Zim tour take aways

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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.