How you can help us

By Khalid Mohidin

Hey, guys! Welcome to another issue of Cricket Fanatics Magazine, the first and only fan-driven Cricket publication in South Africa.

We started this venture on 1 July 2019 with a vision to get fans from all walks of life engaged with the game and give them access to the personalities in South African Cricket.

We want to tell the untold stories of South African cricket and we want fans to be heard.

Since we started, we covered the Mzansi Super League, Women’s Super League, Proteas Men and Women International Test, ODI and T20I series, as well as school and club cricket, with the aim of providing entertaining, engaging and educational content.

But haven't stopped there.

We started a Monthly Magazine where we provide multi-media content, including exclusive features, opinion pieces and analysis.

This works hand-in-hand with our YouTube channel where we produce unique cricket shows that allow fans to call in and have their say.

We have the Daily Show, which reveals all the major talking points in South African cricket, the Sunday Podcast Show where we sit back, relax and engage with the live chat, answering all the questions fans have about us and the game.

We have Off-Side Maidens, the first ever All-Women’s Cricket Show on YouTube, which helps empower women in cricket and gives them a place to share their own views on not only women’s cricket but all cricket.

We have a Legends show, where we interview all legends in cricket.

To produce all of this, we’ve invested a lot of money, time and effort to bring this to you for free.

But to keep this going we need your help.

So we have opened a Patreon account.

In the past, the super-rich supported the work of artists as patrons of the art.

Today, we are fortunate that technology has enabled anyone to become a patron of creative work, even if they are not billionaires.

We have therefore launched a campaign for you as a Cricket Fan to become a patron and support us as an independent, bootstrapped publisher.

As a Patron, you also get your voice heard as a Fan.

Plus: You have the opportunity to become more engaged with the content we produce.

Every month we produce at least:

• 60 Website Articles
• 20 Daily Video Shows
• 4 Weekly Podcasts
• Match Previews
• Match Reviews
• Video Interviews
• And more…

So please join our Patreon today initiative today. Even a tiny amount can make a big difference.

Technique vs Stats

By Khalid Mohidin

Technique or Stats, which metric is more important when it comes to selecting players for Test cricket?

When it comes to team selection, it’s hard to identify what criteria are used to make decisions on certain players.

In red-ball cricket, particularly Test cricket, it’s the hardest format to pick players for.

Fans love to discuss the selection and who they think should be selected. But the information we have, particularly if you don’t watch 4-Day Cricket, is stats.

But stats are not the most important criteria to look at. You have to look at technique, mentality and character too.

When looking at run-scoring stats, context is also important.

Where did the batter score his runs? What were the conditions like? What type of bowlers did they face? What was the status of the game when the player came out to bat?

We discussed this topic in depth below.

Business Corner

By Khalid Mohidin

Businesses can now market affordably and effectively to a cricket audience!

We are excited to announce the launch of our Business Corner to help you market your business, products and services affordably and effectively to a cricket audience.

Since we started Cricket Fanatics Magazine in 2019, we've survived a pandemic, lockdowns, no cricket and even the financial woes of Cricket South Africa.

As a small, independent startup, we know how difficult it is to remain competitive under difficult circumstances.

We have to compete with some of the biggest media companies in the world ourselves, despite not having the budget and the resources they have.

However, we found a strategy that works for smaller businesses and that has been proven to work for thousands of businesses all over the world.

When we first discovered this strategy, we didn't believe that it would work.

After all, everybody around us was trying to blast their way to success via social media, just like the big brands did with traditional media like print, radio and television.

But it made so much sense that we decided to test it ourselves.

Today we are a well-respected publication in cricket circles.

And we have the systems to help any business implement the strategy.

We've therefore decided to start a Business Corner to help businesses implement this strategy.

But we know it's not for everybody.

Read more about the strategy and the system on our Business Page to decide whether you are ready to implement a modern online marketing strategy that gets you more long-term happy customers.

The Orange Army Keeps Marching On

By C.S Chiwanza

Sunrisers Eastern Cape won their second title in two years. They also won the SA20 Spirit of Cricket Award for the second year running. In both seasons, they have displayed the Sunrisers spirit, which Aiden Markram defined as ‘characteristics that you can't necessarily coach. It's sort of either have it or you don’t. This group of players has it. It's a culture of never-say-die attitude, always giving your 100% and more, and fighting tooth and nail every ball out there. It's enjoyable off the field, we enjoy playing together on the field.’

When he was 24, Andy Birrell was at a crossroads. He had talent, but everyone around him considered him to be an into-the-wind dribbler type and not a world-conquering star. So, he was relegated to the fringes of his provincial side. With no great expectations of his talent, he had to find a profession.

