The worst kept secret in South African Cricket was officially announced this afternoon; Gary Kirsten has been appointed coach of The Proteas on a two year contract. Allan Donald will be the bowling coach and Russell Domingo the assistant coach.

It was further announced that AB de Villiers will captain the T20 and ODI teams with Hashim Amla as his vice-captain. Graeme Smith retains the Test captaincy.

Awesome, Cricket South Africa has got it spot on!

Spare a thought for Vincent Barnes, previously the Proteas bowling coach. Under Banes the South African bowling attack has matured to become one of the best in the world with bowlers like Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Lonwabo Tsotsobe all within the top ten international rakings.

For all the announcements the appointment of Kirsten and Donald are particularly pleasing for me. Both these guys are legends within South African Cricket. They both broke all sorts of South African records for batting and bowling respectively.

At the RAM breakfast with Gary Kirsten which I attended last week, Gary mentioned that “… it’s the performances of the past players that have contributed to the stereotype that the current players are labelled with”. Allan Donald has been a major contributor to the tag and now the past players have the opportunity to lead the current players away for the tag to new heights in world cricket.

Interesting times lay ahead for cricket in South Africa; money couldn’t buy us better leadership than what we have today.  Congratulations Gary, hope you’re around for a long time to come.

I was more disappointed with the reaction to the loss on Saturday evening than the actual result itself. Yes I paid my hard earned money to be at The Wanderers, and I held my head in my hands when Parnell hit that shot to Yuvraj Singh, it was heart breaking.

I however didn’t turn on our team like so many did, I was really disappointed to see so many people call our team out as chokers, absolute filth was pushed on Twitter. As Mspr1nt noted in her post, you can’t consider this a ‘choke’ as this was a game of little consequence; “To fail to perform effectively because of nervous agitation or tension, especially in an athletic contest”.

Let’s not get caught up in the negative perception of a few… Looking at the positives from the game, Graeme Smith’s innings has hopefully sparked a return to form, he grafted hard on a difficult pitch to bat on. Smith’s ODI performance over the past year hasn’t been great, he scored 328 at an average of 32.8, going past 50 only once. This is Smith’s last home ODI series as captain, here’s hoping he leaves his supporters with a power batting performance over the next three games.

In the bowling department Lonwabo Tsostobe has continued to impress, he again took four wickets, following his four in the first ODI, to return his career best figures of 10 overs, 2 maidens, 22 runs, 4 wickets. I read on the SuperSport website; “He [Tsotsobe]is only the second South African to achieve this – the other being Pollock, who accomplished the feat in 2002 against Sri Lanka and Bangladesh”

It is obvious to me that the Proteas have made a conscious decision to play positive attacking cricket, their approach to this new style was exposed at The Wanderers on Saturday evening. When we got into trouble, the young guys failed to change the game plan, a valuable lesson was learnt.

I’d prefer the Proteas play positive cricket than take the boring conservative approach of yesteryear.

We all demand consistent performances from our team, I think we should show them the same respect and offer them consistent support, rather than turn on them when they lose a tight game…. So are you a fan or are you a real supporter?

South Africa hasn’t won a home Test series since the Bangladesh tour in 2008, this trend continued against India. We have not been able to affect a series win at home against Australia, England and now India in the past three years.

The result wasn’t what we were all hoping, the cricket that has been played on this Indian tour can only be described as classic and history making. Here are some statistics and my highlights from the tour:

I have to start with Jacques Kallis, he scored the most runs in the Test series, 498, with the highest average, 166.00 and top scored with 201* in the first Test at SuperSport Park Centurion. That is total domination, then factor in that he only got out three times, and one of his dismissals as a freak run out as the ball was hit back to Sharma and it ricocheted onto the stumps at the non-strikers end. Add to that he scored a second innings century, injured, when his team desperately needed him and you start to under stand why he is considered to be a playing ledged of the game. CricInfo’s S Rajesh’s column ‘Jacques Kallis, take a bow’, sums up his career to date beautifully: http://mzan.si/bpGC

The first day of the Test series saw an inspiring display of seam bowling, and I was privileged to have been there. The start to first day was preceded by some heavy rain in the Centurion area, the Hennops River burst its banks, and the Centurion lake hotel was flooded.

