Monty’s Mission

Monty Panesar may have been cut adrift by England despite winning the Ashes for them with the bat, but he’s on a new mission now – trying to bring success to the Highveld Lions. Monty looks set to make his debut in tomorrow’s match against the Chevrolet Warriors, and it will be interesting to see [...]

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Who will win the Twenty20 Champions League?

With the Twenty20 Champions League now down to the last four, who’s going to win the thing?

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Twenty20 Champions League Preview: Part One

Club cricket takes a new turn this week with the inaugural Twenty20 Champions League. Here’s a brief run-down of the sides involved: The Cape Cobras, although without the injured Graeme Smith, will still have plenty of firepower with JP Duminy and Herschelle Gibbs the main threats. The lack of access to the large pool of [...]

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Champions Trophy: Group B Preview

South Africa have always been the nearly men of 50-over cricket, but they did win the Champions Trophy back in 1998, since when they have developed a reputation as big tournament bottlers. This is South Africa’s best chance in years to win some ICC silverware, as well as to cast off the ‘chokers‘ tag. New [...]

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What’s Next for Test Cricket?

Now that Australia have slumped to fourth in the ICC rankings, what does the future hold for Test cricket?

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Who will win the ICC World Twenty20?

Now that we know who the four semi-finalists of the ICC World Twenty20 will be, who’s going to win it?

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ICC World Twenty20: Super Eight

Group E England recovered well from their shock defeat to the Netherlands in the tournament opener to record a relatively convincing win over Pakistan, but doubts remain over the side’s ability to push on and score big if the top order fails. It would be a surprise if the hosts were to make it as [...]

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ICC World Twenty20 Preview: Group D

New Zealand beat India in their recent warm-up match for this tournament, which is bound to raise hopes that the Black Caps will pose a real challenge. Brendon McCullum is perhaps the archetypal Twenty20 batsman (as he showed in his dramatic introduction to the IPL last year), and Daniel Vettori and Jacob Oram are both [...]

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Top Two Still Providing Drama

South Africa and Australia, the two highest-ranked teams in the world (at least at the time of writing, India are bearing down on them with some speed), are playing some of the most compelling cricket in the world against each other. After the two three-Test series, which overall were tied 3-3, the second leg of [...]

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South Africa vs Australia: Twenty20 Series Preview

With the World Twenty20 fast approaching, two of the potential winners go head-to-head with a two-match Twenty20 series which starts tomorrow in Johannesburg. South Africa are the world’s number one One-Day side, but don’t have a great Twenty20 record against Australia. JP Duminy and Albie Morkel (with a Twenty20 strike rate of 133.90) will be [...]

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Andre Nel retires from International anger

Andre Nel (and, presumably, Gunt(h)er) has retired from international cricket. Cricinfo describes him as “a rambunctious and wholehearted cricketer“. The BBC have in the past given him the accolade of “cricket’s craziest man“. I would describe him, after careful consideration, as ‘properly mental‘. Nel’s last Test appearance was Kevin Pietersen’s debut as England captain in [...]

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It never rains in South Africa

Cricket’s authorities continue to be perplexed by the weather, with South Africa the main beneficiary. After Sri Lankan cricket authorities lost out on the chance to host the Champions’ Trophy after unacceptably failing to guarantee no rain for a fortnight, allowing the (presumably weather-controlling) South Africans to step in, a similar situation has arisen with [...]

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