< 1 minute readWe said you were going to start noticing everyone going mental about Mason Crane. Today marks an obvious step-up in mentalgoing as it seems highly likely the leg-spinner will make his international debut. Indirectly referring to him, AB de Villiers grappled with the meaning of the word ‘unknown’. “A few
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England need some E45 cream
< 1 minute readAfter snatching the second one-day international, England decided to test the notion that they can now win from any position by giddily launching themselves towards 20-6 in the third. Now 20-6 is definitely a score you can win from, but ideally you’d be fielding when it occurred. South Africa got
Continue readingSouth Africa have already choked
< 1 minute readWe were quite keen to be first off the mark in using the word “choked” to mean “lost a cricket match” in reference to South Africa this summer. Hopefully we have achieved our aim. When you see the term deployed by others in the weeks to come, be sure to
Continue readingTom Latham can see the future (+ video)
< 1 minute readThat is the only half-decent explanation for this catch. How good!? – Tom Latham’s in-close-running-one-hander to remove Faf du Plessis #NZvSA ^WN pic.twitter.com/8b2PtYvT6K — BLACKCAPS (@BLACKCAPS) March 26, 2017 Far and away our favourite part of this footage is seeing Bruce Oxenford visibly embarking upon a gasp towards the end.
Continue readingAB de Villiers slowly coming to terms with Test retirement
< 1 minute readVery slowly. He’s not yet at a point where he’ll accept that his final Test was in January last year. Earlier this week, de Villiers made himself unavailable for selection for the upcoming Test series in New Zealand in March. Today he ruled himself out of the Test series against
Continue readingVernon Philander is there if you need some seasoning
2 minute readWe’ve spent much of the morning trying to work out what kind of a vehicle Vernon Philander is. After much thought, we’ve concluded that he’s not a vehicle at all – he’s a pepper grinder. South Africa have a lot of whizzy, fancy kitchen gadgets. Dale Steyn is the luxury
Continue readingMop-up of the last couple of days – Angelo Mathews still has work to do
< 1 minute readFor a good long while you could accurately gauge Sri Lanka’s score by whether or not Angelo Mathews was walking out to bat or not. If he was, they were 22-3. If he wasn’t, it was some other score. A couple of recent batting finds had encouraged the notion that
Continue readingVehement letter-C denier AB de Villiers also renounces (c)
< 1 minute readAB de Villiers has stood down as South Africa Test captain. Faf du Plessis has filled the void, much as he has been doing for quite a while now. This decision makes sense to us for two reasons. Firstly, de Villiers hardly ever plays cricket for South Africa at the
Continue readingHow to dismiss Faf du Plessis – make friends with him
< 1 minute readFaf du Plessis is a competitor. That’s the kind of thing people say. It’s a shorthand way of saying that he only seems capable of playing to his full potential when there’s a stronger taste of conflict to proceedings. Performing in what is never called the crucible of county cricket,
Continue readingMop-up of the day – guilt, great promise and grey trivialities
2 minute read‘Du Plessis found guilty’ reads the Cricinfo headline. We don’t really feel it necessary to add much to your likely response to reading that. The effect of imposing black and white morality on the sport’s grey trivialities could barely be clearer. Here’s something we wrote last time Du Plessis buggered
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