SA CAN lay claim to four of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year, who will be immortalised when the 150th edition of the famous Almanack is published today.
Three of SA’s famous four – Hashim Amla, Jacques Kallis and Dale Steyn – earned the honour for their performances on SA’s tour to England last year.
The fourth, Nick Compton, was born in Durban and moved to England as a teenager. In India in November last year, he made his Test debut for the land of his paternal grandfather Denis’s birth.
In fact, such has been SA’s dominance of Test cricket in the past year that – in Mike Procter’s estimation – they deserved better than a perfect score.
“Three out of five is pretty good, but we could have had six out of five,” Procter joked yesterday.
Marlon Samuels is Wisden’s odd man in for his gutsy batting on the West Indies’ tour to England in 2012. Samuels’ innings of 31, 86, 117, 76 not out and 76 took the edge off a difficult series for the Windies.
But, in Procter’s view, SA were hard done by. “Compton has only played seven Tests, whereas Vernon has proved himself through the year. Not to take anything away from Compton, Vernon could have got it.”
Philander, the joint second-fastest bowler to take 50 Test wickets in cricket history, had the lowest average on both sides in the England-SA series.
Compton was rewarded for a superb first-class season for Somerset last year in which he scored 1494 runs at an average of 99.60 with five centuries.
Procter didn’t want to quibble too much with Wisden’s decision.
“Amla, Kallis and Steyn deserve this and the team deserves it,” he said.
“It’s a great honour because Wisden is such a famous cricketing name. It doesn’t change your life but it is recognition.”
Procter was honoured by Wisden in 1970 – the year that an all-white SA team were cast into the wilderness of isolation because of apartheid.
In a release yesterday, Wisden lauded Amla as “the batting sensation of the summer”, said that the “only surprise about the selection of ... Kallis was that he hadn’t been chosen earlier” and that Steyn had “cemented his status as the world’s most frightening fast bowler”.
Amla scored 482 runs in five Test innings in England – 311 of them in one undefeated effort at The Oval.
In the same match Kallis, the pre-eminent all-rounder of the age, made 182 not out in an unbroken stand of 377 with Amla and took the important wickets of Kevin Pietersen and Ian Bell.
Steyn was the leading wicket-taker in the series with 15.
But, aside from Amla’s monumental innings, the highest by a South African, Philander’s 5/30 in the second innings at Lord’s was the finest performance of the series.
Proteas trio in elite club
Three of SA’s famous four – Hashim Amla, Jacques Kallis and Dale Steyn – earned the honour for their performances on SA’s tour to England last year.
The fourth, Nick Compton, was born in Durban and moved to England as a teenager. In India in November last year, he made his Test debut for the land of his paternal grandfather Denis’s birth.
In fact, such has been SA’s dominance of Test cricket in the past year that – in Mike Procter’s estimation – they deserved better than a perfect score.
“Three out of five is pretty good, but we could have had six out of five,” Procter joked yesterday.
Marlon Samuels is Wisden’s odd man in for his gutsy batting on the West Indies’ tour to England in 2012. Samuels’ innings of 31, 86, 117, 76 not out and 76 took the edge off a difficult series for the Windies.
But, in Procter’s view, SA were hard done by. “Compton has only played seven Tests, whereas Vernon has proved himself through the year. Not to take anything away from Compton, Vernon could have got it.”
Philander, the joint second-fastest bowler to take 50 Test wickets in cricket history, had the lowest average on both sides in the England-SA series.
Compton was rewarded for a superb first-class season for Somerset last year in which he scored 1494 runs at an average of 99.60 with five centuries.
Procter didn’t want to quibble too much with Wisden’s decision.
“Amla, Kallis and Steyn deserve this and the team deserves it,” he said.
“It’s a great honour because Wisden is such a famous cricketing name. It doesn’t change your life but it is recognition.”
Procter was honoured by Wisden in 1970 – the year that an all-white SA team were cast into the wilderness of isolation because of apartheid.
In a release yesterday, Wisden lauded Amla as “the batting sensation of the summer”, said that the “only surprise about the selection of ... Kallis was that he hadn’t been chosen earlier” and that Steyn had “cemented his status as the world’s most frightening fast bowler”.
Amla scored 482 runs in five Test innings in England – 311 of them in one undefeated effort at The Oval.
In the same match Kallis, the pre-eminent all-rounder of the age, made 182 not out in an unbroken stand of 377 with Amla and took the important wickets of Kevin Pietersen and Ian Bell.
Steyn was the leading wicket-taker in the series with 15.
But, aside from Amla’s monumental innings, the highest by a South African, Philander’s 5/30 in the second innings at Lord’s was the finest performance of the series.
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