The Proteas are back to their winning ways

I previously blogged how the South African cricket team found itself in a precarious position after losing the home Test series to England, and appearing to lack confidence. I can now safely say that the Proteas are back to their old ways (beating opponents comprehensively in all facets of the game, while playing with belief in their abilities).

Yes, the Test series losses to India and England prove that our Test squad is not what it used to be. But after winning our last five limited overs matches against England – three One Day Internationals, and two T20s, to win those series – things are definitely looking better. We will play against Australia next, in three T20s starting on 4 March. To be honest, I do not think we will win, as Australia look very good at the moment, but we must not let this get us down. We have done well to recover from where we were. After that, we will compete in the T20 World Cup.

Proteas fans can celebrate now that the team is winning again.

I took interest in a recent Graeme Pollock column. The SA batting legend said that room must be made available for Quinton de Kock in the T20 squad, event though we won the T20 series against England without him. I wholeheartedly agree with this. A slight injury kept de Kock out of the T20 series, and because of it, I felt nervous looking at our batting line up before each game. De Kock is a confident, talented and aggressive opening batsmen, with sublime timing and shot selection.

Pollock believes that de Kock is better than David Miller and Rilee Rossouw, and to fit de Kock in the side, one of those two would have to sit out. With this, I concur, although it would be a hard decision. Both have played well for South Africa in limited overs.

Another difficulty would be in deciding which opening pair to go with – with AB de Villiers, Hashim Amla and Quinton de Kock all able and available. De Kock and AB are both explosive players who play extravagant shots. They have not opened together before, but there is a first time for everything. I think our management should try it out. Hashim appears to be more subdued, but can still score at a good rate with clever stroke play.

 I will end off with de Kock's batting statistics as of 23 February, courtesy of espncricinfo.com:

Batting and fielding averages

	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Ave	BF	SR	100	50	4s	6s	Ct	St
Tests	8	12	3	407	129*	45.22	615	66.17	1	2	38	5	31	2
ODIs	57	57	3	2319	138*	42.94	2530	91.66	10	5	270	31	80	3
T20Is	22	22	4	513	48*	28.50	422	121.56	0	0	57	15	20	7
First-class	34	57	7	2404	194	48.08	2956	81.32	7	14	286	42	120	7
List A	96	94	4	3601	138*	40.01	3848	93.58	13	11	402	57	115	9
Twenty20	100	94	9	2857	126*	33.61	2123	134.57	2	14	305	105	60	16

Was the India tour a triumph or disaster?

A crushing 3–0 loss against India in the recent Test series would have left many South African cricket fans distraught, shaking their heads at how such a powerful batting line up had been easily brought to its knees. It would be very easy to forget that the Proteas won the T20 series 2–0 and the One Day International series 3–2 just weeks before.

One thing is certain: The 72-day tour was highly competitive, with both SA and India being hurt by the other side on several occasions. While the shorter format matches were closely contested, the Test series was one-sided. Batsmen scored freely, as the T20 and ODI series turned into a run contest between AB de Villiers, Quinton de Kock and Faf du Plessis for SA against Rohit Sharma, MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli for India. The Test series dissolved into one-way traffic – South African batsmen toiling, struggling to survive as long as they could against lethal Indian spinners on pitches with nightmarish turn and bounce.

Proteas Test captain Hashim Amla will feel the heat after our Test series defeat to India.

But was the tour a victory or failure? I argue that it was both.

Before the tour, South Africa had not lost an overseas Test series since 2006. In this regard, the Test series loss was definitely a failure, especially as we fell so hard. Man of the series Ravichandran Ashwin was unplayable. The Indian spinner tore our batting line up apart with his intelligent bowling, and use of variety. Ravindra Jadeja and Amit Mishra supported him well, ensuring that our batsmen had no room to breathe. The series showed that South African batsmen still do not know how to play great spinners on turning wickets. Our batsmen were bamboozled.

Having said this, the Test series did highlight a weak point for us. The Proteas coaching staff must identify it and correct it. India had not played a Test series at home in two years, so perhaps it was an honour to be selected to compete with them, whatever the result. Furthermore, how often does a team go to India and win two series? India is very strong at home, and several cricket captains such as Ricky Ponting and Graeme Smith have alluded to this. Winning any series there is an accomplishment. Thus I feel that we also succeeded in India. Our T20 and ODI series wins showed the world that we have what it takes to also be successful in the limited overs format.

At the end of the day SA won five matches, and India won five matches. Both sides would have wanted more wins.