Much had been written about the Indian batsmen’s inability to deal with the pace and bounce of the South African wickets, this was vindicated as Morne Morkel and Dale Steyn ripped through the Indian batting line up, leaving the Indians on 136/9. I’ll remember that afternoon for a long time.

My third highlight is the 75 ball century scored by AB de Villiers. It was the quickest Test century by a South African and the 10^th fastest in all Tests. de Villiers put on 129 runs from just 112 balls to take the game away from India. CricInfo’s statistics on the fastest Test centuries.

A major highlight from this series was the continued improvement of Lonwabo Tsotsobe. The first Test in Centurion was his first home Test, he previously made his debut in the West Indies.

Tsotsobe, a left arm quick, took some heat in the first innings going at 5.55 per over, and was not able to take a wicket while the Indian batting line-up was collapsing. Tsotsobe affectionately known as Lopsy improved his performance in the second inning, conceding runs at 4.08 and managing to take his first wicket on home soil.

Tsotsobe continued to improve in the second Test in Durban; he brought down his economy rate further to 3.63, and took the wickets of Sachin Tendulkar and Pujara. In the second innings he again improved his economy rate to 3.30 and took the wickets of Sehwag, Dravid and captain MS Dhoni.

Speculation grew that Tsotsobe would be dropped for the third Test at Newlands, but the selectors showed their faith and again Tsotsobe continued his improvement. He was even more economical in both innings and was very unlucky to walk away with only one wicket when he could easily have bagged four or five if the rub of the green had gone his way.

Every Test series develops its own character, and after the run-in between Graeme Smith and Sreesanth during the second Test in Durban the heat was on. The climax of the Sreesanth vs South Africa banter came to a head on day three of the Newlands Test when a spectator chirped Sreesanth after he kicked the boundary rope in frustration. Sreesanth then had a word with the umpire and brought the game to a stand still for ten minutes, the Newlands faithful poured on the pressure with all 25 000 spectators clapping in unison while Sreesanth threw his toys out the cot.

Overall the Test series was great to watch, here’s hoping the One Day International series delivers the same intrigue and excitement.

Having lost our openers and then Hashim Amla to a shocking decision, South Africa found themselves at 33/3 after being put in to bat by Pakistan on the first day of the second Test. The fall of Graeme Smith’s wicket brought Jacques Kallis and AB de Villiers together for the fourth wicket.

The pair batted the Proteas out of trouble as they steadied the innings, both going to centuries. Kallis lost his wicket for 105 breaking the partnership, but de Villiers had other plans.

As is now well documented, de Villiers went on to score 278* breaking the record for the most runs scored in a Test innings by a South African, surpassing Graeme Smith’s record of 277. de Villiers was fortunate that the team allowed him the time to achieve this feat, at tea on the second day South Africa could easily have declared, but they sent AB out after tea to smash it around and achieve the record.

On his way to the number one position de Villiers past some of the South African greats, Pollock, Amla and Cullinan:

Top ten individual Test scored by a South African:

This achievement by AB de Villiers is significant, it illustrates how he has matured as a cricketer. A few years ago we were frustrated by this obviously talented young player that seemed to lack patients and the sense of responsibility that is required in Test cricket.

At 26 years old, with 4000+ runs behind his name, 62 matches and a Test average of 45, de Villiers has the world in his hands, and now has the self belief to go on and become one of the great South African Test batsmen.

The new look Proteas Pro20 team faced up to their first challenge of Zimbabwe of Friday night at the OutSurance Oval in Bloemfontein. The pre-match interviews were all about Zimbabwe being the underdog,  coach Allan Butch commented: “every dog has his day” – Zimbabwean cricket is rebuilding at the moment and that day will come soon.

Zimbabwe won the toss and elected to bat on a pitch that resembled the M1 South. The Zimbabwean batsmen seemed to struggle with the Protea bowlers, managing only 22 runs for 1 wicket in the first five overs.

