Im late but what a turnaroundd the last 8 test has been for Australia. Who would have thought after the 4-0 in India & in England Ashes performances that AUS would become basically the best team in the world at the start of 2014.
Of my head i can't remember a team in history that showed such a drastic transformation in such a short space of time.
As i saw Ian Chappell mention on cricinfo, AUS are just a solid # 3 away from being a perfect side now.
David Warner performances has been a revelation. All series i was saying, yea he is making runs but he is giving so much changes, his Sehwagesque batting style would eventually get him in trouble versus good attacks. But if he bats like he did in Capetown more often - he is well underway to becoming the most dominant & dangerous opener in the game vs all attacks/conditions.
What a bowler Harris has been though, if he never plays test cricket for AUS again - he has already played longer than expected, especially in tests, given his well publicized knee issues.
On S Africa. For some strange reason, they just can't beat AUS @ home it seems during their peak years - however they won in AUS twice in recent years. But quite obviously with Kallis & Smith retired, AUS with their momentum was the worst team they could face right now, since any slight weakness was well exposed.
AUS clearly have an edge over them now, but i think talent wise the proteas are still on par with AUS.
De Villiers or Amla would make good test captains. They got seasoned domestic openers with goodd FC recordds like
Andrew Puttick &
Stephen Cook, who if given a chance could do a similar role for them that Chris Rogers has done for AUS.
Quinton De Kock is ready, plus they got hot young batsmen
Stiann Van Zyl &
Rilee Rossouw inching for a chance.
Temba Bavuma is also in the equation.
Their fast bowling depth who weren't seen in this series with Hardus Viljeon, Marchant De Lange Craig Alexander, B Hendricks, Andrew Birch is pretty much as impressive as AUS reserves stocks in Cummins, Hazlewood, Bird, Starc, Bollinger, Cutting.
Spin is problem for them since R Peterson & Tahir aint up to scratch, but in the last two test they seem to have realized that their strength in with their quicks - so just back them.
If they want a spinner, they could invest in
Simon Harmer who is the current
leading wicket taker in their first-class season
So this potential future SA test team should be quite strong still:
Puttick/Cook, Elgar, Amla, Du Plessis, De Villiers, De Kock, Duminy, Parnell, Philander, Steyn, M Morkel.
According to the curent fraudulent FTP, i see S Africa are set to visit AUS in November for 5 ODIs & 3 T20s. Not sure when the new ICC changes kicks in which scraps the current FTP, but we need a re-match test series between these two side in the next 12 months, since its obvious this is new heavyweight test battle & they currently way ahead of the cricket world.
