a good dollop of personal preference) means I'm picking the offy in the spinner slot. Ravi carries the drinks.

Anniversary Post

2016-09-06T01:01:00.000-07:00

Being one year since I posted last.

Not much has changed for my IRL, but some has changed in the world of Cricket.

Let's cop out on creating content and look at Alan's World Test XI!

1. DA Warner
2. AN Cook (cpt)
3. SPD Smith
4. JE Root
5. KS Williamson
6. JM Bairstow (wk)
7. R Ashwin
8. SCJ Broad
9. HMRKB Herath
10. DW Steyn
11. JM Anderson

12th man: HM Amla

Warner and Cook the best two specialist openers. Cook for captain over Smith because I reckon he's grown into it. The middle order of Smith, Root, Williamson could be reordered; Amla just misses out and is carrying the drinks.

Bairstow keeping and batting at 6, Ashwin provides an interesting spin option in the allrounder slot.

Steyn, Anderson and Broad are the pace spearhead. Ashwin is also the top rated spinner but since he's already in we have the pleasure of picking everyone's favourite green grocer HMRKB Herath to round out the bowling attack.

Forgotten but not gone

2015-09-01T04:20:00.000-07:00

Life's been too busy for cricket blogging. Until I can pipe my thoughts direct, typing the input will continue to be a barrier to entry.

Yet cricket goes on. Let's look at Alan's World Text XI, just for fun.

1. DA Warner
2. CJL Rogers
3. SPD Smith (cpt)
4. HM Amla
5. JE Root
6. AB de Villiers (wk)
7. Shakib al Hasan
8. Yasir Shah
9. SJC Broad
10. TA Boult
11. DW Steyn

12th man: AD Mathews

Rogers gets a temporary recall from early retirement to partner Davey at the top. It's that or go digging for Cook way down the list.

Smith, Amla, Root and AB for the middle order. Smith to wear the armband as a nod to the new generation. AB to take the gloves, another compromise since next in line is Sarfraz Ahmed.

Shakib beats out Mathews to the all-rounder slot, and backs up Yasir's leggies. Broad, Boult and Steyn form the pace spearhead.

Fair Play and Good Behaviour

2014-04-30T07:06:00.002-07:00

"But we understand there's a line you can't cross. You can go close to it, but you can't cross it. I think generally Australians play cricket extremely fairly, and play sport extremely fairly."
~ Michael Clarke

Clarke has come out in defence of his team's behaviour. I think this deserves some calling out.

Drawing a line between fair play and good behaviour is a red herring. Clarke and his men certainly do play fair, in that they don't cheat. If anything they tend to play fairer than average. Australian teams tend to see fewer match fixing scandals, fewer bent-elbowed spinners, and more walkers than other teams.

But good behaviour is not the same as fair play. Over the last two years Clarke's team has regularly crossed the line into unacceptable behaviour for a cricket field. There's prior here. Australian sledging has always been legendary, and Steve Waugh's doctrine of mental disintegration was well known. Both skirt the line bordering on boorish behaviour; neither are against the rules of the game. Clarke's men have physically confronted umpires and opposition players en mass, which crosses way over the line of what's acceptable. That behaviour might be tolerated on soccer fields, but it has no place in a game of cricket.

The Australians get away with this because of their place in the Big Three and because the morality of world cricket is still overwhelmingly Anglo-centric. Imagine if the Bangladeshi team massed to confront an umpire about a decision. If a Pakistani player sprouted some of David Warner's lines to the media. If the West Indian fielders broke out in dog howls to see a batsman off (and if it was a Muslim batsman?). Those players and teams would have been instantly and heavily disciplined.

The rest of the cricketing world is going to need to put up with Clarke and his team's ugly and ungentlemanly behaviour, because the authorities are on his side. That sword cuts both ways, so the most that the rest of us can look forward to is watching some disrespectful bad behaviour from Virat Kohli when India visit the land of Oz.

