Australia tour of South Africa, 2008/09

[aussie1st]

If Hughes ever gets himself a pull shot and a drive down the ground he is going to be a real handful. Anything wide he will punish, he basically can hit it anywhere.

And we've taken the light, a good days play especially for what has been forecasted.

 

[Sman-21]

dont agree with taking the light unless they really were struggling to see.

We have dominated SA so far the last thing we want to do is run out of time to bowl them out due to rain/bad light.

They need to come out in the orning an play like its a 1 dayer.
Need SA in there batting before the final session starts tomorrow.

 

[aus_maestro]

yea, it'll be interesting to see how Ponting goes about it in the morning, he really should have enforced that followon imo. A quick fire 200 to take us upto 500 would be the call

 

[valvolux]

I have lost a lot of confidence in Australia's ability to finish things...we couldn't finish india when we were smashing them...and we couldn't finish SA in the first 2 tests in Aus. Jeez this is 4 out of 4 tests against SA where we are in a position where surely we couldn't lose....hopefully the weather doesn't get the better of us. I'm excited though....we have averaged over 410 in the first innings against what is supposedly the best attack in the world with an ever changing, young batting lineup. I feel we are one Stuart Clark short of sweeping these guys home and away...but this pitch is still juicy, we should have the weapons in this test to nail them comfortably. Hopefully everyone gets fit soon....cause if this SA side is the best side in the world, Aus will be back at number 1 before the year ends.

 

[sifter132]

yea, it'll be interesting to see how Ponting goes about it in the morning, he really should have enforced that followon imo. A quick fire 200 to take us upto 500 would be the call

Yeah I agree, follow on should have been enforced. Given SA made 220 off 81 overs, in normal circumstances that would be a 50-50 call I would think. If it's hot and the pitch is breaking, sure bat again, but if the pitch is holding and there is rain about you really have to send them in again.

It would be interesting to see what percentage of follow-ons Australia have enforced since THAT game in 2001. I'd say the percentage has dropped a lot.

If SA were batting right now instead, they'd still be around 200 behind with 6 sessions of the game left. It would take around 2 sessions to catch that deficit up (more if McKenzie is batting ). Give them 2 more sessions to pile on the runs and that would leave the Aussies the last 2 sessions to chase. So worst case scenario would have seen the Aussies have to play out 50-60 overs chasing say 250-300 at most.

Given batting is Australia's strength right now, I don't think that would be a problem. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, Aussies haven't been bowled out for under 150 since India '04, in a match where the Indians were also bowled out for around 100. So I don't have any fears of us collapsing in a heap.

But now Ponting is going to have to worry about weather, and the potential SA scoring rate to get a complex equation of when to declare. Mitch showed that you can score pretty quickly and we all remember the ODI where 430 wasn't enough, so I think Ponting will be forced to be a little conservative.

 

[aussie1st]

430 in 5 sessions on this pitch should be more than enough. You have to remember that WACA track was always a road it was just silly batting and Johnson brilliance that neither side actually made 400.

In our last 2 big test series we have had quite a few scores below 250 which I believe is a collapse on most pitches especially some of the ones we batted on. So all SA would have needed was to set us something like that and let the 5th day pitch do it's work. They would then be in the position to win while we would be saving the match.

The big factor is the fact we only have 3 front line pacemen who bowled a lot of the overs yesterday. So if anything the above situation would have happened letting SA back in the game and setting us a 200+ score in 50 odd overs.

 

[Sman-21]

No we shouldnt of enforced foloow on we only have 3 bowlers they needed a rest.

But we had to stay out there an keep batting an need to score as quick as possible so we have time to get them out before bad light/rain stops game.

 

[.::Stevo::.]

We were in a similar situation during the Perth test. I say just bring out Mitch tomorrow and let him slog a few then declare. If the lead it to big South Africa are just going to shut up shop, but if we declare to early we could see Perth happening all over again.

I'm impressed by Hilfys bowling during the beginning of the innings.

 

[aussie1st]

Hopefully Hughes can bring up his 50 then have a crack at the 100. Will have to see the pitch before having a definite declaration total but 4 and a bit sessions to get 450 should be enough with the ball swinging around.

 

[angryangy]

wtf collapsotron

 

[age of the fall]

Jeez. Clarke gone too. Collapse Time?

3 Wickets in 4 balls. Wow

 

[Arunava]

but the lead is pretty good already. .

 

[ajdude]

Kallis is in the match now.

 

[aussie1st]

Geez don't tell me we are going to collapse again and not be able to declare like in Perth.

 

[ajdude]

Oh dear, bails flying...at least it wasn't Hughes.