Today we bring you part two of our Top 50 post-isolation cricketers countdown.
Topped by one of the largest cricketers of our lifetime, the list includes a number of genuine allrounders and the first Test captain of the new era.
Anyway, enjoy our list of players coming in at 40-31.
40 Kepler
Wessels
(16 Tests, 55 ODIs)
WESSELS had the honour of captaining the country’s first Test team post-isolation.
Oorlede Clive Rice will go down in history as SA’s first captain since readmission, having led the ODI team to India in 1991.
Still, Wessels was the right man to lead the five-day team.
Blessed with die wereld se geduld, opener Wessels could bat out the entire day without playing a bad shot.
His statistics prove that he was better in the 24 Tests he played for Australia, but still averaged 38 in 16 Tests for SA - scoring 1 027 runs in the process.
39 Johan Botha
(5 Tests, 78 ODIs,
40 T20Is)
Botha is still one of SA’s best T20I bowlers on paper.
A man born for this format of the game, he is currently fifth on the all-time wicket-takers list for the Proteas with his 37 wickets.
Not only was he a good limited-overs spinner that captained the national side on occasion, but Botha was decent with bat in hand too and will be remembered as one of SA’s first real T20 experts.
38 Wayne Parnell
(6 Tests, 65 ODIs,
40 T20Is)
IN A perfect world, Parnell would have been much higher up on this list. But tipped as a future star from a young age, Parnell never really lived up to the hype.
With left-arm seamers few and far between in Mzansi, Parnell’s ability with bat in hand made him a really rare gem.
He never really got going as a Test cricketer, and only represented South Africa in six outings.
Parnell, though, had more success on the limited-overs scene, coming in as SA’s fourth highest wicket-taker, with 41 scalps, in T20I cricket.
He also bagged 94 ODI wickets.
BIG PROMISE: Wayne Parnell
37 Keshav Maharaj (30 Tests,
7 ODIs)
MAHARAJ is fast becoming SA’s greatest Test spin bowler of the modern era.
As it stands, Paul Adams is the most successful spinner to date with 134 scalps.
Maharaj, with 110, should eclipse him in coming seasons.
At 30, he will add to his 30 Tests.
Interestingly, Maharaj has also enjoyed the best modern-day bowling figures for an SA Test bowler when he took an incredible 9/129 against Sri Lanka in Colombo in 2018 - that feat was only bettered by Hugh Tayfield in the 1950s with 9/113.
A driven player, Maharaj still has a number of big years ahead of him in Proteas Test whites.
SO DRIVEN: Keshav Maharaj
36 Jacques Rudolph (48 Tests, 45 ODIs,
1 T20I)
RUDOLPH enjoyed the best debut by any batsmen since SA’s reintroduction to the sporting world.
Not just South African batsmen, but of all batsmen in the world.
The left-handed opener scored an unbeaten 222 against Bangladesh in his first outing as a Protea and also shared a SA record stand of 429* with Boeta Dippenaar for the third wicket in that match.
He never reached those heights again, but Rudolph averaged 35 in his 48-Test match career, scoring a total of 2 622 runs including six centuries and 11 fifties.
35 Robin Peterson (15 Tests, 79 ODIs, 21 T20Is)
IF EVER the Friendly City needed a poster boy, they needn’t look further than ex-left-arm spinner Robbie P - the man simply did everything with a smile on his face.
Born innie Baai, Peterson became a national hero at Newlands seven years ago when he took five wickets and scored a career-best 84 to win the second Test against Pakistan.
A true allrounder, Peterson scored only 464 Test runs and took only 38 wickets.
It’s as a limited-overs player that he was most effective, though, often bailing out the team with bat in hand and taking 75 ODI wickets in the process.
Robbie P will go down as the Smiling Assassin.
34 Dean Elgar
(63 Tests, 8 ODIs)
PUSHING for the Test captaincy, Elgar has been a rock at the top of the Proteas batting order for a number of years already.
Like Parnell, a lot was expected of Elgar after showing big promise as a teen. He took a while to break through, but ultimately cracked the nod for the Test team in 2012.
Elgar hasn’t looked back and at 33, he is a strong candidate to captain the side.
A player that rarely fails to see out the new ball, Elgar has already scored 12 hundreds and 14 fifties opening the batting for SA at a healthy average of 38.49.
His highest score is 199, which he scored against Bangladesh in 2017.
So far, Elgar has scored 3 888 Test runs.
33 Albie Morkel
(1 Test, 58 ODIs,
50 T20Is)
STILL the best strike rate of all SA’s ODI batsman, allrounder Albie Morkel could moker a ball.
Morkel batted at more than a run a ball and smacked 25 sixes and 71 fours in his 58 ODIs.
Sadly, though, he never scored a century, with his highest score being 97.
Still, he was invaluable when SA needed quick runs and gave some hope down the order.
Evidence of this is when he shared an unbeaten 64-run record partnership for the 10th wicket with Makhaya Ntini in Napier in 2004.
Even more impressive is his T20I batting record, with a strike rate of 142, hitting 39 sixes and 29 fours in a grand total of 572 runs.
On top of being a big hitter, Morkel also took a combined total of 77 wickets for the Proteas.
32 Andrew Hall (21 Tests, 88 ODIs, 2 T20Is)
IT’S easy to see why Andrew Hall also played indoor cricket for South Africa - he was a genuine allrounder.
As a bowler, Hall had the ability to swing the ball through the air like very few in the world.
As a batsman, he opened the innings for South Africa at times and did his job expertly.
Seen as a white-ball specialist, Hall proved his critics wrong by stepping up as a Test star as well.
Batting wherever he was needed, Hall scored three fifties and 163 against India in Kanpur and also took 45 wickets.
In ODIs, Hall took 95 wickets and klapped three fifties.
He also holds the 10th-best bowling figures in ODIs for SA with the 5/18 he took against England at the 2007 World Cup in Bridgetown.
31 Brian McMillan
(38 Tests, 78 ODIs)
THE Braun Strowman of South African cricket was the best allrounder in the country before Jacques Kallis hit his prime.
In fact, he made a strong claim in the early 90s to be the leading allrounder in the world.
Batsmen “got these hands” when he was fielding in the slips and he could rescue a game with either bat or ball in hand. Big Mac cut an intimidating figure on the field and was never short of a chirp or two.
HUGE PRESENCE: Brian McMillan
As a bowler, he once broke fellow allrounder Ian Botham’s middle stump in the 1992 World Cup, while he had many famous innings with bat in hand - averaging over 39 in Test matches.
As a Test batsman, he scored three hundreds and 13 fifties, while also claiming 75 wickets.
Hitting the deck and bat hard with his medium-fast balls, McMillan also claimed 70 scalps in ODI cricket.