Cricket didn’t pay much, and he couldn’t live on what was paid to him as a fringe player. Like his father, he was a cricket badger. In their home, they discussed the sport at the breakfast table and on the drive to school. He grew up in a cricket atmosphere. His dad, a teacher profession, stayed close to the game by coaching cricket at his school.

Like his father, the young man couldn’t tear himself from the game. Also, like his father, he had a teaching qualification. But, unlike his father, he chose to go all in. It was the mid-1980s and Adi Birrell chose coaching. His fluency in Xhosa led to his deployment in the townships.

The coaching job wasn't what he expected. Some of the schools he coached didn't have facilities and in others, they were in serious disrepair. Birrell developed negotiation skills in double quick time. With that side sorted, Birrell learned quickly that for most of his students, the focus had to be less on the game and more on the people. If he had been deployed 10 years later, in the Brixton area, Birrell would have seen the young boy who was sent away from cricket because he didn't have the required kit.

His mother was a charwoman who went for periods without consistent work. In those barren periods, the boy slept on an empty stomach and survived on the sandwich and milk combo he ate at school. As a teenager, the boy would not take to the field while his cousin was playing because they shared a single pair of spikes. And in 2007, while Birrell led Ireland to a history-making run at the World Cup, that boy was putting food on the table as a bowler for hire for affluent schools in need of serious pace in their bowling attack.

10 years later, that boy, Ottniel Baartman, moved 741 km from home to sign with the Knights. He used his salary over the next few months to build his mother a house. After a lifetime of living in a corrugated iron shack, his mother and sister finally got to live in a brick-and-mortar home.

Baartman was one of the three pillars of the Sunrisers Eastern Cape’s lethal pace attack. The second pillar is Dan Worrall who gives those who watched West Indies in the 1980s a sense of deja vu when he stands at the top of his run-up. The right-armer begins his run-up almost at mid-off and runs in at an angle like Malcolm Marshall. His technique is homespun. To generate extra speed as a youngster playing backyard cricket, Worrall adopted a long run-up. Close to his mark was a little tree which he was forced to run around.

There were no great expectations for Worrall and his home-brewed technique. He was often overlooked for representative teams and only worked with a bowling coach after he arrived at Melbourne University at 19. Worrall only considered cricket as a possible full-time job at 21, after South Australia offered him a rookie contract.

The third pillar is Marco Jansen. The 23-year-old allrounder was in the system since he was 13. At around 16, Claude April Gordon Parsons was brought in at CSA’s expense to coach and upskill Jansen and his brother Duan. At 17, the Jansen twins were part of the South Africa Under-19 team, bowled to Virat Kohli in the nets and debuted for North West. Jansen was also part of the Durban Heat team in 2019.

The differences in the backgrounds of SEC’s top wicket-takers and masterminds of their title-winning 2024 campaign are a cross-section of their varied skills. Baartman has pace and accuracy and keeps a toe-crunching yorker up his sleeve. Dan Worrall is an old-fashioned swing bowler with a few slower-ball variations to deceive batters. Marco Jansen's left-arm seam from a height of 2.06m or 6.8ft brings into play all the angles. He has extra bounce and can swing the ball.

Baartman, Worrall and Jansen carried the Sunrisers to the title. They were the top three wicket-takers in the tournament. No other bowling attack was as productive.

The Sunrisers were supposed to begin their campaign on the 10th of January, but it rained in Gqeberha. It was the first time that Birrell had the entire squad in one place, and so he replaced what should have been a post-match debrief with a teachable moment “When you meet someone, ask him his name, call him by his name. Thandi serves us our food. Shami is the caterer behind. We’ve got Trevor outside here. We’ve got Brent outside here. Know the people’s names that you shouldn’t know,” he said.

Birrell believes that life feeds into sport and sport feeds into life. One cannot be on the field what they are not when off it. One can’t just aspire to do the little things on the field when they are cavalier about things off-field. Something as small as creating time for the fans, acknowledging and thanking the people around you - from the back-room staff to the people responsible for the upkeep of the facilities at the various grounds they play at - ‘keeps you humble and grounded.’

The message resonated with the Sunrisers’ captain, Aiden Markram, who instinctively doffs his cap when he greets you. “Doing the little things right is almost your everyday behaviour. How you treat people on a day-to-day basis, being appreciative of everything that you have and trying to make a positive difference to everyone around you,” he says.