T20 World XI

2014-04-13T23:07:00.003-07:00

Following the conclusion of the World T20 we're in a bit of a doldrums in world cricket. What better time to pick a World T20 XI!

I guess if you're going to follow the IPL closely it's not really a doldrums. For me, only Super Rugby exceeds the IPL for drawn-out pointlessness. Which is a pity because there is actually some decent cricket played each IPL, it's just buried amidst endless other dross.

Enough chit chat. Here's Alan's current World T20 team:

1. AJ Finch
2. V Kohli
3. AD Hales
4. BB McCullum (cpt)
5. MDKJ Perera (wk)
6. F du Plessis
7. Mohammad Hafeez
8. KMDN Kulasekara
9. SP Narine
10. MA Starc
11. S Badree
12th man: Shakib al Hasan

Unlike Tests and ODIs I'm not hung up on specialist openers here. The best six in the world can line up in pretty much any order. This one works for me, although I think JP's unlucky to miss out to Faf at 6. Baz to captain, and we'll hand Kushal the gloves.

Hafeez gets the all rounders slot, relegating Shakib to drinks-carrier.

Narine and Badree select themselves, and that's enough spinners for me. Ajmal, Ashwin, Senanayake and Nat McCullum are the spinners to miss out as we scan down the list for the top two pacers. Starc and Kula to open the bowling.

World T20 Team Of The Tournament

2014-04-07T04:05:00.000-07:00

The stooges over at the ICC have announced a team of the tournament.

The team was picked, quoth the good selectors, "on the basis of performances in the tournament only. Statistics were used but were not the sole basis for selections."

Other than statistics, the overriding criteria appears to have been to pick Indian players.

Taking into account only performances in the games, with no selection quotas applied, the team would look like this:

1. RG Sharma
2. SJ Myburg
3. V Kohli (cpt)
4. TLW Cooper
5. JP Duminy
6. Shakib al Hasan
7. W Baressi (wk)
8. MA Jamil
9. S Badree
10. Imran Tahir
11. Al-Amin Hossain
12th man: R Ashwin

At Least No One Can Say We Choked...

2014-04-06T23:12:00.001-07:00

... because on the night, India was clearly the better team. The Proteas were outplayed, man for man.

~

This review by the estimable Firdose Moonda really says all that there is to say about our T20 (and ODI) sides: less than the sum of the parts. I'm not sure what the problem is, but by now I would say that it's become chronic and is a much worse problem than the old "chokers" tag. At least "choking" meant only losing a couple of high-profile games. This new mediocrity results in a lot more losses.

~

Sri Lanka went on to win it. It's a good send off for some of their legends. Hard times lie ahead in transition for them, but for now they are deserving T20 champions.

~

As the lands here under the Southern Cross begins to slide into winter darkness there isn't much cricket in the immeadiate future. The Protea's next date is with the Lankans in July, over at their place. I have a selection of ideas to write about during the slow news days, but we'll just have to see how it goes.

On the South African limited overs team

2014-03-30T12:03:00.000-07:00

For a while now I've been asking myself:

What the hell's wrong with our limited overs side?

This question is usually muttered while turning away from another dismal TV broadcast, or glumly following another cricinfo commentary feed from my office desk. Once it felt like we were the team to beat in ODIs. Pundits marvelled at our home ODI series record. When T20 came around it felt like we were ahead of the curve, ready for this new format where other sides were still groping for answers.

How valid is this feeling? For a change I rolled up my sleeves and spent some time working up some numbers for you (and even this paltry exercise took too long - the child woke up, suddenly it was food, bath, etc and hours before any more cricket blogging took place).

ICC ODI ranking for South Africa in January of each year

The ICC rankings seem to back up that feeling. The Proteas ODI side seems to be in the worst mid-table slump since the years directly following readmission. I haven't done the same for the T20 rankings - you do it, gentle reader - but I bet you'd find the same.

So, why is this? I have some theories. Prop yourself up against the bar, get another beer, and I'll run them past you.

