1 minute read There’s only so many times you can hear how wonderful something is before you want to hit it with a hammer or push it down a flight of stairs at the luxury five-star hotel at which it’s staying ahead of its team’s first match at the World T20. However, this
Continue readingTag: A B de Villiers
AB de Villiers wants a cake-eating window
2 minute read AB de Villiers wants to retain The Cake of International Cricket and also eat The Lucrative Cake of T20 Franchise Cricket. It doesn’t sound so ludicrous an ambition until you examine the bizarre cake-for-cake barter system that is currently in operation. Under current law, The Lucrative Cake of T20 Franchise
Continue readingIs AB de Villiers captaincy material?
< 1 minute read We were going to do a half-arsed box-ticking update today, pointing you towards Cricket Badger and our latest Cricinfo Twitter round-up, but the latter seems in no hurry to appear, so we thought we’d better write summat. Let’s talk about AB de Villiers, who despite being a vehement letter-C denier
Continue readingMop-up of the day – runs down south
2 minute read After day-night Tests, the latest innovation in the ongoing Australia v New Zealand Test series has been additional opponents. Sri Lanka and the West Indies have been drafted in to keep things fresh, but they couldn’t tip the balance. Australia still had marginally the better day. New Zealand would have
Continue readingPakistan, AB de Villiers, wickets and jeopardy
< 1 minute read Cricket needs jeopardy. Jeopardy makes things exciting. You have jeopardy in a tournament – the chance of being knocked out – and lo, the match is exciting. Something is riding on it. Tension’s good. You have jeopardy in an innings – the chance of being bowled out – and you
Continue readingHow bad can a fifth bowler be?
< 1 minute read This appears to be South Africa’s thinking after picking only four proper bowlers. It should present a vulnerability, but when you then make 408, you find you have a certain amount of breathing space – perhaps even enough that you could field Jade Dernbach and still harbour reasonable hopes of
Continue readingAB de Villiers needs Moonraker
< 1 minute read Back in November 2012, AB de Villiers made 33 off 220 balls so that South Africa could save a Test against Australia. In March last year, against the same opposition, he made 43 off 228 balls, but this time South Africa lost. Today it took him all of 31 balls
Continue readingBad news for Jack Russell
< 1 minute read Individual statistical achievements in cricket don’t always tally with ability, so it’s pleasing when a good player is rewarded. However, for every 11-60 recorded by a Dale Steyn, there’s a world record number of dismissals for an AB de Villiers. Now AB de Villiers is great at many things. He
Continue readingThe five best batsmen over the next five years
< 1 minute read The big names are generally old bastards. Who’s next? Ross Taylor, New Zealand, age 25 Ross Taylor tends to look like he’s the man who’s going to win the match for New Zealand shortly before doing something slightly spacky. Pretty soon those fifties will become hundreds and those hundreds will
Continue readingAB de Villiers in un-ace shocker
< 1 minute read You all thought that AB de Villiers was ace at everything. He isn’t. Roscoe drew our attention to Show Them Who You Are, a single on which AB sings and plays guitar. Roscoe rather generously gave it 1/10. Apparently someone phoned up a South African radio station to tell them
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