On the field, this egoless behaviour is seen in small things like backing up every throw, chasing the ball in pairs and making sure that you're in the right position in the field. It feeds into Birrell’s 1% theory of innovation. “It is the theory of doing small things that might make a difference, but they also might not. But if you do enough of those small things, then you do get an advantage over your opposition. And so it was all the time thinking about what, what you can do with your team that other teams might not be doing. And so you get a strategic advantage by doing that.”

The Sunrisers’ coaching staff was as focused on the minutiae as well as the big moves that in addition to the Riser of the Day Award that was given to the player of the match, they had the Eddie the Eagle Award, a brainchild of Ryan Cook, the fielding coach.

“Fielding is something that you can control and making sure that you try and make an impact in the field, whether it's saving one run or trying to take a spectacular catch to change the momentum of the game, trying to get a run out. I think those are the little things that can add up and make a big difference,” says Simon Harmer.

The award inspired good-natured competition for the award in the team. Walking into the dressing room with dirty clothes was a badge of honour in the Sunrisers team. Everyone was throwing themselves around, diving to save runs, even if it was saving a single run. No one shied away from doing the dirty clothes work. Everyone on the team appreciated the value of one run, even when they had the opposition’s backs against the ropes.

There were four instances of teams bowling out the opposition for less than 100 runs. Sunrisers did it on two of those occasions and bowled out Pretoria Capitals for the lowest total, 52, in the tournament’s history. The complementary relationship between the bowlers and the fielders was so good that the Sunrisers won two of the three nine-wicket victories of the tournament.

Another stat; there were 11 close matches in the tournament, that is matches won by a margin of 10 runs or less, or with six or fewer balls remaining. SEC was involved in five and won four. The edge was found in the hard-run singles and run-saving dives in the field.

The philosophy of doing the little things right could have died in infancy had the players on the bench refused to buy into the philosophy. According to social scientists, our senses are highly attuned to negative stuff around us. We have a negativity bias. We see a hostile face in the crowd and miss all the friendly smiles. There is an old Russian saying that goes; a spoonful of tar can spoil a barrel of honey. All it would have taken was one or two unhappy members of the squad to upset the balance of the dressing room.

“I think it's important that you get the buy-in from the guys that are sitting on the bench. Guys like Sarel Erwee rock up every day with the same energy, pouring energy into the team. The same goes for Aya Gqamane, who normally comes on and helps in the field. Every time he comes on he's electric, he's always putting energy into the team, always looking after himself off the field and doing the extra work, trying to get 1% better,” says Simon Harmer.

Tom Abell, one of Sunrisers’ leading run-scorers, concurs with Harmer, “Those guys are the heartbeat of the team. It's a lot easier for the guys playing and getting the opportunities to buy into a philosophy, but for those guys to help, day in, day out, throwing balls, helping with the drinks, it shows they are real good teammen. They looked after those who were playing and their needs. They were absolutely phenomenal. In every competition, it's going to be a squad effort, a team effort and we certainly couldn’t do it without them. There was always a time when you needed them to step in and they did so phenomenally well.”

Staying true to Birrell’s one per cent theory, the reserves brought in 1% additions by sharing insights on venues and opposition players, tirelessly throwing balls in the nets, keeping the dressing room morale on a positive note in victory or loss, and keeping the regular starters on their toes by improving their game.

With the field and bench on their back, Baartman, Worrall and Jansen carried the Sunrisers to their second title in as many years. They took a combined 55 wickets at an economy of 7.27 in the tournament. No other pace attack has been that productive. 47 of those wickets were caught in the field and by the wicketkeeper. As they did in season one, Sunrisers Eastern Cape showed that the strength of a team is greater than the sum of its parts.

Russell Domingo Interview

By Stuart Judge

Russell Domingo is a world-class coach who has vast experience working with sides like the Warriors, the South Africa Under 19 team, the Senior Men’s National team, Bangladesh and the Lions.

We at Cricket Fanatics Magazine sat down with him to ask about his experience at the Lions and the Sunrisers Eastern Cape during the past SA20.

When asked about his tenure at the Lions so far Domingo said, “I am in a very privileged position. We have an awesome CEO, great staff members, excellent facilities and amazing players. The Lions is a well-run union and I believe that the Union closely resembles the standards that we see in some international teams."

Domingo also added that the success of the union is largely due to the recruitment strategy as well as a consistent pipeline of young players coming through. He stated, “I believe in giving as many local-based players as many opportunities as possible. We are fortunate that we have a strong schools and clubs system as well as a good structure at the Lions which helps develop their talent. If the players do not get the opportunity to play they will most likely leave the union."

The excellent organizational structure at the Lions has recently seen them win the 4-Day competition.  Over the course of this season, we have seen young players such as Connor Esterhuizen and Kwena Maphaka perform for the team. The Lions have also appointed former players such as Hashim Amla as the batting coach and Allan Donald as the bowling coach.

