Fanie de Villiers

Fanie de Villiers junior is on a quest to get accustomed to the wickets of Indian subcontinent, and that's why he has come all the way to the Jaipur to accomplish his mission!

Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland on Tuesday confirmed that Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft were suspended for the final Test at The Wanderers against South Africa and the trio will face further sanctions over the course of the next 24 hours, upon the completion of the ball tampering investigation. But, the clean chit given to coach Darren Lehmann has raised quite a few eyebrows.

Former South African paceman Fanie de Villiers feels that either Hashim Amla or AB de Villiers should succeed Smith as the national team's captain.

The 50-year-old shared his views about South Africa's upcoming tour of India with TOI in an exclusive interview from Centurion.

Long before AB de Villiers arrived, there was another de Villiers from South Africa wowing the cricket world, that too as a fast bowler. Fanie de Villiers played 18 Tests and 83 ODIs and complemented fast bowling colleague Allan Donald with his immaculate discipline.

"Can I tell you something about AB de Villiers? AB is going to be more popular than Sachin in world cricket," said former SA player Fanie de Villiers.

Former pacer Fanie de Villiers has slammed South African selectors for including "half-fit" bowlers in the national side that suffered an ignominious defeat to the visiting Englishmen in the second Test .

The absence of Mohammed Shami will undoubtedly create a significant void in India's planning, but former South African pacer Fanie de Villiers is optimistic that Rohit Sharma's team has the best opportunity to break a 31-year drought for a Test series win in South Africa

"I said earlier on, that if they could get reverse swing in the 26th, 27th, 28th over then they are doing something different from what everyone else does," 53-year-old Fanie de Villiers told RSN Radio.

Former South African all-rounder Jonty Rhodes has taken up off-road racing for the final round of the Absa Off-Road Championship to be held here later this month.

Hansie Cronje, who fell from grace by admitting to match-fixing in 2000, was remembered by his family, ex-teammates and fans on his 10th death anniversary.

Former South African fast bowler Fanie de Villiers has praised Mohammed Shami as India's best Test bowler and added that the Proteas could easily fit him in their highly-competitive pace attack.

Some Australian players want a "rogue" David Warner out of the team hotel in South Africa as the ball tampering saga threatened to rip the touring side apart, amid reports that suggested the opening batsman was the ring leader of the scandal.

Steve Smith and David Warner have been banned for one year, ruling them out of the home series against India, while Cameron Bancroft was handed a nine-month suspension as Cricket Australia came down heavily on the errant trio which disgraced itself in the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa.

Dhoni has often complained about the current ODI rule during the non-Powerplay overs affecting the bowlers' performance but ICC is in no mood to tinker.

Less than 24 hours after Virat Kohli had called the Centurion pitch a “lively” one and Faf du Plessis said that he’d asked the groundsmen to ensure pace and bounce, all that one could take home from the first day’s play at the SuperSport Park was the lanky Ashwin bowling over after over — he had bowled 30 by the time any other bowler in the attack had delivered half of it — until it was time for stumps.

India, with two successive six-wicket victories at Belfast, have for the first time won two successive ODIs against South Africa outside Asia.

When the sensex added 1,000 points to itself to touch 4,000 on hopes of a liberal exim policy, Sachin had managed to add just about 200 runs to his ODI career record.

On the eve of the World Cup match between India and South Africa, a look at their five memorable ODIs.

While India's traditional strength batting, is strong as ever, can our bowlers continue with their excellent run post-Australia, Pakistan series?