Focus on the Test side
This current golden age of South African Test cricket didn't come without a price. The performance of the Test side has been put at a premium over the limited overs teams. Players critical to Tests have been rested for ODIs and T20's; future generations will look at Steyn's record and wonder why he player so few of them. Limited overs games have been used to try out promising youngsters and likely "transformation players". The captaincy has changed hands more often and more experimentally. On the whole it's been taken a lot less seriously, and the results show it.

Other teams have gotten better
Especially at T20. These days the top sides seem to be playing a different game to the Proteas. Once upon a time the men in green and gold revolutionised ODIs with their fielding and running between wickets. T20 has come and the game has moved on. Teams around the world have identified new tactics and skill sets that are needed for winning, while we're still trying to play the same game. I have some theories about the team composition needed to win T20's (maybe worth a whole blog post), and it includes beefy baseball-style hitters, unconventional pacemen and mystery spinners. We have none of the above, instead we have...

An obsession with all rounders
All rounders have always a South African strong point. But you only need so many in a team, and we've had a lamentable tendency to pack our sides with three or four bits-n-pieces players (in addition to Kallis) instead of the best specialists available. Ever since Pollock and Klusener we've expected every provincial all rounder to deliver match-winning performances. Vernon Philander managed to escape that trap, although we're all slowly remembering that the guy can bat too. Others like Justin Kemp and Albie Morkel were victims of the expectations of the past. Cricket is a game where specialists shine - wicket takers and run makers need no extra skill (well, these days they do need to be decent fielders too). All rounders are a bonus, not a strategy.

Choking
The choking rep hasn't helped either. But the enough has already been said about that all over everywhere, which is probably part of the problem.

~

So as the Proteas proceed into the semis of the World T20, I'll be watching with low expectations. I think this team has done well to get as far as it has. Anything further will be gravy, especially against an unbeaten Indian side in their (almost) home conditions. I think there are some signs that our limited overs teams are coming out of this current funk, but there's a ways to go still until the glory days are back.

World Test XI, Q1 2014

2014-03-23T23:19:00.001-07:00

Because there's no Test cricket for a while, and because the World T20 hasn't really fired my interest yet, and because we were AFK this weekend and this is a quick one to whip up... it's time for a snapshot of the World Test XI! This exercise amuses me, and it'll be a regular feature of this blog.

1. DA Warner
2. AN Cook
3. HM Amla
4. KC Sangakkara (cpt)
5. AB de Villiers (wk)
6. S Chanderpaul
7. VD Philander
8. MG Johnson
9. RJ Harris
10. DW Steyn
11. Saeed Ajmal

12th man: R Ashwin

Like some teams around the world, this XI finds itself in a state of some transition. It's hard times for specialist openers, with only Warner really putting his hand up. Cook sneaks in as the next best specialist. Smith is still listed but was not considered following his retirement.

No so with the middle order. Amla, Sanga, AB and Chanders would stand up to any in history. Taylor is unlucky to miss out. AB is still keeping for the Proteas so he gets the gloves here too. With no current captain selected I'm handing the arm band to the ever-classy Sangakkara.

Philander earns himself a promotion to 7 by topping out the all rounder ratings. Ashwin is hot on his heals but only makes the reserve slot.

Johnson, Harris and Steyn round out the fast bowling options. Along with big Vern that makes quite a pace battery; Sanga's only problem will be deciding who gets to open the bowling. Ajmal retains the spinners spot, just edging Herath out.

There we have it. We'll take a look at a World T20 XI as soon as the tournament wraps up, like next week or something.

SA v Aus: Rounding Up The Calls

2014-03-16T11:50:00.000-07:00

The world of cricket moves fast enough these days that keeping to a one-post-per-week schedule feels like a plodding pace as news races past. As I write this Nepal have just thrashed Hong Kong on the opening day of World T20. More about that next week. Maybe.