Hashim Amla has previously worked at the Cape Cobras, Cape Town Blitz and MI Cape Town before joining the Lions. He is arguably one of the best batters South Africa has ever produced.

When asked about how Amla has adapted to coaching at the Lions Domingo stated, “He is a very good coach. We all know that as a player he was very calm and I believe that this can be instilled into the players. He is a very balanced person who accepts success and failure in equal measure and he understands the pressures of playing provincial and international cricket."

Recently, Russell Domingo stated that he believes that more 4-Day Cricket should be played across the board. Domingo qualified his views by stating, “Cricket South Africa is obviously under financial constraints, however, we only play seven first-class games per season which is not enough. The lack of four-day cricket is not only hindering our provincial sides, but, it is also affecting the men’s Test side. A possible solution to this issue could be increasing the amount of matches from seven to ten where each team could possibly play each other twice. There have been discussions with Cricket South Africa to see how we could pull the resources together to help create more four-day cricket.”

During the recent edition of the SA20, Russell Domingo worked alongside Adrian Birrell at the Sunrisers Eastern Cape who subsequently went on to win the tournament. When asked why the Sunrisers have been so successful in the tournament Domingo stated, “I have worked with Adrian for a long time. He is a genius at man-management. He seems to know how to get the best out of each player. The organization also recruited the right types of players not only in terms of ability but, more importantly, character-wise as well. By having the right types of characters in place, it allowed the whole group to work towards a common goal which everyone bought into."

We at Cricket Fanatics Magazine would like to thank Russell Domingo for this insightful interview and we wish him all the best for the remainder of the season with the Lions.

Q&A: Shandre Fritz

By Janine and Jessica October

Tell us how you got involved with cricket and how you made the transition into match officiating.

I played cricket in the streets with the guys and at school, went from primary school where I played in the boys’ team and became the captain of that side. Then into high school, I was the captain of the boys’ team. I then found out from one of my teachers that there’s women’s cricket. So, I transitioned into women’s cricket and some men’s club cricket as well. In terms of officiating, that fell in my lap I suppose.

As a former cricketer, then captain and then level 3 coach, the association came to me and asked me if I wanted to be an umpire and I said “Oh hell no, I cannot do umpiring! I think umpires are crazy, they take too much stress and probably like a beating or two, that’s not for me.”

Then they asked me, “Do you want to be a match referee?” and I was like “Sure, the person who tosses the coin…”, that’s how little I knew about it initially because as a player you don’t really take note of those things too much. Then I got into match refereeing, I became the first female match referee in South Africa and one of only a handful in the world.

In your opinion, what makes an effective match referee? How important is objectivity in this role? 


An effective referee is obviously one that’s impartial and holds the game in the highest regard. At the end of the day, we have to look at what the game expects us to do, you know, the integrity of the match, being fair to all parties and not being biased to anyone, and making sure we hear each case and make sure we look at things holistically before passing judgments.

I think that is one of the key attributes of a match referee, as well as to just be relaxed and calm, you don’t want to be aggressive with your back against the wall first up, you want to have people come and have conversations so that you can work through things.

Typically, what I do in my pre-series meetings is, we speak to the captains and coaches, and just say "Look we’re human beings first, let’s deal with each other with the necessary dignity and respect because that’s what everyone wants." Everyone just wants to be treated like a decent human being.

How do you mentally prepare yourself before every game? 


My mental preparation for the game is simple. I’ve got to read through all the different playing conditions and then prepare the documents and look at the compositions of our player control team like the umpires and who we’re working with. I mentally prepare myself for the different personalities and of course the teams, you look at the team you are going to be officiating with. Most of the time it’s just making sure everything I do is in order and all my documents are in order. Then I communicate with the guys I’ll be working alongside and just try to stay as relaxed as possible, and enjoy it because I absolutely love what I’m doing.

You, along with Lauren Agenbag, were selected as match referee and umpire respectively in the second men’s SA20 tournament. How do you feel as a female (of colour) in the male arena? What effect can this have on women’s cricket in SA?


Of course, it’s fantastic to be part of the set-up with myself and Lauren (Agenbag). It’s just nice to be afforded the opportunity. In any kind of sport, whether you’re male or female in any race or ethnic group, just knowing that there are now opportunities for everyone, simply if you are good enough, that you can work in any sphere.

If the ceiling is broken for the next generation, it’s always nice to be able to be the person that someone can look up to and see that there is now another stream for sportswomen to aspire to. You don’t just have to make it in playing anymore, or scoring, there are opportunities in coaching, match officiating, umpiring, etc. It’s fantastic for me to know that we are one of the few people that get the opportunity to break that ceiling and set an example for the next generation to come and open the doors for the next generation.

