England tour of South Africa 09/10

[irottev]

You guys just beat Pakistan from miles behind. What are you complaining about lol.

 

[JD10]

I have to say that JP Duminy looked more threatening than Harris when he was bowling.

 

[Robelinda]

South Africa, its just too funny. Two tests in this series and they cant bowl Onions out, where is that destroyer Steyn, why couldnt he do it? Overrated, like the whole SA side.

 

[Ollie_H]

South Africa, its just too funny. Two tests in this series and they cant bowl Onions out, where is that destroyer Steyn, why couldnt he do it? Overrated, like the whole SA side.

I'm guessing you didnt see the whole day? but Steyn bowled an absolutley stunning 8 over spell to Collingwood and Bell part way through the day which seems to have really done him in, he then started cramping and no bowler is at his best when he is camping.

 

[rocky_g]

South Africa, its just too funny. Two tests in this series and they cant bowl Onions out, where is that destroyer Steyn, why couldnt he do it? Overrated, like the whole SA side.

+1
Exactly.

 

[Robelinda]

I'm guessing you didnt see the whole day? but Steyn bowled an absolutley stunning 8 over spell to Collingwood and Bell part way through the day which seems to have really done him in, he then started cramping and no bowler is at his best when he is camping.

Yes I did see the whole day, lots of threatening bowling, but no wicket. For all the hype he just isnt producing the goods, any fast bowler worth his place should be able to clean up Onions. All credit to England though, SA just cant get over the line. I'm guessing one day when they are the number one team by a decent margin they might be unstoppable, but over the past decade they threaten to be great but stall at almost every opportunity. There's no Aussie fans who realistically thought Aus would beat SA in SA last year, but they way they folded was insane for a team full of huge confidence, like they were scared to be Number One in their own right.

They are the Nearly Men. Maybe the next captain after Smith will have better luck.

 

[MUFC1987]

I'd imagine Steyn found it hard to bowl Onions out in this match, considering he didn't actually bowl a single ball at him in the second innings.

 

[Ollie_H]

Yes I did see the whole day, lots of threatening bowling, but no wicket. For all the hype he just isnt producing the goods, any fast bowler worth his place should be able to clean up Onions. All credit to England though, SA just cant get over the line. I'm guessing one day when they are the number one team by a decent margin they might be unstoppable, but over the past decade they threaten to be great but stall at almost every opportunity. There's no Aussie fans who realistically thought Aus would beat SA in SA last year, but they way they folded was insane for a team full of huge confidence, like they were scared to be Number One in their own right.

They are the Nearly Men. Maybe the next captain after Smith will have better luck.

That was the reason for the question mark, I thought knowing you as I do, you probably did watch it.

 

[Robelinda]

I will say though, that there is no better sight than a fast bowler like Steyn ripping through a lineup like that test in India last time they toured there, that morning session where SA demolished India was awesome. He does have immense talent, and his stats are good, but a lot of the time - not all the time - he seems to be just hoping for wickets. I guess because he is a skiddy bowler like Marshall or Lee, they find it hard to get the bounce. Morkel looked better I thought.

 

[Mercules]

In all fairness, though we batted well to draw the game, we should've posted 400+ in our 1st innings and made sure we couldn't have lost. We got SA at 127-5 in their 1st innings yet ended up a wicket away from losing which is pretty poor tbh.

 

[Raj_Aryan]

SA unlucky here, but frankly speaking, the series was quite close, both teams played well, also the on going contests SA-Eng, Pak-Aus, they are definitely bringing more interest in test...good for cricket...

 

[angryangy]

Given that this isn't the first time for England, chances are that regardless of the target set and the time remaining, they would get through the bulk of it and only start to crumble in the last hour of play.

That's why I said about Morkel needing to really go for the kill. It doesn't matter how long you have to wait, when the moment comes you just have to take it. Out of eleven balls, there were only a couple of really good goes at the short one on the body and three that were outside off and left easily. He just needed to try a little harder. It wasn't bad bowling, but to win the game it needed to be excellent.

If Smith was wrong to set 460, he wasn't much wrong. They had a lot of time to bowl. Perhaps the minds of the English were more fearful of 400 than he, but South Africa had certainly proven that runs were there to be scored in abundance. If Smith had given himself 10 more overs, the asking rate from England would be just 2.7. The likes of Strauss, Cook, Trott and Bell might have chased that without eschewing conservative batting tactics, so it's very difficult to say what would have changed the way the innings was played without picking a target that would instead be reckless.