In this post I'm going to look way way back into ancient history at the Australian victory in the Test series against top ranked South Africa. This won't be a wordy series review or well thought out retrospective. No, this evening we're going to tally up the pre- and mid-series trash talk and see how it panned out.

~~~~o~~~~

Aussie Trash Talk Roundup

Nobody talks smack like the Aussies. Let's see how they did.

"This Australian attack is the best in the World." ~Michael Clarke
Fired off before the Ashes were even over, this one got the South Africans justifiably heated up. Now that the dust has settled it has to be said that Clarke's fast men out bowled their Saffa counterparts. However Australia ended the series with a different pace attack than they started with, and Lyon's spinners were no better than JP Duminy's.
The call: EVENS

"I think he [Johnson] probably is the best fast bowler in the world at the moment." ~Craig McDermott
I'm willing to let the stats speak for themselves here. Mitch sure is on fire. Hope the toe comes right soon.
The call: WIN

"Still 'bull....', Graeme?" ~Daniel Brettig after the first Test.
Port Elizabeth followed a few days a later.
The call: FAIL

"I would have liked to see him [Vernon Philander] bowl at Adelaide in that second Test when he apparently hurt his back." ~David Warner
Vern bowled his share of hard overs during the series, albeit without much success. Warner's series was dazzling, but he can't justifiably accuse his opponent of shirking any work.
The call: FAIL

"The boys have learned how to play him [Vernon Philander]." ~Peter Siddle
With seven wickets at 51, the Aus top order sure seemed to have worked out how to play Philander.
The call: WIN

"They did it better than what we did, or more obvious than what we did." ~David Warner, on ball tampering
Warner followed up by accusing AB's wicketkeeping gloves. I don't think much needs to be said about this one.
The call: FAIL

"Low and slow, it [PE] is the sort of wicket that threatens to kill cricket instead of the batsmen who play on it." ~Malcolm Conn, after Day 2 at PE
This pretty much summed up the Aussie whining during and after the PE Test. Conn was singing a different tune after day 4.
The call: FAIL

"David Warner’s lack of respect making Australia look like whingers." ~Malcolm Conn
When a low-brow critic like Conn - whose column is written at a 8th grade reading level using the maximum number of monosyllables and single-sentence paragraphs - disses you like this it's pretty embarrassing. Good on Mr Conn.
The call: WIN

~~~~o~~~~

Alan's Calls

Because we're all about objectivity over here. Let's take a look at my own pre-series predictions.

"My money is on Ryan Harris as the danger man"
Mitch sure did pitch, but I stand by this prediction. One has only to watch the highlights of the last Test and read the post match press coverage to see how important Harris is to the side. The Australians will be hoping that he makes a swift post-op recovery.
The call: WIN

"If Steyn, Philander and Morkel stay fit enough to play all the games the Proteas will probably win"
Steyn's fitness struggle was pretty clear, and Morkel wasn't without niggles. So I've got an out here. Still, they took the field in all the games, so...
The call: EVENS

"The senior [batsmen] in Smith, Amla and de Villiers are going to need to collectively make up the extra man"
I'll stand by this one too. Too bad Smith's head was in a different place.
The call: WIN

"Clarke is world class [...] Of the rest, I've always rated Warner and Spud Smith. The rest are a mix of overrated senior pros and unproven rookies."
The first half was a bit of a no-brainer, but I'll take credit for it anyway. The second was born out by the performances of Marsh, Doolan and Rogers.
The call: WIN

"Tail end runs [will be] a vital difference."
Both tails scored runs, but neither was that vital to the results.
The call: FAIL