Obviously, that comes with a huge responsibility, so we take it very seriously and I am really honoured to be part of this. We are the heroes that we were looking for growing up because there weren’t many female officials anywhere in the world of sport. Now in the modern age, we are part of that groundbreaking individuals to open the doors for the next generation and that’s absolutely wonderful.

What did you look forward to most in the SA20 tournament? Did you have any specific goals? 


For me, I looked forward to the entire experience of just working with a different group of people, you know, one of the firsts in South Africa. It’s wonderful to see stadiums packed for this kind of competition. So the focus is always on interacting with different people and learning as much as I can from everyone because in this game you never know anything. It's important to pick up all these little pearls of wisdom from people around you, not just officials or players or coaches but also support staff and the venue managers etc. I'm always trying to learn from them as much as I can and as quickly as I can.

In 2023, CSA announced equal remuneration for both men and women players. What were your thoughts and feelings on this decision? 


Wonderful, wonderful news! I was really happy because I played in the era when we didn’t get paid to play. You get a remuneration or a stipend after a tour, which obviously won’t sustain you and you still had to have another job, study and have a family life, travel to and from cricket, and go to the gym at your own expense.

Now, it’s a viable career for young female cricketers, so I was absolutely elated and I hope that it may continue and that the newer players who are benefitting from this understand that there was a hard road prior to them earning equal pay and that they take the responsibility quite seriously because there’s generations and generations of female cricketers who’ve fought hard for them to be able to earn the same kind of salaries as the men do.     

Who were your cricket heroes growing up? Any favourite player(s)? 


My cricketer hero for sure is Jacques Kallis the king! I believe he’s the ultimate cricketer, I don’t think anyone will come close and that’s my humble opinion. I believe he is the most complete cricketer we’ve ever had in my time that I can remember, batting, bowling and fielding-wise. And just an all-round general fantastic human being. I remember seeing him the first time playing, and then you start moving in the same circles, you see them at similar events. And every time, like last year when we were in India doing the Legends League, he was always the same, always kind, always gracious, and he always had time for a word or two. So, for me, no one compares to the king, Jacques Kallis.

How do you balance work-life and family life? 


Well, my family and fiancé are really good, they know that when it’s work, it’s work. Summer is work for me, so I’m away most of the time. However, I have the luxury of being home in winter and supporting them where they need to be supported.

Ja, I’ve been playing sport since I was very young and have been travelling since very young, so it’s nothing new for them to have me back and forth, in and out of the country or around the country and then back home again.  

What do you do to relax or take a break? 


I’ve recently actually enjoyed the beach again so I typically will go to the beach in the morning, go for a bit of a swim until the sun starts pumping and then get back home, and relax. Maybe I read a book, watch a documentary or spend time with my nephews and nieces.  

Do you have any pets? 


No pets at the moment as both my Fiancée and I travel quite a bit, so it won't be fair to have a pet around.

What is your favourite dish? 


Lamb Curry

What TV series are you currently following? 


I like to watch slightly older stuff, so what I watch over and over is Friends, Grey’s Anatomy, and The Good Doctor. Those are the types of series I like to watch.

What 5 songs are on your playlist right now? 


Kali Uchis – I wish you roses

Jamiroquai – Blow your mind

Mariah Carey – Stay the night

Toni Braxton – Speaking in tongues

Heritage singers – Someone is praying for you

Who inspires you most, on and off the field? 


My inspiration comes from God and my mom and dad affording me the opportunity. I don’t know what I did to be so privileged to be able to work in cricket after playing for so long. So that in itself is an inspiration, to have the opportunity to travel all over the world, all over the country, watch the game you love and call it a job I mean I’m sure many of us would do it for free, but ja for me that is inspiration enough.

The sacrifice of my parents working hard so I can have everything I need to go on these tours and represent in any format, whether it be coaching, playing, or officiating, is an inspiration.

Working with my colleagues who are probably much older than I am. The learnings and the kindness in the way they treat me, whilst they share their incredible knowledge.

And then those people who used to sponsor me back in the day when I played at the Old Mutual cricket club.

Mr. Hodgkinson, even Eugene Jacobs and Albertus Kennedy, some of the older CEOs, were just good people who took care of me and helped me along my journey. There are so many. I mean I feel bad mentioning only 3 but the opportunity to be supported by so many people that’s inspiration itself. 

You cannot be resting on your laurels when you’ve been afforded the opportunity. So that’s it, I am simply grateful, to work in this field is an absolute dream come true.