Stiaan van Zyl

South Africa|Batting Allrounder
Stiaan van Zyl
INTL CAREER: 2014 - 2016
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Full Name

Stiaan van Zyl

Born

September 19, 1987, Cape Town

Age

35y 183d

Batting Style

Left hand Bat

Bowling Style

Right arm Medium

Playing Role

Batting Allrounder

Stiaan van Zyl abandoned his South Africa ambitions to sign a Kolpak contract with Sussex in 2017, part of an outpouring of South Afrixans into county cricket as the UK's vote to leave the European Union brought fears among players and agents that the pathway might soon be closed.

Van Zyl's last of Tests came against New Zealand in August 2016, the highlight being his unbeaten century on debut in 2014, as South Africa beat the West Indies by an innings at Centurion. He joined Sussex at 29, with almost 8,000 first-class runs to his name at 42.55.

A left-hander with a classic cover drive, van Zyl was not always an elegant top-order batsman. At primary school, he fancied himself as a quick bowler but later chose batting over a bucolic life in the Boland, where he was educated at the rugby-mad agricultural high school, Boland Landbou. He made his first-class debut at 19.

Van Zyl averaged over 50 for the Cobras in the summer of 2007-08 but it was not until two seasons later that he arrived in the top-ten run-scorers in the first-class game. In 2009-10, van Zyl was sixth with an average of 58.00 and was rewarded with a call-up to the South African A side to tour Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. By then, he had also developed as a handy medium pacer.

He remained a regular in the national reserves but it was not until the 2012-13 season, when he finished second on the domestic competition run-scorers' list, that he was spoken of a possibility for the senior side. With a batting line-up that included top-order heavyweights like Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis and Hashim Amla, it became difficult for van Zyl to get a look in.

But both Smith and Kallis retired in the summer of 2013-14 and van Zyl topped the run-charts, which made him possible to ignore. He travelled with the Test squad to Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe in the winter of 2014 but did not get a game before making his spectacular Test debut , becoming the 100th batsman to score a century on Test debut.

After his abrupt international retirement, his Twitter feed continued to state "Proudly South African" but it was Sussex where his career took him, his most significant Championship innings in his first season being his 166 not out against Leicestershire at the Arundel Festival. A knee injury curtailed his involvement in 2018, though he returned to top Sussex's run-scoring charts the following year, including a 173 against Middlesex at Lord's.
ESPNcricinfo staff

Career Averages
Batting & Fielding
FormatMatInnsNORunsHSAveBFSR100s50s4s6sCtSt
Test12172395101*26.3377850.771059060
FC195327431236022843.522350552.5830571632271100
List A130120133797114*35.48501475.7272036124350
T2073667150986*25.571272118.630913140210
Bowling
FormatMatInnsBallsRunsWktsBBIBBMAveEconSR4w5w10w
Test121140314863/203/2224.662.2067.1000
FC19514258692660725/327/8236.942.7181.5210
List A130471124983214/244/2446.805.2453.5100
T20731413219172/142/1427.288.6818.8000
Stiaan van Zyl
Explore Statsguru Analysis
Test
Recent Matches - Player
MatchBatBowlDateGroundFormat
Boland vs Knights14 & 120/3612-Mar-2023PaarlFC
Boland vs LIONS59 & 106*0/605-Mar-2023PaarlFC
Boland vs Knights1--14-Dec-2022BloemfonteinList A
Boland vs LIONS80/4411-Dec-2022JohannesburgList A
Boland vs Titans0--09-Dec-2022PaarlList A
Photos
Stiaan van Zyl drives on his way to a century
Stiaan van Zyl gets on to the front foot
Stiaan van Zyl and Sikandar Raza shared a 73-run partnership
Stiaan van Zyl carts one over the off side
Stiaan van Zyl hits out to rush Sussex to victory
Stiaan van Zyl broke the rapid opening stand