ACS Overseas First-Class Annual 2015

With two batsmen - the ever-watchable de Villiers and the dependable Amla - in the top three or four in the Test batting rankings, and with Steyn consistently heading the bowling rankings, it is no real surprise that South Africa have established themselves in this position. Others, notably Faf du Plessis, have proved invaluable contributors to the side’s run-making, while Morne Morkel continues as a fine foil to Steyn’s pace - even though the career of Vernon Philander seems to be on a downward turn after the exceptional start to his Test career. Glimpses of the future were also perhaps seen with the success of Simon Harmer in the West Indies and, maybe more significantly, in the introduction to the side in that series of Temba Bavuma, the first black African player to be selected for the national side as a specialist batsman. Opener Alviro Petersen announced his retirement from Tests after the series against West Indies, but in general the South African side is relatively settled (even if the loss 12 months ago of Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis has meant a little more chopping and changing in selection than hitherto), and its stars appear still in their prime. Contrary to the view expressed on these pages a year ago, it now looks as though South Africa will retain the number one ranking for some while yet, even if they still lack the air of invincibility that distinguishes the greatest Test sides. The 2014/15 season also included two high-scoring matches in January between South Africa A and the England Lions. For the South Africans, 22-year-old Theunis de Bruyn showed great promise with innings of 202*, 6* and 161, but the inability of the bowlers on either side to make any significant impression led to both games being called off as draws around tea-time on their scheduled final days. The senior domestic competition, the Sunfoil Series, was unaltered in its format for 2014/15, with each of the six competing teams playing home and away matches against the other five. The season began with a memorable match in which the Knights defeated the Warriors by 128 runs, after recovering from a score of 32-8 in their first innings. But these two teams were destined to finish in the last two places in the table, which was headed almost throughout the season by the Johannesburg- and Potchefstroom-based Lions, who won seven of their ten matches to finish almost 40 points ahead of second-placed Titans. This was the Lions’ first title in the eleven seasons of franchise cricket in South Africa, and was founded on exceptional strength in both batting (three players made over 500 runs at averages of over 60) and bowling (three bowlers took over 30 wickets at averages of around 20-21). The second-tier provincial competition, sponsored for the first time by Sunfoil, was reorganised for 2014/15. Previously, the 14 competing provinces had contested a single all-play-all league, but now they were divided into two pools of seven, in which each team met all of its rivals from the same pool once, and also played ‘cross-pool’ matches against four of the sides from the other pool. This format reduced the number of matches in the league competition from 91 to 70. The two pool winners - Northerns, who pipped long-time leaders North West in Pool A only in the last round of matches, and Gauteng, who headed Pool B from November right through to the end of the season - then played off in a final to decide the overall competition winners. The final ended disappointingly in a tame draw, with Gauteng understandably declining to set Northerns any sort of realistic fourth-innings target. Although Gauteng had secured a narrow first-innings lead, this was not enough to secure the trophy, as under the competition rules a drawn game meant that the title was shared. Leading runscorers and wicket-takers in the Sunfoil Series were respectively Stephen Cook (Lions - 889 runs at 63.50) and Dane Paterson (Cape Cobras - 42 wickets at 22.54). Over the first-class season as a whole, the best aggregates were those of Divan van Wyk, who scored 1081 runs at 34.87 for Dolphins and KwaZulu-Natal, and Mathew Pillans, whose pace bowling brought him 51 wickets at 23.90 for Dolphins and KwaZulu-Natal Inland. Cook, with 1072 runs was the only other batsman to reach 1000 runs; no other bowler reached the figure of 50 wickets. 364 South Africa in 2014/15