South Africa's weird ODI batting

The superheroes at the top and the vacant number seven spot

My name is Jarrod Kimber, and I am addicted to South African batting. It has been zero days since my last mention of it.

Actually, it was earlier this week when I mentioned it in the Maharaj injury piece. I am a parody of myself.

I apologise, but this team has been doing weird things with the bat, and every time you look at them it seems to get odder. And of course, everything drops off one major issue: they are waging war on their number seven position.

I have covered this in T20 and tests. But I was extremely excited to see that it holds up in ODI cricket too.

In fact, of the teams in the world over that time. South Africa have the second-worst average, just behind Nepal and in front of their arch-nemesis, the Netherlands.

And if you're thinking that it's because they are swinging hard, the strike rate is 69. And both of those numbers have been boosted by a couple of Marco Jansen hits in a recent game. They were averaging less and striking at 64. Instead, they are pushing at PNG for …