SA are unstoppable

I previously blogged how India would beat the Proteas in the T20 series, and the One Day International (ODI) series could go either way between the sides. I never expected SA to win both series convincingly (2–0, and 3–2 respectively). Who would have thought? India, the giants of limited overs cricket, and South Africa – while incredibly strong, are too often inconsistent. It was an awesome surprise. The ODI series win was our first in India.

Faf du Plessis is on fire. Photo from NT44NZblog photo from www.sports.ndtv.com.

With the phenomenal form South Africa is in, it must be hard being an Indian player with the prospect of a four-match Test series on the horizon, especially after losing two series at home, and as South Africa is ranked first in the world in Tests. Yes, JP Duminy, Morne Morkel and Rilee Rossouw were recently injured, but South Africa pulled together as a team and performed remarkably in all aspects of the game. Fielding was good, bowling was excellent, and batting was... Batting was out of this world.

Quinton de Kock clearly likes batting in India. He scored two centuries in the series, and out of his eight ODI centuries, five were against India. Faf du Plessis showed incredible consistency in his batting, and AB is on another level in limited overs cricket. Perhaps Chris Gayle is as destructive, but even he does not obliterate bowling attacks as often as AB does.

Dale Steyn is still striking, and now Kagiso Rabada is chipping in big time. In fact, Rabada has shown confidence and big-match temperament beyond his years. Steyn and Rabada each took 10 wickets in the ODI series. So much for spin dominating in India.

On the whole, South Africa are looking as good as I have ever seen them in limited overs. Who can stop us now? Let me know what you think.

South Africans shine for Delhi

South African cricket players, and coach Gary Kirsten, are at the forefront of a Delhi Daredevils revival. The Indian Premiere League (IPL) team is currently fourth out of eight on the log in this year's tournament, as of 24 April. They have three wins and three losses, but seem to be improving from last season's dismal display. This is largely in thanks to JP Duminy, Proteas player, and Delhi captain.

Duminy has batted well thus far, scoring 207 runs at an average of 51.75 and strike rate of 129. He has scored two half-centuries. Duminy has also taken seven wickets with the ball at an average of 10.28 and economy of eight. Duminy seems to inspire his players to perform, and his great fielding helps in that regard.

JP Duminy captains Delhi Daredevils. Photo taken from www.cricketcountry.com

Imran Tahir is also the leading wicket taker in this IPL. He has 13 wickets at an average of 14.23 and economy of 7.7. Tahir is attacking the batsmen's wickets and reaping the reward. A few full and wide balls of his have been punished, but his accuracy has been excellent lately. With Indian spinner Amit Mishra also in the team not doing nearly as well as Tahir (six wickets at 25.83), it highlights the form Tahir finds himself in.

Of course, Gary Kirsten must be doing something right to rally the team from two initial losses to three wins in the next four games. Kirsten's work with the national Indian team in their 2011 world cup win was highly praised, and his period with the Proteas also saw us attain and hold the number one Test spot. It is safe to say that his strategies and approach benefit the Delhi team.

Albie Morkel has only played one match for Delhi so far. But his 73 not out off 55 balls came as a beautiful surprise to me. It was a momento of the player he used to be, and, maybe could be again. Quinton de Kock has not yet played for Delhi this season.

The Proteas and the World Cup

The ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 is so close now (it starts on 14 February) it is impossible not to get excited. Every time the World Cup comes around, we as South Africans ask ourselves the same old questions: How will we do this time? Will the Proteas choke again? The Proteas have an average record in World Cups, reaching three semi-finals in seven tournaments. Our best finishing place was third, and our worst was eighth. For a team that has usually been ranked in the top four in the world, we perhaps have not done well enough in the World Cup.

Every four years we wonder if this will be the occasion when our players will show the world how good they are, and go all the way. But to win the World Cup is not easy. A team has to have performed consistently (for about a month and a half) with the bat, the ball and in the field. Proteas Coach Russell Domingo recently said in an interview that he hopes South Africa will do better at the end of the tournament. This is where we have failed in the past, with so many bad semi and quarter-final performances.

Proteas One Day International Captain AB de Villiers will want his team to go far in the World Cup.

But we are ranked third in the world in One Day Internationals at the moment. We also have AB de Villiers in first place as ODI batsman in the world, Hashim Amla in third and (a surprise to me when I saw) Quinton de Kock in seventh place. Recent centuries by Rilee Rossouw and David Miller, and the class we know that JP Duminy has, we can be happy with our batting. 

Of course our fielding is very good at the moment. Faf du Plessis, David Miller, Rilee Rossouw, AB de Villiers and JP Duminy are very quick on the ball, and make batsman pause before trying to sneak a single.

