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The Guardian
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Joe Root's greatness is shining anew in the evening of his white-ball career
The winning moment is perfect. Perfect in concept, in balance, in execution, in placement, in flourish. The ball disappears through mid-on, and before it has even reached the boundary the lid is off and the smile is unsheathed, and for some reason it matters a great deal that the stroke to complete a towering one-day chase of 309 is not a wallop or a swipe, but an artful on-drive for four. But then for all his brilliance, there has always been a pleasingly jarring quality to Root in limited‑overs cricket, even a kind of quiet defiance. His match‑winning 166 against the West Indies on Sunday was perhaps his greatest white-ball innings, but above all it was simply a Joe Root innings, all gentle nudges and classical drives, timing over power, manoeuvrability over muscularity, a triumph of pure talent. My favourite bit of a Root white-ball innings is when he hits a six. Which he actually does quite a lot – 53 times in one-day internationals, more than Alex Hales, narrative fans – but for some reason never fails to tickle him. As if this wasn't really supposed to happen, as if he's just done something terribly naughty, and his big daft face breaks out into a big daft grin, the grin of an auntie who has just said 'shit' at the Christmas dinner table. 'Ultimately, you're playing a game of cricket,' Root said a few months ago in an interview with ESPNCricinfo, during a largely unheralded stint with the Paarl Royals Twenty20 franchise. 'Most of the basic things within the game are exactly the same. You've just got less time to figure it out.' And for some reason Root has always felt the need to justify his presence in the white-ball game, has always been aware on some level of his outsider status. Which for a player who was the top scorer in a winning World Cup side, who was responsible for one of the all-time great Twenty20 knocks for England (against South Africa in 2016), who averages almost 50 in 50-over cricket and has now overtaken Eoin Morgan as his country's leading ODI run-scorer, feels faintly absurd. But the sense of impostor syndrome goes back years. In 2018, at the very height of his powers, he entered the Indian Premier League auction for the first time and went unsold. Later that summer he was dropped from the T20 side for the first time. Then came the long slow retreat: just 19 ODIs between the 2019 and 2023 World Cups, during which he averaged 28. In 2024 he did not play a single white-ball game for England. There is no real need for revisionism here. Between 2019 and 2023 Root was simply not playing enough good white-ball cricket to justify his place, his spells in the side too fitful to be of any use. All the same it speaks volumes of the man that, as he put it on Sunday night, he felt 'guilt' at not being able to help Jos Buttler more. 'I almost felt guilty that I wasn't there for him throughout a lot of his tenure,' he said. To briefly refresh our memories: this was a period during which Root was dealing with the Test captaincy, multiple Ashes series, Covid bubbles, Covid isolation, Covid fatigue, the fallout from a seismic racism scandal that engulfed not just his county but his entire sport, and an era of English cricket in which red ball was simply not the priority, an atrophying side in which he was basically the only guy capable of scoring runs. Memo to Joe, if you're reading: genuinely, don't worry about it. You did good. Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion Even so, what is undeniable is that during those years of white-ball recession the game bounded on without him. The supremacy of 360-degree power hitting, soaring scoring rates and extreme specialism threatened to leave him behind. Now aged 34, he probably has to make peace with the fact that unlike his Big Four counterparts – Steve Smith, Virat Kohli, Kane Williamson – he will make little to no imprint in the sport's most popular and culturally dominant format. Of what use, then, were the years of toil and sacrifice, slogging his guts out for a failing team in a failing format? What was it all for? Was he ultimately cricket's equivalent of Stevens the butler in The Remains of the Day, dutifully giving over his life in service of a doomed, ignoble ideal? Will it ever be possible again to achieve greatness in this sport without genetic advantages and brute strength? I want to believe it's possible. I want to believe that for all the cultural entropy, for all the schedule fragmentation, for all the greed and confusion, this is all still cricket, that pure talent can still conquer. I love that Jasprit Bumrah still wants to play all formats, that Harry Brook does, that Rashid Khan does. I love that Sikandar Raza flew straight from a Test match in Nottingham to a Pakistan Super League final in Lahore, that each game mattered so much that he had to do both. I love that Root is 34 but still wants to learn and grow, that one of the most ridiculously talented cricketers of my lifetime still has worlds he wants to conquer, parts he's still trying to figure out. Maybe the evening really is the best part of the day. There's a clarity, a sense of purpose. It's a bat, a ball, stumps and a field. The basic game is the same. He's just got less time to figure it out.
The South African
08-05-2025
- Sport
- The South African
Teenage SA cricket prodigy Lhuan-dre Pretorius gets late IPL call-up
Rising South African cricket prodigy Lhuan-dre Pretorius has been called up to the Indian Premier League (IPL), joining the Rajasthan Royals as a replacement for the injured Nitish Rana who has been ruled out of the rest of the tournament due to a calf injury. The 19-year-old sensation has been one of the standout performers in the 2024/25 season. Pretorius made waves during his debut campaign in the SA20, where he topped the run-scoring charts with 397 runs at a blistering strike rate of 166.81, including a headline-making 97 off 51 balls on debut for the Paarl Royals. Lhuan-dre Pretorius also shone on the international stage, emerging as South Africa U19's leading run-scorer at the 2024 ICC U19 Cricket World Cup with 287 runs at an average of 57.40 and a strike rate nearing 95. Domestically, he plays for the Titans and has recently signed with Hampshire to feature in England's T20 Blast. Meanwhile, in a further boost to South African cricket, Western Province's Nandre Burger has also been drafted by the Rajasthan Royals as injury cover for Sandeep Sharma. Burger's inclusion underscores the growing influence of South Africa's next generation on global T20 leagues. The Rajasthan Royals are out of the running for IPL victory this season as they lie ninth in the 10-team table with just six points thanks to three wins and nine defeats to date. They have two matches remaining this IPL season. Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1 Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news.
