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No man chases by himself, of course, and Smith could lean on Jacques Kallis, Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers at various stages. But even among them Smith was the predominant batsman in these chases. In the eight successful 200-plus chases he was involved in - and instinctively, we can appreciate that is a lot of successful chases - Smith scored a third of the runs. Repeat this to yourself: one batsman in your side, in a wide range of tricky-to-impossible chases, is a banker to get you as many as a third of the runs. How much easier does that make it? That proportion is the highest of all time, beating out Greg Chappell and - let's just casually drop this here - the Don. … [Read more...] about Don’t forget Graeme Smith, the batsman

"It's really pleasing to be in a position to have players returning to training and a huge amount of work has been done by many to get us this far," said Mo Bobat, the ECB's performance director. "The pool of players will give selectors strong options when it comes to selecting squads across formats further down the line, as we move closer to our aim of playing international cricket this summer." … [Read more...] about Alex Hales, Liam Plunkett left out as England name 55-man training group

One of the most impressive aspects of his captaincy was the number of Tests South Africa won away from home. They won 23 out of 56 Tests, which equals the record for most Test wins overseas under a captain - Clive Lloyd's West Indies won 23 out of 50. Of the 20 overseas series in which Smith led South Africa, they lost only four - to Pakistan in 2003, Sri Lanka and India in 2004, and Australia in 2005-06 - drew six, and won ten. Since the defeat to Australia in 2005-06, Smith captained South Africa to 12 overseas series (including series at neutral venues), winning eight and drawing four. … [Read more...] about Fourth-innings hero, and captain extraordinaire

FacebookTwitterFacebook MessengerPinterestEmailprintThe ICC may continue to insist that this year's men's T20 World Cup in Australia has not yet been postponed, but Cricket Australia officials believe the prospects of it being held on schedule are dwindling. Kevin Roberts, CA's chief executive, said on Friday that there's "a very high risk about the prospect" of the tournament taking place as planned in October-November, his comments coming a day after the emergence of a communication from CA chairman Earl Eddings to the ICC in which he asked for Australia to be able to host the event in the same window next year. … [Read more...] about ‘Very high risk’ of men’s T20 World Cup taking place on schedule – Cricket Australia chief executive

Tom Banton, Pat Brown, Lewis Gregory and Saqib Mahmood made white-ball debuts over the winter. Mason Crane played two T20Is in 2017 and the final Test of that winter's Ashes tour but has mainly been limited to white-ball cricket since. Liam Dawson has won 12 caps across formats and carried the drinks in last summer's World Cup, while Ben Duckett, Liam Livingstone and David Willey are back in contention after missing several squads. Reece Topley has suffered badly with injuries since his last England appearance at the 2016 World T20 but is fit again, while Olly Stone is involved again after a stress fracture last summer. … [Read more...] about Who are the new names in England frame?