Our bowling department is the problem. I would like to go into this at more depth another time, but although Dale Steyn is third in the world, and Morne Morkel in ninth (somehow!), our bowling has been bad lately. In my opinion Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander are our only good seam bowlers. Imran Tahir is an on-and-off spinner, but usually reliable. The rest are mediocre. 

Having said that, I can barely wait for the World Cup to start, and for the Proteas to throw that monkey off their shoulders.

Expiration date of players (Kallis, Jayawardene and de Kock)

Quinton de Kock (21) is a superb young batsman. How many other young cricketers do not receive chances because older players are given positions ahead of them? Photo from CricInfo.

It was nice to see the Proteas beat Sri Lanka in a One Day International series in Sri Lanka for the first time. South Africa won the series 2–1 on 12 July thanks to centuries by Quinton de Kock and AB de Villiers in the deciding match. SA posted 339–5, their highest ODI score against Sri Lanka, and de Kock's 128 was the highest ODI score by a South African batsman against Sri Lanka. In response, Sri Lanka could only muster 257 all out.

But the series highlighted a prevailing issue: the expiration date of players.

Jacques Kallis (38 years old) again failed in a series, scoring 0, 1 and 4 (average of 1.67). At least he can say his scores were increasing. Mahela Jayawardene, Sri Lanka's veteran/legend also struggled with scores of 10, 48 and 2 (average of 20). Whereas South Africa's upcoming batsman Quinton de Kock (21 years old) scored 27, 4 and 128 (average of 53).

Jacques Kallis is a true servant of South African cricket. But perhaps it is time for him to retire. Photo from www.dailymail.co.uk

Kallis and Jayawardene have performed heroically for their countries since 1995 and 1997 respectively. Kallis is SA's best ever all-rounder and leading run scorer in Tests and ODIs. Kallis retired from Test cricket at the beginning of this year, and Jayawardene retired from International T20s at the end of the T20 World Cup.

But if both these legends keep failing, no past success should allow them to keep their positions.

Mahela Jayawardene. Photo from http://sports.ndtv.com

Incomparable conclusion

I have been away from the blog due to surgery on my wrist, a bone sticking out where it is not supposed to, coupled with a ganglion (two cists in the wrist), were promptly removed. I am now recovering.

The Proteas' failure against Australia was made up for in our success so far in the T20 World Cup. The four remaining teams should provide an awesome conclusion to the tournament.

India and West Indies have both won T20 World Cups and Sri Lanka is the second best T20 International team in the world, according to ICC rankings (http://www.icc-cricket.com/team-rankings/t20i). Yet against all odds, South Africa, with its questionable limited overs squad and performances, finds itself in the semis.

The semi-final fixtures: 
Sri Lanka vs West Indies, 03 April, 15:00
India vs South Africa, 04 April, 15:00

The final will be held on 06 April at 15:00 and all these games will be played in Mirpur, Bangladesh.

India has classy players. MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli can both hit the ball from Bangladesh to Australia with little effort and Ravichandran Ashwin takes wickets while keeping economical.

West Indies, though weaker in Test matches, is more dangerous the shorter the format is. Needless to say teams must watch out for Chris Gayle and Kieron Pollard, who can both hit the ball to the moon with no effort. Amid the team's mediocre bowling lineup stands Sunil Narine, who is also one of the best spinners in T20s.

Sri Lanka has the legends Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene (who are both retiring from T20 Internationals after the tournament), but Angelo Mathews is easily one of the best all-rounders in the world.

Last, but hopefully the winners, South Africa's AB de Villiers, Hashim Amla and Imran Tahir are key.
Interestingly JP Duminy is doing very well for us. But I think if we are to win our most destructive batsman needs to have a good innings. If Quinton de Kock does well at the start of the innings it should motivate the rest of the team to perform really well.

South Africa will hope Quinton de Kock (21) will perform well near the end of the T20 World Cup. Image taken from http://sports.howzit.msn.com/

The irrationality factor of sport

The three match ODI series between South Africa and India was supposed to be one of the most competitive this year. 
It was not.

South Africa dominated India in the first two ODIs and scored 301/8 in the third before rain prevented a result. SA won the series 2-0. In all three games Quinton de Kock (20) scored a century. He received man of the series for this.  

Quinton de Kock (20) scored his first century of the series in pink. sports.ndtv.com aptly gave this photo the caption: "Baby-faced 'pink panther' Quinton de Kock takes Proteas to win in 1st ODI". Image taken from sports.ndtv.com.

This is why I love sport: Things happen that shouldn't.

Wigan beat Chelsea last season (football), Ireland nearly beat New Zealand this year (rugby), football players are judged to he worthy of extreme prices but profusely fail to live up to their designated values, and a 20 year old scores three consecutive centuries against the world number one ODI side (cricket).

