ACS Overseas First-Class Annual 2011

South Africa in 2010/11 By the end of the 2010/11 season South Africa had maintained its status as a leading Test nation, second in the rankings only to India, but had also, perhaps, maintained its reputation for failure to deliver at crucial times. A series in the Caribbean in the 2010 season was won by a comfortable 2-0 margin. In 2010/11, however, South Africa failed to overcome dogged Pakistan batting on lifeless pitches and had to settle for a 0-0 draw in the UAE, although A.B.de Villiers took the opportunity to seize the record for the highest Test score by a South African. Returning home, South Africa easily won the first of a three-Test series against India only to be held eventually to another drawn rubber. For the failure to hold on to the lead there was substantial compensation in further individual heroics, in particular by J.H.Kallis and D.W.Steyn; and it cannot be regarded as a poor result to divide the spoils with the world’s top-ranked nation. But the fact remains that more series must be won if South Africa is to take India’s place at the head of the rankings. Although top spot remains elusive, the consistent strength of the national team in recent years goes a long way to vindicate the controversial decision to establish, with effect from the 2004/05 season, a new system of six large regional franchises in place of the smaller provincial teams that were previously the basis of domestic cricket in the country. The principal competition, the SuperSport Series, pits the six franchises against each other in a home-and-away league format. Cape Cobras convincingly retained the SuperSport title. The points margin was relatively narrow, but Cobras won five of their scheduled ten matches (one was abandoned) while Titans, the runners-up, could claim only three wins. Moreover, Cobras could claim a clear supremacy over their nearest rivals after winning both their matches against Titans. With Lions in third place, it was notable that the top three were the same as in 2009/10. Cape Cobras owed their success in large measure to their left-arm spinner, C.W.Henderson (who will need no introduction to supporters of Leicestershire), and the opening bowler V.D.Philander (who played for Middlesex in 2008). These two took 73 SuperSport wickets between them; although the leading wicket-taker in the competition, with 42, was Imran Tahir of Dolphins. Among the batsmen, J.A.Rudolph of Titans had easily the highest aggregate, 954 at 59.62, and he was the only batsman to score four centuries. The second-level tournament, the Provincial Three-Day competition, was contested on a round-robin basis by teams that generally correspond to the long-established South African provincial teams. Namibia, however, also takes part, and its home matches will be found in the Rest of the World section; there should have been seven of these but three were washed out. Indeed, rain had a significant impact on the Provincial competition in 2010/11. In addition to the three games in Namibia, a further three matches were completely abandoned in South Africa proper and several other games suffered severe weather interference. Note that in this competition, the first innings is restricted to 170 overs in all, with no more than 85 overs for the team batting first. The eventual outcome of the 2010/11 Provincial competition strangely mirrored the SuperSport with Western Province (part of the Cobras franchise) in first place and Gauteng (part of Titans) as runners-up. These two sides, with nine and eight wins respectively, were far ahead of the rest (no one else managed more than five). Moreover, Western Province had in D.Paterson undoubtedly the leading bowler in the competition, his 54 wickets coming at a splendid average of 13.40. 365