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The past decade in cricket had as many incredible milestones as disappointments. There was still no World Cup win. The administrators also engaged in a spot of Russian roulette with the game...
2011 – The Proteas went into the Cricket World Cup in India hopeful of breaking their curse of defeat and finally winning either the league or at least a knockout game without choking. The group stages went well, with the Proteas recording a win against eventual champions India. But Corrie van Zyl’s team lost their quarter-final to New Zealand. The Kiwis put only 211 runs on the board, but secured a victory by targeting the Proteas psychologically.
2012 – Some great South African batsmen (including Graeme Pollock, Daryll Cullinan, AB de Villiers, Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis) have come and gone without scoring a triple century for the Proteas. That honour fell to a player previously derided for having a “moving-parts” technique when Hashim Amla scored 311 not out in the first test of the Proteas’ tour of England. Amla achieved the feat by hitting 35 fours and batting for over 13 hours in an innings that would help the Proteas secure the number one ranking in the world that year.
2014 – The talk about no SA team ever winning an ICC trophy isn’t entirely true, thanks to the SA Under-19s class of 2014. That team, which included one Kagiso Rabada and was captained by Aiden Markram, won all of their matches en route to beating Pakistan by six wickets in the final.
2015 – Wunderkind Rabada made his T20 debut as a 19-year-old in November 2014, but it was in his full one-day international (ODI) debut the next year against Bangladesh that he scored his figures of 6/16. (which included a hat-trick). Only the second man in history to achieve this feat, he delivered the best return by a South African bowler in an ODI.
2015 – Pink ODIs are matches aimed at raising awareness of breast cancer, where both the players and the spectators dress in pink. However, they’ve proved to be memorable for other reasons too, as the second ODI against the West Indies proved. De Villiers had long been known for his ability to score astonishing shots, but during this match, he upped his game - both literally and figuratively. Batting as if his old man was throwing down in his back yard, “Mr 360” scored 149 runs off 44 balls, his nine fours and 16 sixes making a mockery of the claim that the Windies bowlers were of unassailable standard. And just for kicks, De Villiers scored the fastest ODI 150 in history, with 162 not out (66 balls, 17 fours and eight sixes) against the same team during the group stages of the World Cup a few months later.
2015 – This was a big year for South African cricket, what with a World Cup on the horizon and yet another attempt to win a global title. The good news was that the Proteas won their first-ever knockout game after being readmitted into international cricket in 1991, with a nine-wicket victory in their quarter-final against Sri Lanka. The bad news was that they lost a nail-biter against New Zealand in the semi-final when expat South African Grant Elliott hit Dale Steyn for six to win the match off the last ball.
2016 – At 1.62m, batsman Temba Bavuma doesn’t cut a very imposing figure - but in that not-so big body beats a massive heart. He made this abundantly clear by scoring 102 not out against England, becoming the first black African batsman to score a test century. It was a milestone not only for the Proteas, but for all aspirant black South African cricketers.
2018 – Australia’s tour of South Africa is better remembered for “Sandpapergate”, when the Aussies took to using sandpaper to engineer early reverse swing. But it was also the series where Rabada came of age as a fast bowler. He played with precision, pace and aggression - so much so that he landed in a disciplinary hearing for barging Steve Smith’s shoulder after he’d dismissed him. Advocate Dali Mpofu got Rabada off the charge and the young dynamo ended with 23 wickets from four matches, including figures of 11/150.
2019 – We endured yet another failure of the Proteas to win a World Cup. It was also a year in which we heard of Amla’s retirement from international cricket and Steyn’s retirement from test cricket. In their respective careers, Amla had notched up 9 282 runs (28 centuries and 41 fifties at 46.64) and Steyn had taken 439 wickets (26 five-fors and five 10-fors at 22.95).
Worse was to come: Cricket SA’s administrators fought with players, mismanaging the game to the point where CEO Thabang Moroe was suspended, independent board members resigned and sponsor Standard Bank pulled out.
Let’s hope 2020 sees a return to professionalism, pride and integrity in one of our best-loved sports.
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| City Press is an agenda-setting South African news brand that publishes across platforms. Its flagship print edition is distributed on a Sunday. |
