Cape Town - The Proteas’ ODI series victory over Pakistan on Sunday completed the most successful and star-studded period of 12 months in Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) international history.
There is still lots of room for improvement in both the limited overs formats where the Proteas had a 6-6 record in ODI’s and a 5-6 record in T20 International matches but the individual and team performances and statistics tell their own story.
Indeed, at one stage the Proteas held the No 1 ranking for a brief period in all formats of the game. They won six out of eight Tests and drew the other two to claim and keep the much cherished No 1 ranking in Test cricket. With their nearest challengers, England and Australia, both having suffered setbacks elsewhere, they have now established a 14-point lead at the top of the table.
The period under review included tough away tours to both England and Australia, the ICC World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka as well as the home series against New Zealand and Pakistan.
When it comes to honouring the individual players at CSA’s official awards ceremony in the middle of the year, the judges are going to have some task on their hands, particularly in selecting the SA Cricketer of the Year and the Sunfoil Test Cricketer of the Year.
Team
highlights included:
Winning
away Test series in England and Australia for the second time in the space of
four years, going unbeaten for 15 successive Test matches and having a winning
run of six successive matches
Hashim
Amla and AB de Villiers achieving a world best third wicket ODI partnership
record of 238 against Pakistan
Hashim
Amla and Jacques Kallis sharing the sixth highest third wicket Test partnership
of 377* against England - the highest ever for that wicket against England
Winning
the Lord’s Test for the fourth time since re-admission to extend their unbeaten
record at this venue
Dismissing
both New Zealand (45) and Pakistan (49) for sub-50 Test match totals. New
Zealand’s innings (19.2 overs) was the 12th shortest of all time
Individual
highlights included:
Graeme
Smith becoming the first player to captain his country 100 times and to achieve
50 Test match victories
Hashim
Amla making South Africa’s first Test treble century. He scored two centuries
in both the away series against England and Australia and is currently ranked
No. 1 Test batsman and joint No. 1 ODI Test batsman. His innings of 196 against
Australia at Perth was the highest for South Africa against that opponent since
unity.
Dale
Steyn becoming the joint third quickest bowler to reach 300 wickets. He
remained world No 1 for the fifth year and returned a remarkable 6/8 to
dismiss Pakistan for 49 at the Bidvest Wanderers Stadium
Vernon
Philander becoming the world No. 2 ranked bowler and, as far as can be
established taking the quickest ‘fifer’ from the start of a Test match when his
5/9 was pivotal in dismissing New Zealand for 45 at Sahara Park Newlands. He
also emerged as a quality bowling all-rounder to move up to No. 4 in this
category on the ICC rankings
AB
de Villiers excelling with the bat to move up to joint No 1 in the ODI
rankings and No 2 in the Test rankings. He made the Proteas only two Test
centuries of the summer against Pakistan and was named Man of the Series in
both the Test and ODI formats. His century and 11 dismissals against Pakistan
at the Bidvest Wanderers Stadium was a unique performance in the history of
both first-class and Test match cricket.
Jacques
Kallis scoring centuries against both England and Australia to take his total
of three-figure innings to 44 and his career aggregate past 13 000 – the
fourth player to achieve this mark. He also has the joint third highest number
of catches (194) and is 12 wickets short of the 300 mark.
Kyle
Abbott’s Test debut figures of 7/29 were the ninth best of all time and the
second best for South Africa
Ryan
McLaren is the leading ODI wicket-taker in the current calendar year
Faf du Plessis bats 7 hours and 44 minutes for an unbeaten maiden century on debut to save the Test match against Australia at Adelaide. He goes on to score another century in his fourth Test match against New Zealand to equal the international career start of Graeme Pollock
Alviro Petersen plays an innings of similar longevity when he bats for 9 hours to make a career best 182 against England at Headingley in spite of being hampered by injury for a large part of it