"And finally... Sledging"
Again, a no brainer in any Aus/SA context. If anything the Aussies have gotten worse over the years. Maybe the stump mikes are just better.
The call: WIN

~~~~o~~~~

Memories of Captain Smith

2014-03-09T12:58:00.001-07:00

On the 30th of December 2002 I packed my worldly posessions into my newly purchased '98 Citi Golf and drove the Garden Route to Cape Town, leaving my parent's house behind me to start my first job in an unfamiliar city. The car wasn't very full. January 2003 was spent sleeping on the floor of a rented bachelor flat. My first paycheck arrived on the 25th and because the World Cup was around the corner I bought a television and stood it against the wall on top of the box it came in. In February I watched the Proteas knocked out of the tournament, and slept on the floor for another month.

Graeme Smith and I are just about the same age. I remember being struck by this when he was first drafted into the side in 2002. The other cricketers in the national side at the time were clearly older guys than myself. But Smith wasn't. Suddenly growing up didn't seem that far away. Except for my lack of any actual skill at playing the game - a pesky detail that many sports fans must face - I was able to look at him and said to myself "that could be me".

Later in 2003 I remember evenings spent at my flat window, beer can in my hand, looking out over the shadows lengthening over Rondebosch and listening on the radio (or following on cricinfo, I forget) as Smith, now captain, piled up the runs against Nasser "what's-his-name" Hussain's England. The poms burgled a drawn series there, but Smith claimed the first of his three English captain scalps as Hussain resigned.

South African cricketers will always be divided into two groups for me: pre-Smith and post-Smith. Those before him belong to my father's sporting generation. I remember seeing them on TV from the vantage point of his couch or with him in the stands at St Georges Park, watching the isolation era Currie Cup and then later as Kepler and Hansie led the return to international cricket; the memories of scholar and a student. My memories of Proteas cricketers from Smith onwards are from a different city, with different company and part of a different life.

My second last year renting that bachelor flat in Rondebosch was 2006. On the same television, still sitting on it's box, I remember watching the 438 game. Most of the Australian innings was spent not watching the set, but the same can't be said for the three hours after that. Gibbs rightly gets remembered for his batting that day, but Smith's rapid-fire batting first up is what set the pace and made us all believe it was possible. It seldom gets the credit it deserves (and neither does van der Wath's manic 30 in the dying overs of the chase).

I suspect that history will largely remember Graeme Smith for the last five years of his captaincy. The Proteas team that he led from 2008 to 2013 dominated home and away, failing only to bring home any ICC silverware. His record as a batsman will always fall just slightly short of the greats, especially after a year of poor form at the tail end. Despite that he still rates as the greatest opening batsman South Africa has produced. If his feats as a captain outshine those as a batsman it is only because the former are so memorable.

I will remember Smith as the sportsman who divided my childhood from my adulthood. Eleven years after I watched him take Jonty's place in the 2003 World Cup squad, we both have young families and different priorities. The world has moved on from the days of our youth. Good luck and godspeed where ever life takes you from here Graeme. Thanks for all the memories.

On Statistics And This Blog

2014-03-02T11:36:00.003-08:00

As I type the rain is falling in Cape Town and there's only one team that can win the deciding Test from here. Clarke and his top order have picked the right game to get their act together. I don't expect many more interruptions of play, so a result is entirely possible. We'll need to see what the next nine sessions bring, but a post on whatever those events are will have to wait a little longer.

While we all wait for the start of play at Newlands (10am tomorrow folks), it's time to deploy one of my designated backup pieces: the place of statistics in this project of mine.

Along with a love of cricket I'm equally unashamed to admit a love for statistics. It was my second major at university. While that isn't much of a claim to fame, it is enough to know my correlation from my causation.

Statistics and cricket are usually thick as thieves. The nature of the game leaves much (but not enough) that can be quantified and lots of time (in hindsight) to analyse the data. It's almost an unwritten convention that no cricketing opinion should offered but that it is backed up by some or other statistical snippet.

Despite all this, you will not find many numbers quoted or stats expounded here. This might seem a strange choice and so here, for the record, are my reasons:

Time. Did I mention that I don't have much free time? Compiling accurate and enlightening stats to back up my points takes time - time that I don't have. Where I feel it matters I will usually fact check my statements. Please to go over to Statsguru and check up on me.