These are all unpredictable occurrences that defy logic. Common sense cannot comprehend these events and has to turn its face away.

For English football fans this picture needs no explanation. For everyone else: A few years before Fernando Torres (29) came to Chelsea he was one of the best strikers in European football. Going to Chelsea, one of the better clubs in England, he received a contract worth 50 million pounds. Since then Torres has not been nearly effective. Image taken from http://www.lfcreds.com/.

In this ODI series the Proteas batsmen actually played spin better than pace, dispatching the spinners all around the ground for numerous fours and sixes. I have never seen South Africans do so well against spinners, and against Indian spinners nogal! India does not just have world-class spinners, they have world-class spinners on the bench, or unselected. Think Ashwin, Jadeja, Mishra, Ojha, Chawla...

India were (and are) the number one ODI team. South Africa are currently tied fourth with Sri Lanka. The demolition of India in the ODI series demonstrates either two things: 

1) India are still very poor away from home and their success in cricket and position in the ICC rankings is primarily due to the abundance of cricket they play at home.
2) The Proteas were simply much better than the Indian team.

Why is it that in sport we see the best lose against the worst and the most unlikely and unpredictable things happen? 

Whatever the reason, this factor makes sport all the more interesting. 

Despite the ODI series going the way it did (illogically), I am still looking forward to the Test series as I think it will be more competitive.

One last thought: the Proteas' dominance of India was predominantly facilitated by the brilliance of Quinton de Kock. Why can't he be placed in the Test squad?

My favourite IPL team - CSK

As on the night of Wednesday 10 April 2013, here is how the 2013 IPL log stands:

Pos	Team	P	W	L	Pts	NRR
1	Mumbai Indians	3	2	1	4	0.850
2	Rajasthan Royals	2	2	0	4	0.600
3	Royal Challengers Bangalore	3	2	1	4	0.352
4	Sunrisers Hyderabad	3	2	1	4	0.083
5	Kings XI Punjab	2	1	1	2	0.986
6	Chennai Super Kings	2	1	1	2	0.296
7	Kolkata Knight Riders	2	1	1	2	-0.231
8	Delhi Daredevils	3	0	3	0	-1.024
9	Pune Warriors	2	0	2	0	-1.915

The log can be seen at http://www.supersport.com or http://www.iplt20.com

Super Kings

I am a keen Chennai Super Kings fan because they are a well balanced team and have Albie Morkel, MS Dhoni, Dirk Nannes, Murali Vijay, Suresh Raina, Michael Hussey, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo, Ben Laughlin, Ben Hilfenhaus, Francois du Plessis, Nuwan Kulasekara and Chris Morris. 

All of these players have played international cricket for their countries. Subramaniam Badrinath and Shadab Jakati are also excellent players who back up the rest. Having Chris Morris there captures my favour. He is a great all-rounder for the Lions, the Johannesburg franchise.

Chris Morris (25) after a drop catch. The Super Kings beat the Kings XI Punjab today by 10 wickets after 17.2 overs. Image taken from http://www.iplt20.com

The CSK is an immense power house in cricket which is probably as strong as most countries in cricket. Out of five completed IPL seasons they won two (2010 and 2011). They were runners up in 2008 and 2012. 

Having Morkel, Morris and Bravo means they have three international all-rounders in the full squad. An IPL team is only allowed to play four non-Indian international players in any one game. Thus the extensiveness of the depth of the CSK is, well like the abyss at the bottom of the ocean. They have more international players than a full team. Not just that, but these players are some of the best in the world and the roles they fill compliment each other. The kind of cricket they play warrants my support, or even necessitates my support.

Sunrisers

The Sunrisers Hyderabad are a new team to look out for. They include Kumar Sangakarra, Amit Mishra, Cameron White, Dale Steyn, Thisara Perera, Ishant Sharma, Darren Sammy, Nathan McCullum, Parthiv Patel, Quinton de Kock and Shikhar Dhawan. 

Quinton de Kock (20) is a young South African wicket-keeper opening batsman who just made the record most runs in a South African T20 tournament (This year's Ram Slam). I hope he gets to play in the IPL. But with Kumar Sangakarra and Cameron White in the team I think the selectors will go for the experience rather than risk one of their 4 international places in the squad for an inexperienced young player.

I like that this team is perceived as the underdogs because they are new, and they don't have as many big names as the other teams. The players in this team means I make them my second favourite team.

The Sunrisers Hyderabad after getting Mayank Agrawal out againstthe Royal Challengers Bangalore. Image taken from http://www.iplt20.com