By the time Zimbabwe had batted out their 20 overs the tag of underdogs was thrown away, Zimbabwe posted 168/4. The South African spin bowlers struggled on a pitch that offered no purchase. Opening batsman, Hamilton Masakadza played a masterful innings of 72 from 63 balls, consisting of six 4’s and two 6’s. Chamu Chibhabha in at three after Taylor was dismissed for a duck went on to score 52 from 32 balls.

The fielding display from the Proteas was poor and the dismal performance was compounded when Morne Morkel turned his ankle over badly, he left the field and would not return for the remainder of the match.

After a good performance with the Bat, the Zimbabweans fell to pieces with the ball, Graeme Smith and Loots Bosman plundered the bowlers knocking up 90 runs from 7 overs. On his way to 58 Smith hit nine 4’s and two 6’s from just 29 deliveries. Smith was out lbw to Cremer. Bosman soon followed as the was dismissed a few balls later trying to hit another big one, out for 33 from 15 deliveries.

Collin Ingram on debut didn’t last long getting out for 3 – JP Duminy and David miller collected the remaining runs to give South Africa the victory by 7 wickets, with 25 balls remaining.

Our boys were sloppy in the field, commanding with the bat, had the Bloemfontein wicket offered something for the spinners Zimbabwe could have come a lot closer. Onto Kimberly for the second Pro20 on Sunday.

The glory and fireworks of T20 cricket have moved on for a while, and it’s now down to some real cricket. The domestic season got under way this past weekend, with the SuperSport series kicking off. It’s a fantastic gesture of SuperSport to sponsor the four day game in South Africa, but it is difficult for us cricket nutters to follow the games as the are not broadcast on TV or radio. Thankfully we have the internet, both CricInfo and SuperSport have great live coverage of every ball.

I’ve decided to follow the SuperSport series as much as I can, so here is my first report back from the first round:

Cobras vs Lions

This game was really only about Graeme Smith’s 211 at a strike rate of 98.63, this innings took Smith to his 7^th double century in first class cricket. It was not all one way traffic for the Proteas boys, in the Cape Cobras first inning Smith was out for 19, JP Duminy 20 and recently reappointed Protea Robin Peterson was out for 5.

A notable contribution was made by Andrew Puttick (111) who batted opposite Smith in their second innings opening stand of 333 – this could go down as the highest opening partnership for this years series.

Result: match drawn.

Titans vs Warriors

Having won everything in domestic limited overs cricket in the past year except the Champions League T20 final the Warriors went into the SuperSport series full of confidence. The Warriors did however have a few players out due to injury, and it showed. T20 sensation Dave Jacobs and Mark Boucher were out injured, while Jacques Kallis was being rested.

Ethy Mbhalati tore the visitors to SuperSport  Centurion apart on the first day, as he took 5 for 33 destroying the Warriors batting line up and assisting to bowl them out for an embarrassing 89. Mbhalati went on to take a further two wickets in the Warriors second innings ending the match with a total of 7 wickets.

The only real resistance from the Warriors second innings came in the form of Ashwell Prince, as the hit a magnificent total of 144, consisting of twenty one 4’s and one 6. Jon-Jon Smuts added 78 runs to the Warriors inning helping them regain some lost pride eventually posting 380 in their second inning.

Not to be out done by Mbhalati, Morne Morkel chipped in with four wickets for 81in the Warriors second innings – In the first innings Morkel struck twice for only 11 runs from 13 overs with an economy rate of 0.84

Result: Titans won by 9 wickets.

Knights vs Dolphins

The Dolphins have a very young and inexperienced side and it shows. Some have suggested that the Dolphins may turn a team or two over, but I’m not so sure. The Knights (formerly the Eagles) amassed 407 runs in their first inning, Morne van Wyk top scoring with 97.

The Knights then bowled the Dolphins out for 167, five of the Dolphin’s batsmen we dismissed without scoring a single run… 5 ducks in one innings! Victor Mpitsang the main beneficiary of poor batting, calming 6 wickets.

The Knights batsmen returned and added a further 140 runs to the total setting the Dolphins 380 for victory. The only Dolphins batsman to take note of was Daryn Smith who scored 101 runs.

Ryan McLaren took 5 for 35 for the Knights helping to dismiss the Dolphins for 252.