The Citizen
08-05-2025
- Sport
- The Citizen
SA batting prodigy Lhuan-dre Pretorius on his way to IPL
The opening batter is a late addition to the tournament following his exploits in the SA20 in January. Lhuan-dre Pretorius is on his way to the IPL. Picture: SA20 Young South African batting star Lhuan-dre Pretorius has won himself a contract with the Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League. The 19-year-old top-of-the-order batter lit up the 2025 edition of the SA20 while playing for the Paarl Royals earlier this year and he will now get a chance to show India, and the rest of the cricketing world, what he can do in the most lucrative and best T20 competition in the game. Pretorius has been called up by the Royals as a replacement for the injury Nitish Rana, who is suffering from a calf injury. In a post on X, the Rajasthan Royals called the young South African batter 'fearless' and 'power-packed'. Pretorius was the leading batter in the SA20, with 397 runs in 12 matches and a highest score of 97. His strike rate was 166.8 while he hit an incredible 16 sixes and 47 fours (the highest) during the competition. He also later shone in the SA domestic 4-day cup competition, scoring three centuries and a half century for the Titans. Pretorius was called up to the SA 'A' team recently and will tour to the West Indies later this month and in June. Dewald Brevis on fire in IPL Another star of the SA20, Dewald Brevis, who plays for MI Cape Town, also recently got a late call-up to join the IPL. In mid-April the Chennai Super Kings asked the 21-year-old former SA U19 star to take up a position in their squad for the injured Gurjapneet Singh. There was talk at the time that the young batter would be paid just under R5 million for playing for CSK for the rest of the tournament. Brevis previously played for the Mumbai Indians, following his exploits with the bat during the U19 Cricket World Cup. In this year's SA20, Brevis scored the sixth most number of runs (291 in 12 matches), while so far in the IPL, he has scored 126 runs in four matches with a strike rate of 166.
Deccan Herald
08-05-2025
- Sport
- Deccan Herald
RR replace injured Rana with 19-year-old uncapped South African
The 19-year-old has played 33 T20s and scored 911 runs with a highest score of 97, which came on his debut for SA20 franchise Paarl Royals earlier this year. The Paarl franchise in the SA20 is also owned by the owners of Rajasthan Royals. Rajasthan Royals' Nitish Rana. Credit: Reuters photo The 19-year-old has played 33 T20s and scored 911 runs with a highest score of 97, which came on his debut for SA20 franchise Paarl Royals earlier this year. The Paarl franchise in the SA20 is also owned by the owners of Rajasthan Royals. "He will join RR for his base price of Rs 30 Lakh," said the IPL in a statement. Rana made 217 runs at a strike of 161.94 this season with his highest score being 81. Rajasthan Royals have already been eliminated from the play-offs race. Their remaining two games are against Chennai Super Kings and Punjab Kings.
Time of India
08-05-2025
- Sport
- Time of India
Who Is Lhuan-dre Pretorius? Protea teenage sensation replaces Nitish Rana in RR squad
Lhuan-dre Pretorius (Sportzpics Photo) Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. Who is Lhuan-dre Pretorius? Rohit Sharma's Final Test Practice: Exclusive Farewell Visuals Rohit Sharma Unplugged: Funniest Press Conference Moments NEW DELHI: Rajasthan Royals have turned to exciting South African teenage sensation Lhuan-dre Pretorius to bolster their squad for the remainder of IPL 2025 .With Nitish Rana ruled out due to injury, the Royals have signed Pretorius at his base price of Rs 30 lakh, injecting youthful flair into a side already out of playoff RR currently sit ninth on the table, the move signals a forward-thinking approach, looking beyond the current Pretorius is no ordinary just 19, the left-handed wicketkeeper-batter made waves in South Africa's SA20 league , shining for the Paarl Royals with composed, hard-hitting performances at the top of the order last his first three appearances, Pretorius has posted two half-centuries, showing the kind of poise and power that belies his age. Facing elite bowlers like Rabada and Nortje, he hasn't flinched, a trait that has fast-tracked his rise. In the 2025 season of SA20, he amassed 397 runs from 12 matches, hitting at a noteworthy strike-rate of journey has been shaped by a cricket-infused upbringing in Potchefstroom, where his father Abe—a hard-nosed Afrikaans mining professional—set up a backyard net and dedicated countless hours to helping his sons train.'He lives for cricket,' Abe says. 'He doesn't watch cartoons—he YouTubes cricket.'That lifelong obsession took Lhuan-dre to Johannesburg's prestigious St Stithians College, alma mater of several South African internationals, including Kagiso he formed a formidable partnership with current SA U-19 and Paarl Royals teammate Kwena duo dominated school and youth cricket, with Pretorius often pulling the strings from behind the comparisons with Quinton de Kock are inevitable—both are left-handed, aggressive openers and keepers—Pretorius isn't fact, he idolises De Kock and has long dreamt of sharing the field with his hero. That dream is inching closer to reality as he now wears the Royals' pink in the IPL, poised for his biggest challenge just a teenager, Pretorius is grounded by his family, driven by passion, and focused on the SA20 success under his belt and the IPL spotlight now on him, his cricketing journey is only beginning.