 

[Owzat]

The target was fine, it was tempting enough to give the chasing side a glimmer of hope even though it was unlikely they would be successful, while leaving enough runs to attack for 350+ runs. England would have probably gone into overkill and set 520+

So why didn't the saffers win? Perhaps only because of Collingwood and Ian "icing on the cake" Bell. They dug in, didn't give their wickets away unlike the batting to that point had, and made the saffers play a game of patience when they should have been more aggressive. I thought England would lose, normally we do when we're one down overnight let alone three with two bagged in the morning. So that is "great escape" number three for this 12 months, all of them should have been defeats with enough balls to get out tailenders if not the ones that stayed put.

CARDIFF 2009

Close of play : England 20/2 (7.0 overs) Strauss 6no, Pietersen 3no
Five down : England 70/5 (26.3 overs) Collingwood 15no, Prior out for 14
Lunch : England 102/5 (37.0 overs) Collingwood 35no, Flintoff 11no
Six down : England 127/5 (49.4 overs) Flintoff out for 26
Eight down : England 221/8 (86.1 overs) Swann out for 31
Nine down : England 233/9 (93.3 overs) Collingwood out for 74 off 245 balls and after 5h44m
DRAW : England 252/9 (105 overs) Anderson 21no (53 balls) and Panesar 7no (35 balls) survive 11.3 overs to save the Test

England lost their 5th wicket well before lunch, resistance came from Flintoff, Prior, Broad and Collingwood before the last pair had to survive 11.3 overs to save the Test. In 78.5 overs the aussies couldn't take five mid to lower order wickets.

CENTURION 09/10

Close of play : England 11/1 (6.0 overs) Cook 4no, Anderson 6no
Three down : England 27/3 (18.2 overs) Cook out for 12
Four down : England 172/4 (61.5 overs) Pietersen in a silly run out, out for 81 off 143 balls and 3h11m
Five down : England 205/5 (81.4 overs) Trott out for 69 (212 balls, 5h16m)
Nine down : England 218/9 (92.5 overs) Swann out for 2, last in a collapse
DRAW : England 228/9 (96 overs) Collingwood 26no (99 balls), Onions 1no (12 balls) survive the last 3.1 overs

When Pietersen and Trott were batting together and seeing off the bowlers over 43.4 overs it looked like England would see out the draw easily. Pietersen runs himself out and then England lose four wickets for 13 runs in 11.1 overs and have to bat out the match nervously with the final pair. South Africa had 77.4 overs at the last seven England wickets, compared to Capetown where they had the full 90 overs at the last seven wickets.

CAPETOWN 09/10

Close of play : England 132/3 (51.0 overs) Trott 24no, Anderson 0no
Five down : England 160/5 (70.3 overs) Trott out for 42
Lunch : England 179/5 (79.0 overs) Collingwood 8no, Bell 12no
Six down : England 272/6 (127.3 overs) Collingwood out for 40 having batted for 65.3 overs and 4h36m
Nine down : England 290/9 (138.1 overs) Bell out for 78, having batted for 67.4 overs and 4h46m
DRAW : England 296/9 (141 overs) Onions 0no (11 balls) and Swann 10no (8 balls) hold on

England survived over two sessions and the last 70.3 overs with only five wickets in hand, Bell and Collingwood were at the crease for over the duration of over 65 overs each (nearly 400 balls) South Africa should have made more of the new ball which was available one over after lunch when the bowlers would have been relatively fresh. Personally I think one solution to the batting inequality is to have a new ball say every 50 overs

 

[Englishandproud]

Good stats there Owzat and very good reading for England supporters. It annoys me when people use the phrase 'lucky' to those draws that England have picked up over the pst few tests. Perhaps just perhaps the England tail has improved over the years (which it has) so a bit of credit wouldn't go amiss from time to time.

Listening to TMS throughout part of the day the interesting question was raised in the fact that the lower order might have to change by the time the Ashes in 2010/11 come around as it was felt that five strike bowlers would be needed. Just wondering what people's thoughts on this are?

 

[TumTum]

Don't worry about the 2011 Ashes, it's out of your hands