Redundancy. The truth is that there's nothing much that I can add to the field. Well, there may be - I have some interesting ideas for cricket stats that I'd like to see - but not without a significant investment of my time. The pages of cricket writing both online and offline already include greater volumes of commentary on and creation of cricket statistics than, frankly, is sensible or decent. I especially direct those looking for a fix of cricket statistics to the excellent writings of Kartikeya Date and Anantha Narayanan.

Lies. And damn lies, and statistics. I may not be the sharpest tool in the statistical shed, but I know enough to understand how the numbers can be shaped to support the most subjective arguments. I would rather not be part of that.

Subjectivity. Because at the end of the day these are opinion pieces. I don't want it to feel like this is a lecture hall where assertions are carefully laid out on a chalk board, explained and proven. No sir, coming here should feel like getting trapped with me against the bar of a busy pub and having to listen while I bend your ear over a couple of pints about the game that we both love.

One All

2014-02-23T22:01:00.001-08:00

Despite a slow track, Smith's continued lack of form, being one bowler down (dammit Parnell!), being without a specialist spinner and a day five rainstorm literally looming on the horizon the Protea's rose to the occasion and handed out a lesson on what it takes to be number 1. Not for nothing have they held that rating fo the past 18 months.

There's lots that could be said, but to paraphrase cricinfo commentor SurlyCynic I think that the comments posted all over by Aussie fans pretty much sum it up:

Before the Test: "It doesn't matter what the pitch is like, Johnson will destroy you!"
After Day 1: "Pitch doctoring! This is the perfect anti-Mitch pitch! - slow and low, totally unlike the usual PE pitch which is... erm, slow and low."
After Day 2: "SA got lucky wickets. Aus will recover to make 400. AB is the world's most boring batsman to watch"
After Day 3: "Rain is forecast for day 5!"
After Day 4: "We were screwed by the umpiring decisions!"

Further commentary from me will wait until after the deciding Test at Newlands. It doesn't look like I'll be getting there in person, but you never know....

Capitulation

2014-02-16T03:46:00.001-08:00

The last five years have been a golden age for South African cricket - clearly the best since readmission and certainly among the best of our cricketing history. In one week, on and off the field, we've seen the first glimmers of the future. It ain't pretty.

In the board room, CSA's troupe of administrators surrendered to the will of cricket's Big Three. They were bought for depressingly little. I wish I'd been wrong, but it was an easy call to make. With CSA on board, the BCCI and it's two brides got their way and everyone else began their new lives as official lower caste citizens in the cricketing world. The last hold outs, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, abstained. I wish them luck with their continued resistance and would like to apologise on behalf of all South Africa to their fans for our bungling bureaucrat's abject surrender. Time will tell whose path was the right one to choose.

With that last sad act the saga of the ICC restructuring came to an end and there was a gap for actual cricket to take center stage. The Proteas duly followed their board's lead by throwing in the towel against a red hot Australian team. Gaps and weaknesses that have been slowly appearing in Graeme's Smith's team were rapidly wrenched open and it wasn't long before the wheels came off completely. There are two Tests to go but there needs to be a whole lot of improvement if we're going to save the series from here. We got out of jail against Pakistan and India, but I don't know if we can hope for a third such result in a row.

In the board room, CSA say that they have been promised more fixtures for the national team. We will know more once the Big Three finalise their bilateral agreements. No prizes will be awarded for predicting who such agreements will be arranged to suit. Those of us in the lower caste of cricket playing nations will just have to wait and see how the scraps of the rich are divvied out.

On the field, the Proteas will have better days than last week. We might even pull off another miraculous series rescue against these rejuvenated Australians, and even if we don't we will still be ranked #1. The golden era will continue for a while; AB, Dale and the others will fight the dying of light for some time yet. But our first post-Kallis Test has shown us that nothing lasts forever, especially not sporting success.

The wheel always turns, but this time there is a difference: the hand spinning it is the BCCI, ECB and CA. Power in the board room might not directly project across the boundary, but control over the flow of money and the scheduling of fixtures sure doesn't hurt your teams chances. The Proteas of the 2010's could be the last team outside this Big Three to dominate Test cricket.