How are South Africa managing to beat Pakistan? They won the first Test and now they’re on the verge of taking a 150-run first innings lead in a despicably constricted two match back-to-back series. Well, rather ingeniously and for just about the first time since their readmittance to Test cricket
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Mark Boucher breaks record for Test dismissals
Ian Healy, Australia’s wicketkeeper before Adam Gilchrist, had 395 victims in 119 Tests. Mark Boucher’s just gone past him in his 103rd Test. Quite impressive really. There are fewer draws these days and a couple of poorer teams, which goes some way towards explaining how Boucher managed to reach this
Continue readingJacques Kallis fills the void
Shaun Pollock may have been dropped, but South Africa have got more than one crushingly dispiriting all-rounder at their disposal. In fact, South African cricket can boast a whole battalion of line-and-length-bowling competent-batting dullards. Jacques Kallis is a little better than competent, of course, although he’s a dullard in more
Continue readingShaun Pollock dropped for some reason
42 year-old ginger snoreathon, Shaun Pollock, has been dropped from the South African Test team for the first time. Rumours that South African coach, Mickey Arthur, said, ‘I can’t watch one more delivery from that freckled automaton,’ are probably true, although we haven’t heard it anywhere. Pollock’s place is supposed
Continue readingAnother choketastic performance from South Africa
We’re not gloating. England rarely even give themselves a chance to choke. No dramatic knock-outs for England. England exit tournaments quite serenely, moving from ‘performing badly’ to ‘up against it’ then ‘as good as out’ before finally reaching ‘qualification a mathematical impossibility’ – at which point they board a plane
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South Africa choke in 1999 World Cup semi final against Australia
South Africa needed nine off the final over and Lance Klusener – by some way the best batsman in that tournament – belted the first two deliveries for four. South Africa now needed one to win. The third ball went straight to a fielder, but Allan Donald was already half
Continue readingJustin Kemp: attacking batsman
No headlining effort from us today. World Cup player to watch, Justin Kemp, hadn’t done a great deal since South Africa’s first match, but yesterday he rediscovered runs. Or boundaries, at any rate. 89 off 56 balls is always handy, but when you’re chasing 154 it pretty much does the
Continue readingEngland march on – yes they do
To continue our superlative Twenty20 World Cup coverage in the manner that’s increasingly fitting… England thrashed South Africa, easily chasing down an eminently reachable target and they certainly don’t need to win the next two games in order to stay in the competition. Kevin Pietersen’s run out didn’t look this
Continue readingTwenty20 World Cup starts with South African win
Another day, another cricket World Cup. We think this one’s likely to be better than the 50 over one though. Many of the things that were wrong with the 50 over World Cup don’t apply here. It’s shorter, only lasting a couple of weeks. It’s only got the big teams
Continue readingNicky Boje knows it’s the INDIAN Cricket League, right?
The Indian Cricket League is a 20 over league that’s being set up by Zee TV because they don’t have the rights to existing cricket. They’re throwing money at it and signing all sorts of people who are promptly being banned from ‘proper’ cricket in India and Pakistan. One of
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