ACS Overseas First-Class Annual 2020

341 South Africa in 2019/20 If evidence were needed to support the old saw that troubles never come singly, it might be found in the increasing difficulties besetting South African cricket. Quite apart from the financial and administrative problems of the domestic game, of which more below, the Test side, not so long ago challenging to be the best in the world, in 2019/20 continued its apparently inexorable slide. At the end of the 2019 season South Africa stood third in the ICC rankings. The impression that this was a misleadingly elevated position was confirmed by the 3-0 drubbing in India with which South Africa began the 2019/20 season. Centuries by Dean Elgar and Quinton de Kock kept them competitive for a time in the first Test, before they fell away to lose by over 200, but the story of South Africa’s batting in the rubber as a whole is sufficiently told by the fact that the side’s next highest score was 72 by Keshav Maharaj, not normally thought of as a mainstay of the batting. Meanwhile the home batsmen pretty much helped themselves as South Africa’s bowlers failed to make any impression with either pace or spin: across the three Tests Kagiso Rabada was the tourists’ leading wicket-taker with 7 at an average of over 40. After this mauling the team might have hoped for better from a return to home turf to play four Tests against England. And the first Test did indeed bring a 107-run victory against an England team whose preparations and selection policy were thrown into disarray by what were described as ‘flu-like symptoms’ affecting several members of the team. But this success proved a false dawn; a maiden Test century by Dom Sibley and fine all-round cricket by Ben Stokes saw England home in the second Test and this set the tone for the rest of the rubber. When the dust settled England had claimed three Test wins in South Africa for the first time since 1913/14. With both rubbers counting towards the World Test Championship, the dismal return of seven Tests played with only one win against six defeats left South Africa languishing in a lowly eighth place; while in the Test rankings they slid to sixth. Any hopes of an improvement from a scheduled two- Test rubber in West Indies in July and August were thwarted by the coronavirus. Vernon Philander announced his Test retirement with effect from the end of the England rubber, thus joining such luminaries as Hashim Amla, Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and A.B.de Villiers. In other words, the fine side of the early part of the decade is breaking up; and nothing better illustrates the lack of replacements than that four of South Africa’s debutants in the England rubber were past their thirtieth birthdays and the fifth, fast-medium bowler Beuran Hendricks, was the stripling of the group at only 29½. South Africa A played only two fixtures in 2019/20, both in India against the hosts’ A side immediately before the Test rubber between the senior sides. The outcome was a comfortable win for India A in the first match and a high-scoring draw in the second. South Africa’s domestic scene was deeply troubled, the air thick with allegations of corruption and maladministration. Early in 2019 Cricket South Africa had announced ambitious plans to simplify the structure of the domestic season from 2020/21, but these proposals have been withdrawn in the face of legal action by the SA Cricketers’ Association. And so the future remains uncertain, although one of the few things that is clear is that Cricket South Africa, struggling to reduce its costs and suffering from a disastrous loss of sponsorship income, faces a bleak financial outlook. Like so much else, the Four-Day Franchise Series came to an abrupt halt in March at the onset of the pandemic. At this stage, with two rounds to go, Lions had four wins when no one else had more than two. It is true they also had three defeats, but perhaps they deserve some credit for bringing games to a definite result: there were 12 draws altogether in the 24 matches played, but only one in the eight involving Lions. At any rate, they enjoyed a substantial lead when coronavirus rang down the curtain, and they were awarded the title by Cricket South Africa.