Meet the SA YouTube sensation thrilling audiences with his English village cricket exploits

Gareth Grant might have a fair way to go before he challenges the likes of Caspar Lee, Trevor Noah and Lasizwe Dambuza as South Africa's most prolific YouTube content creator, but he's steadily whittling down the target.

In just over two years, the 33-year-old has racked up no less than 106 000 subscribers to his channel named "Can You Cricket" - an ode to his classic (and forgotten) habit of asking his batting partner, "Can you?", when scouting for second or third runs - by simply mounting a GoPro camera to his helmet and providing viewers with a first-person view of his batting exploits on England's village cricket circuit.

Innocuous as it sounds, it actually makes for some truly compelling viewing, not only in terms of the action, but some of the beautiful settings he manages to play in.

Typically of a venture proving an instant hit, Grant admits the channel was a fluke initially. 

"I can't believe it, to be honest," he told News24 about his wild success.

"Basically, the channel was a mistake. Well, maybe not a mistake, but I didn't establish it with the intention of getting where I am now. It was definitely by accident.

"I suppose, like so many other people during the Covid-19 lockdown, you go through the proverbial YouTube rabbit hole to keep busy, and I came across some guys in India doing this thing where they mount a camera onto their helmets.

"When the next season came [in mid-2021] and we were able to play some cricket again, I decided I want to try and show my children someday that I could hold a bit, that I was an alright cricketer. 

"I essentially only started uploading the videos for a bit of hit-and-giggles, so to speak, but then people started watching and subscribing to the point where, after merely the first