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In Test history, there have been almost 3,000 matches.

Within those matches, there have been just over 60,000 individual performances. From all those times that an individual player — man or woman — has appeared in a Test, only five can say they have done what Matt Renshaw did at Kingsmead.

Ben Jones analyses how he managed to do it.

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https://www.cricinfo.com/story/five-wickets-in-an-over-chad-laycock-sets-record-in-south-african-t20-match-1558419

Australia have overcome the World Test Champions in their own back yard in perhaps their most complete performance in years. Off the back of an odd year at the top level, Australia found a gear that would send a shiver down the spine of their upcoming opponents in this current test cycle. Despite winning the Ashes and only losing 4 of their last 19 tests, there have been consistent questions about the age of their star players and the consistency of their batting performances, often relying on their cartel of legendary bowlers to get them out of trouble.

This seems pretty unfair to judge one of the best teams Australia has ever produced on a portion of their game when the whole seems to get results more often than not, but I guess success can always become boring and we will always try and pick holes in greatness. The outlook for Australia was made to look bleak leading into this series after a loss to Bangladesh at home where batting woes laid bare for all to see and I will admit that I fell into the same line of pessimism, thinking that the team might be approaching a cliff.

But heroics from Renshaw and Hazlewood plus some incredible catching from Steve Smith, was more than enough to push a wasteful South African team away.

https://pathannah.substack.com/p/the-stoicism-of-australian-cricket?r=7coz0j&utm_medium=ios

Picture 1 : India tour of New Zealand, 1994

Picture 2 & 3 : Bank of New Zealand Centenary Series 1995

Picture 4 : Standard bank Tri Series 1997

Picture 5 : India tour of Pakistan, 1997

Picture 6 : Independence Cup 1997

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In 1833, Hambledon cricketer and writer John Nyren wrote a protest against the then shift in Laws in favor of allowing round-arm bowling. Until then, Cricket has essentially only ever allowed underarm bowling as the exclusive method of delivery. In his essay, he pushes many arguments against the change. The principle of these include his disgust with the notion of rule changes to "shorten the game," which is a familiar point of contention between conservative and modernist cricket fans in the present day.

He also argues that roundarm deliveries make batting harder, rendering them unable to display their skill and elegance. I personally found it interesting how we have flipped 180 to an era where discourse is centered around the batriarchy and conditions which offer no service to the bowlers.

He concludes with asserting that if the game continues on this track it will decline from its elegance to mere horseplay. He goes on to conclude that any player in the new era will not hold a candle in skill and eminency to those players of the era gone by.

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