A notable failure from the first round of SuperSport series cricket was Hashim Amla’s pair of ducks!

Result: Knights won by 128 runs.

I was uber chuffed when an email popped up in my in-box from Vincent Hofmann inviting me to the SA Cricket Awards Gala Dinner. As a blogger I don’t often get invited to official events and it’s very difficult for me to get access to the players. Vincent and I were accompanied by Mike Stopforth for the evening festivities.

It’s fantastic to see a sports organization like Cricket South Africa embracing social media, their #CSAawards campaign on Twitter was a creative value add to the evening, and it showed how social media can compliment a live event. When writing this article I counted that there were 1024 tweets with the #CSAawards hashtag, which is an awesome level of interaction. CSA has encouraged the players to join Twitter which is a great step forward in giving their fans access to the players on an individual bases.

The various sponsors of the event also made use of social media to cover the event, Standard Bank, Cricket South Africa and KFC Fangaea we’re all tweeting like crazy and posting Twitpics in an effort to include the general public. They even had the presenter Ryan O’Connor reading out tweets from an iPad!

Cricket South Africa have a great Facebook page another sign of the integration of Cricket and social media, now if only we could find more cricket bloggers….

Mark Boucher, me, Graeme Smith and Roelof van der Merwe at the CSA Awards

South Africa will soon head to the West Indies for a tour that will include three test matches. This will give Hashim Amla the opportunity to polish off an impressive season with his chance of over taking India’s Virender Sehwag to hopefully move to number 1 in the Reliance Mobile ICC test rankings.

Hashim Amla is currently 21 points behind Sehwag, in the Test rankings, fellow South Africans in the top ten include Jacques Kallis at 8 and Graeme Smith at 9. Jacques Kallis also holds the number 1 position for All-rounders.

In the bowling department we still have Dale Steyn ranked as the number 1 Test bowler. Morne Morkel has entered the top 10 Test bowlers in 8^th position. Makahya Ntini is still in 9^th place, he’s sure to drop down the rankings soon as the fast bowler comes to the twilight of his magnificent career.

The Proteas team are still ranked 2^nd behind India and ahead of Australia, the Aussie’s are only one point behind so we’ll pretty much need to win everything to remain in second, and if we win the series we should go to number 1.

Graeme Smith completed a year of huge achievement when he was named both SA Cricketer of the Year and Castle Test Cricketer of the Year at the glittering 2009 SA Cricket Awards Gala Dinner held at the Sandton Convention Centre on Tuesday evening.

The other major winners were AB de Villiers (Standard Bank One-Day International Cricketer of the Year and SuperSport Fans’ Cricketer of the Year) and JP Duminy (Standard Bank International Pro20 Cricketer of the Year, SA Players’ Player of the Year, and KFC Taste the Action Performance winner).

The awards were all hotly contested after a year of stunning achievement that surpassed all previous successes and nowhere was this better illustrated than in the category of SA Newcomer of the Year where Roelof van der Merwe managed to beat off the challenges of Wayne Parnell and Lonwabo Tsotsobe.

Also indicative of this competition was the fact that there were no fewer than five finalist nominees for the supreme award of SA Cricketer of the Year compared to the customary three.

The awards cover the period from the start of the tour of England up to the end of the home series against Australia and thus do no include the recent ICC World Twenty20.

Gerald Majola, CSA CEO, said “We are most grateful to sponsors Standard Bank, Castle and MTN for playing such an integral role in this prestigious awards function, and for their contribution to the prowess of the Proteas.

“These awards mark a golden era in the history of South African cricket. “It is most fitting that the SA Cricketer of the Year award goes to Graeme Smith, who led the Proteas to their best season ever.

“The awards also take note of an impressive crop of young stars whose outstanding achievements on the international stage have ensured the continued success of the Proteas.”

Smith had an outstanding year both as leader and player. He led the Proteas’ Castle test squad to away test victories over both England and Australia — something that had never been achieved before — in the space of six months and, although injury ruled him out of much of the ODI programme, his guiding hand was very much in evidence as the Standard Bank squad dethroned Australia as the No 1 ODI combination in the world.

