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Analysis of and commentary on South African cricket
3 January 2013

Jacques Kallis: South Africa’s greatest ever sportsperson

JacquesKallis2ARTICLE: Jacques Kallis has achieved things in the field of cricket few will ever achieve again. And here I am talking about his individual records, collectively they constitute a series of honours unlikely ever to be matched. He is our greatest cricketer and, as I argue below, our greatest ever sportsperson. And yet we do not give him the credit he deserves. Better than all his contemporaries and very many historical greats, we remain reserved in our praise of his genius. Its time to recognise Jacques Kallis as an all-time great and marvel at the level of excellence he has set for generations to come.

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21 August 2012

Consistency: Why South Africa has been the best Test side over the last 5 years

FEATURE: South Africa are number one. Horray. Depending on how you measure these things, however, there is a case to be made we have been the best Test side over the past five years; certainly if you use consistency as your measure that holds true. In the article below I look at the performance of the ‘big four’ Test teams – Australia, India, South Africa and England – over the past five years, using the ICC Rankings as a guide and see what that says about each of them in turn.

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6 August 2012

The Kallis double century mystery solved

FEATURE: Why did it take so long for Jacques Kallis to score 200? For a long, long time, this was the question on every South African cricket-supporter’s mind. In November 2010, just before he scored his first 200, I did the following analysis which, I think, solves the mystery. Indeed, in retrospect, the way in which Kallis went about getting his first 200 seems to suggest it was correct. It is worth reflecting on today, if only to understand what it was, exactly, he needed to overcome. Read on to find out what it was.

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31 July 2012

Tendulkar, Ponting and Kallis: When to let go

FEATURE: How do ‘great’ players know when to retire? It’s a tough call. Tougher still for selectors. One helpful tool is to look at a player’s cumulative career average over time. The longer a career (and the greats play for a long time these days), the easier it is to see when one’s form is improving or declining. In the piece below I set out some examples, before looking at Tendulkar, Ponting and Kallis and seeing in what fashion their careers are likely to end.

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26 July 2012

Busting the ‘Anderson’s as good as Steyn’ myth

FEATURE: In the run-up to the England-South Africa series and, indeed, during the first test, many commentators have made the claim that Dale Steyn and James Anderson are equals – on the basis of their records over the past three years. Looking at their total averages over that period, however, is misleading. If you break those statistics down by season, you arrive at a different conclusion.

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24 July 2012

The awesome Kallis and Amla

FEATURE: If Graeme Smith’s and Hashim Amla’s 259 2nd wicket run-fest remorselessly eroded away England’s confidence, Kallis’s and Amla’s subsequent 377 unbeaten run partnership rendered them shattered, physically and mentally. But it’s not the first time these two have produced that kind of collaboration, on that kind of scale. In fact, when it comes to big partnerships, there is a case to be made no two batsmen in the history of test cricket boast a better record.

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23 July 2012

Kallis versus ‘Flintham’

FEATURE: There is a tired old analysis that, thankfully, is doing the rounds less and less these days: that Jacques Kallis is boring – not a real ‘great’ because he never does anything memorable. It has recently been rehashed by Michael Henderson, writing in the Independent newspaper in Britian. He even suggests Ian Botham was superior. What nonsense. Here is why Kallis is better than not just Botham, but Botham and Flintoff combined – a new character I have created called ‘Flintham’.

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