ACS Overseas First-Class Annual 2014

runs, and Vernon Philander, who took 26 wickets despite not being quite the force of recent seasons. There was also a highly promising start to the Test career of 21-year-old Quinton de Kock, a fast-scoring batsman who can also relieve de Villiers of the wicketkeeping responsibilities, and who is seen by many as a future star. 2014 saw the departure as players of two of South Africa’s long-serving heroes. Graeme Smith retired from Test cricket in March 2014 at the end of the series against Sri Lanka, after leading his country in a record 108 Tests (plus one Test as captain of the ICC World XI in the so-called SuperTest of 2005/06) since his first, unexpected, appointment to the role as a 22-year-old in 2003. Over that period he won 53 (48.6%) of his matches as captain - a proportion closely comparable to that of Clive Lloyd, leader of the all-conquering West Indians of the late 1970s and early 1980s. In his career as a whole, Smith’s unorthodox and sometimes infuriating batting style brought him 9265 Test runs at 48.25, but his contribution lay not just in the sheer quantity of his runs, but also in his consistent ability to give South Africa a solid start from the top of the order. In this capacity, as well as in his role as a captain always happy to lead from the front, he will be much missed. Earlier, in December 2013, Jacques Kallis had bidden farewell to Test cricket at the end of the series against India, fittingly ending with a century (his 45th in all Tests), and taking his 200th catch in the same game. He retired as South Africa’s most-capped Test cricketer (165, plus one for the ICC XI; only Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting and Steve Waugh have more Test caps), their leading runscorer (13,206 for South Africa; 13,289 in all Tests), their leading catcher in the field, and their fifth-highest wicket-taker (291 for South Africa, plus one for the ICC XI). Since his debut in 1995 he had proved a totally dependable, if unflashy, rock in South Africa’s upper middle order, while his bowling - always as second or third fiddle behind the likes of Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock, Makhaya Ntini and Dale Steyn - had been an easily-overlooked but vital contribution to his team’s many successes. After his retirement some contended that he was a greater all-rounder even than Garry Sobers. Certainly he scored more runs and took more wickets (and catches) than the great West Indian - though his figures of runs- and wickets-per-match were a fair bit lower than Sobers’s, and there can be little doubt that Sobers lies ahead in terms of spectator-appeal and of bowling versatility. The question of which was the better all-rounder cannot be answered purely by the numbers, if at all. Suffice to say that both men were among the very, very best all-rounders in Test history. Kallis’s abilities as a front-line batsman and bowler had allowed the South Africans much flexibility in their team selection - another factor, surely, in their many recent successes. His loss to the team will surely necessitate some new thinking on this subject among the selectors. It may only be in his absence that we can judge the true value of Jacques Kallis to South African sides of the last 20 years. At home, South Africa’s two domestic first-class competitions continued in their established patterns. The senior Sunfoil Series was won for the second season in a row, and the fourth time in five years, by the Cape Cobras. At the season’s New Year break only three points covered the four leading teams in the table, but when the season resumed in mid-February the Cobras won five of their six remaining matches to finish well ahead of the pack. A curiosity of the season was that both the scheduled matches between the Dolphins and the Titans were completely lost to rain - though this unfortunate turn of events had no bearing on the eventual destination of the title. The second-tier competition for provincial sides was won by Western Province, up from seventh in 2012/13 while that season’s winners, Gauteng, dropped to ninth. Four batsmen reached 1000 runs in the first-class season, the top two runscorers both playing for the Warriors in the Sunfoil Series and for Eastern Province in the junior competition: David White, with 1227 runs at 45.44 narrowly headed his dual team-mate Colin Ackermann, who made exactly 1200 at 50.00. Dane Paterson, a fast-medium bowler who played for the Cobras and Western Province, led the way among the bowlers with 67 wickets at 18.62. 400 South Africa in 2013/14