As a player he was the leading runs scorer in test cricket in the calendar year of 2008, becoming the first South African to score more than 1 600 runs in a 12-month period.

He also played one of the memorable test innings of all time when his unbeaten 154 at Edgbaston in the fourth innings clinched the series against England.

It was one of the top ten fourth innings scores of all time in a successful runs chase.

His century at Perth also laid the foundation for the Proteas’ epic 414 runs chase in the first test in Australia.

It is significant that these two victories are two of South Africa’s four highest successful runs chases of all time, the 414 being only three runs shy of the world record.

Although he failed to score a century in either of the key Australian ODI series, De Villiers had a wonderful year with the bat, averaging 63 in Australia (strike rate 87) and 60 at home (strike rate 95). He also confirmed his reputation as the best fielder in world cricket.

Duminy played two innings of innovative genius in the Pro20 matches in Australia. He finished the summer with a career average of 31 and a strike rate of 133 that was only beaten by Albie Morkel (139) and Van der Merwe (160).

Van der Merwe was a story of remarkable success. He made his debut in the Standard Bank International Pro20 at SuperSport Park and never looked back after a man-of-the-match debut that earned him a permanent place in the Standard Bank ODI squad as well.

Both he and Parnell will be strong contenders to be named ICC Young Cricketer of the Year at their awards ceremony in Johannesburg in September.

In the domestic professional category the three main awards went to Van der Merwe (MTN Domestic Championship Cricketer of the Year), Charl Langeveldt (Standard Bank Pro20 Cricketer of the Year) and Imraan Khan (SuperSport Series Cricketer of the Year).

In the Operations category there was recognition for Nashua Titans’ Richard Pybus (Coach of the Year) and Marais Erasmus (Umpire of the Year).

2009 SA CRICKET AWARDS WINNERS

PROFESSIONAL AWARDS
OPERATIONS

Coach of the Year: Richard Pybus
Groundsman of the Year: Louis Kruger
Scorers’ Association of the Year: Gauteng
Umpire of the Year: Marais Erasmus

PROFESSIONAL AWARDS: DOMESTIC

MTN Domestic Championship Cricketer of the Year: Roelof van der
Merwe Standard Bank Pro20 Cricketer of the Year: Charl Langeveldt
SuperSport Series Cricketer of the Year: Imraan Khan
Domestic Newcomer of the Year: Dane Vilas
SACA Most Valuable Player: Claude Henderson
Domestic Players’ Player of the Year: Claude Henderson

PROFESSIONAL AWARDS: SA TEAM

SA Newcomer of the Year: Roelof van der Merwe
Standard Bank One-Day International Cricketer of the Year: AB de
Villiers Standard Bank International Pro20 Cricketer of the Year: JP Duminy
Castle Test Cricketer of the Year: Graeme Smith
KFC Taste the Action Performance: JP Duminy
SA Players’ Player of the Year: JP Duminy
SuperSport Fans’ Cricketer of the Year: AB de Villiers
SA Cricketer of the Year: Graeme Smith

Source: SuperSport

Poor planning or the blooding of a youngster? That’s my question. Graeme Smith left the final over to Wayne Parnell, in the nail biter last ball finish against New Zealand on Tuesday night. Needing 15 runs from the last over Graeme Smith called up Wayne Parnell (19) to bowl, but as he called him up he seemed to check with Parnell that he had one more left to bowl.

That couldn’t have been much of a confidence boost ahead of a pressure over for Parnell, nor the previous over by his senior Dale Steyn which went for 12 runs. The pressure seemed to get the better of Steyn; his last over was filled with wides and bye’s . Perhaps Graeme Smith wanted to give Parnell some exposure to death bowling, whatever Smith’s reckoning Parnell delivered. Bowling to Jacob Oram and Scott Styris he managed to keep the runs below the required 15.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man

My boy Roelof van der Merwe who so many people wrote off before his international career even got started delivered when needed. Van der Merwe stepped up and bowled his four overs for just fourteen runs, taking two wickets, including the wicket of Brendon McCullum stumped for 57 off 56 balls in the 17th over. In the end it was another quality bowling and fielding performance from the Proteas, great to see the boys respond when they were under pressure.

Image Source: Flickr