Protea Batting Geniuses

[honestbharani]

Lovely stories.. Of all the teams in the world, I feel the batsmen from South Africa generally get a raw deal. The country has produced some of the most outstanding batsmen of all time. And some of these stories here are really good. Felt we should have a thread to discuss the great South African batsmen and the unique features of batting that they bring to the table..

Firdose Moonda: Ali Bacher celebrates South Africa's past and present batsmen | Cricket | ESPN Cricinfo

 

[Pratters]

I was having a discussion over a decade ago with a friend. South African batsmen usually play straight without little wrist movement compared to say, Indians. They have to counter bounce much more than turn. This makes their batting boring at times, though it's effective. So while they are at par with batsmen of other countries, they lose out when the best are discussed some how.

 

[indiaholic]

Daryl Cullinan
Was absolutely magnificent against pace.

 

[AldoRaine18]

Daryl Cullinan
Was absolutely magnificent against pace.

And then he met Shane Warne.

 

[indiaholic]

Yeah he was terrible against Warne but IMO gets massively underrated justmbecause of that. He was not even terrible against spin but Warne just broke him mentally.

 

[kingkallis]

Cullinan used the thinnest bat (from the look of it) in international cricket.

 

[OverratedSanity]

It's a shame Cullinan gets such a bad ****ing rap for being a Warne bunny. The guy was a good batsman but he's made out to be some numpty. Loved watching him.

 

[Pratters]

Cullinan is 10th best in averages in 1993-2001 (his playing career years) for batsmen who have played 50 tests or more.

 

[indiaholic]

It's a shame. Can't even find enough youtube footage. Just a single century.

 

[AndyZaltzHair]

Ranking SA Genius

1# Barry Richards
2# Graeme Pollock
3# Dudley Nourse
4# Jacques Kallis
5# Herbie Taylor
6# Ab de Villiers
7# Bruce Mitchell
8# Aubrey Faulkner

Notable Omissions: Hashim Amla, Graeme Smith, Gary Kirsten, Eddie Barlow, Trevor Goddard, Jackie McGlew, Colin Bland (and the list goes on and on)

Would love to rate Herbie Taylor even further up. Master of matting pitches. His battle against Sydney Barnes is well noted. Dudley Nourse with numerous resistant innings sits high. Bruce Mitchell was the lone warrior. The more I read about Barry Richards from different accounts, the more I get convinced.

 

[honestbharani]

Personally, I was a BIG fan of Jonty and his style of batting, growing up as a kid. Loved his technique. Think he let himself down due to concentration issues in the long format. Technically, he was equipped to do well against any sort of bowling on any sort of track, I felt.

 

[Marius]

Yeah he was terrible against Warne but IMO gets massively underrated justmbecause of that. He was not even terrible against spin but Warne just broke him mentally.

Yeah, he was actually good against spin. I remember he made 115 or so out of a total of 200 in SL, while Murali was bowling hand grenades.

Was one of my favourite players as a kid. I saw him in a bookshop a few years ago and was starstruck. But I've heard he's a bit of a tool though.

 

[The Battlers Prince]

That's a fairly accurate description of SA batsmen in the thread title (what's the name of those things). Biff Smith never particularly took my fancy as a batting stylist but he scored plenty of runs. I think of his short comings towards the end of his career with turning the ball off his hip being his downfall. I never really thought about it but if he had more wrist movement like a usual SC batsman it could have been his savior.

 

[CricAddict]

SA batsmen have usually been a stronger team in making useful contributions as a team rather than high individual scores. The batting was always quality upto number 9 or 10 with everyone chipping in with useful scores.