ACS Overseas First-Class Annual 2017

Nevertheless, three series wins out of three was all that could have been asked. But not everything was bright on the South African scene as the tour to England approached. Problems had emerged at the top of the batting order, where after a fine start to his Test career Stephen Cook had lost form and eventually his place in the side. There were questions too about the place of Duminy, a ‘love him or hate him’ player for the South African fans, who also lost form as the season progressed. Add to that the decisions of several players in or on the fringe of the Test side, among them Kyle Abbott (who had taken 13 wickets in the series against Australia) and off-spinner Simon Harmer, to renounce their future Test opportunities in order to play in the County Championship as Kolpak players. On top of that the continuing absence from the Test side of superstar A.B.de Villiers, for reasons not always wholly convincing, meant that the batting line-up was never quite so strong as it might have been. Even so, the side that took on England in July/August 2017 still contained all the mainstays of their success over recent series, so the 3-1 series defeat was a considerable surprise. It was a topsy-turvy series, in which the first three Tests were all won by a margin of over 200 runs – the first and third by England, the second by South Africa. Uncharacteristic fielding lapses, and less uncharacteristic overstepping by the bowlers, cost them dear at crucial times, especially in the first Test. Yet in the second game, at Trent Bridge, it was a completely different story, as South Africa out-performed England in all departments; their 340-run victory was their fourth largest ever by a runs margin. So the inconsistency that has marked South Africa’s Test performances over recent years has not disappeared altogether, though with their batsmen mostly now in form and the bowlers successfully taking on new responsibilities, the base-line from which they start is generally higher. So long as Mr Kolpak, and other cricket formats, do not continue to drain some of their better resources away from the five-day game, their future near the top of the ranking list – they remain in second place, despite the defeat in England – looks assured. But we’ve said that before here, and been proved very wrong. The format of domestic cricket remained unchanged for the 2016/17 season, with six franchise teams competing in home-and-away matches for the senior trophy (the Sunfoil Series) and 14 junior sides contesting the Sunfoil Three-Day Cup, in which the teams were again grouped into two pools but played four ‘cross-pool’ matches, besides meeting the other teams in their own pool. The franchise competition was won by Knights, who had had only one previous outright win, in 2007/08 when they were known as Eagles. Last year’s winners Titans ran them very close, and the overall result might have been different if the return match between the two sides in January had not been rained off; but as Knights had won the first match between them in October (bowling the Titans out for 57 in the process), it is hard to argue that the eventual result was unreasonable. Knights’ strength lay above all in their quick bowling, headed by former Test player Marchant de Lange and new cap Duanne Olivier. Pool winners in the Three-Day competition were Northerns and Free State, the former relatively narrowly, the latter comfortably, and they duly played off in the final in April. The match was a tightly-fought draw, Northerns holding on in their second innings despite, when set 357 to win, losing their first four wickets for only five runs. The title was thus shared. The domestic season included a number of memorable events for the record-keepers, including the last-ever ‘handled the ball’ dismissal in all first-class cricket, a batsman being left 199* when his captain declared, an innings with five run-outs, three brothers all scoring centuries in the same match, and a side winning a match after being dismissed for 44 in its first innings. The relevant scorecards can all be found on the following pages. Leading run-scorer in South Africa in 2016/17 was Rudi Second of Knights and Free State, with 982 runs at 75.53; with 53 catches and four stumpings in 11 matches he was also the season’s leading wicketkeeper. However, some might give the run-scoring honour to Pieter (P.J.) Malan 350 South Africa in 2016/17