England tour of South Africa 09/10

[Valaskjalf]

I presume of those 5 bowlers, you mean Kallis and Duminy? (Don't know if A Petersen bowls or not). If so, makes you very light on bowling.

Well its no more light than how it currently is. Duminy is doing a better job than Harris so I dont mind one bit that we use him as the spinner...especially since the pitch is going to be catered for the quicks anyway.

That leaves Kallis, Morkel, Steyn and Parnell as the quicks...not really sure that we need a 5th seamer that might be a bit overkill.

 

[Highlander999]

Learn from England and Bell. We could have thrown Wright in, who is not really an international standard all-rounder, but playing Bell at 6 has really worked for us. Actually don't learn from England I want us to win this series

 

[King Pietersen]

I'm glad it's worked for us, mainly to shut Botham up about it being negative picking only 4 bowlers. 2 of the best sides in the history of the game, the Windies side of the 70's and 80's and the Australian's of the 90's and 00's only needed 4 bowlers, and I doubt he'd have called them negative selections. As long as you pick the right 4 bowlers, which strangely for England we seem to be doing atm (even the back-ups Sidebottom, Davies and Plunkett are the right selections as well) then you don't need an All-Rounder. Unless that all-rounder is genuinely good in at least 1 facet of the game then don't pick them. Luke Wright is not a Test cricketer, and he's rightly not been picked.

I hope SA go in with the side posted on the last page as well. Going in with Steyn and Kallis who have recently come back from injury, Morkel who's inconsistent, Parnell who's not bowled particularly well in SA or England in domestic cricket and then Duminy as their main spinner bodes well for England. Never thought I'd be saying this a few months back when we couldn't win in the West Indies, but I think we've got a better side on paper than South Africa. Weird.

 

[Cricketdude]

I hope SA go in with the side posted on the last page as well. Going in with Steyn and Kallis who have recently come back from injury, Morkel who's inconsistent, Parnell who's not bowled particularly well in SA or England in domestic cricket and then Duminy as their main spinner bodes well for England. Never thought I'd be saying this a few months back when we couldn't win in the West Indies, but I think we've got a better side on paper than South Africa. Weird.

Actually SA have a better batting line up. The bowling is even.

 

[King Pietersen]

The batting is pretty even I'd say. Certainly as far as performances in the series go it's very even. Our bowling has performed alot better than theirs as well. Swann's leading wicket-taker, he's followed by Anderson and those 2 are pretty far ahead of Morkel and Harris who follow, but Broad's bowled a heck of alot better than Harris; and our bowling attack has been the only 1 to take 20 wickets in a Test as well, not sure how you could say they're even. If I was making an XI judged on performances in the series so far I'd go:

Smith
Cook
Amla
Kallis
Collingwood
Bell
Boucher +
Swann
Broad
Morkel
Anderson

5 South African's to 6 Englishmen; therefore, we've got the better side on paper.

 

[TumTum]

I want England to win every Test series before the Ashes.

 

[Owzat]

*Hi 5* Finally someone sees the light. Id go as far as to say forget McClaren and throw in Alviro Petersen at 7:

smith
prince
amla
kallis
de villiers
duminy
petersen
boucher
steyn
morkel
parnell

still 5 bowlers, still 4 quicks and an extra batter to boot, which strengthens our fiddly / unpredictable top order as well --> win

Can you send "the light" ECB's way, we play bits n pieces all-rounders in ODIs and wonder why we're sheet. Bresnan, Rashid et al should wait until they are consistent and/or good enough. We don't have enough quality in the bowlers, certainly the likes of Broad and Anderson are very inconsistent. There is a big danger England will try and find an all-rounder, Yawn was saying on TMS we need five bowlers for the Ashes even though the evidence of the last series
there was not in favour of that.

1st Test - bowled out for 157 with Flintoff, Jones, Giles, Hoggard, Harmison and Anderson our 6-11 and scoring 45 runs between them. That in response to 602/9d

2nd Test - while popular myth blames the declaration, England had the aussies in trouble at three down for less than 100 before Giles dropped a clanger (Ponting wasn't it, went on to score 142?). But again we were bowled out cheaply, 129 all out 2nd innings, same 6-11 scoring 25 between them.

3rd Test - FINALLY we had the aussies out for less than 250 in their 1st innings, although neither Mahmood nor Flintoff took a wicket. But we then were out for 215 ourselves, a deficit of 29 runs, with 6-11 scoring 66 of which last pair Harmison and Panesar contributed 39.

4th Test - skittled for 159 1st innings, Read replacing Jones, but 6-11 scored just 36 between them with none of 7-11 making double figures. England capitulated again in the 2nd innings, Flintoff and Read did score 51 between them, but 8-11 scored just 19 between them and game over

5th Test - made less than 300 1st innings, and then were bowled out for 147 2nd innings. 7-11 made FOUR runs between them in the 1st innings including a couple of ducks, 6-11 made 36 between them 2nd innings, Harmison the only double figures score.

Can't see a case for five bowlers, it would weaken our side even further without Flintoff in the XI, and the five bowlers didn't make much impact in 06/07. The aussie totals were 602/9, 202/1d, 513, 168/4d, 244, 527/5d, 419, DNB, 393 and 46/0 so it isn't like the 5th bowler made FA difference, and in theory we had a strong bowling line-up with most of the 2005 Ashes winning bowlers touring (only Jones didn't tour). Only once did we bowl them out for less than 250, the next lowest total we bowled them out for was 393. We on the other hand were bowled out for less than 200 far too often

 

[Ayub 95]

*Hi 5* Finally someone sees the light. Id go as far as to say forget McClaren and throw in Alviro Petersen at 7:

smith
prince
amla
kallis
de villiers
duminy
petersen
boucher
steyn
morkel
parnell

still 5 bowlers, still 4 quicks and an extra batter to boot, which strengthens our fiddly / unpredictable top order as well --> win

Why would Peterson be at 7? Obviously He's a better batsmen that JP, so why don't you put JP at 7 or don't pick at all and bring in Harris

 

[Valaskjalf]

I hope SA go in with the side posted on the last page as well. Going in with Steyn and Kallis who have recently come back from injury, Morkel who's inconsistent, Parnell who's not bowled particularly well in SA or England in domestic cricket and then Duminy as their main spinner bodes well for England. Never thought I'd be saying this a few months back when we couldn't win in the West Indies, but I think we've got a better side on paper than South Africa. Weird.

I wouldnt really go as far as saying England is better on paper. Eventhough I think England have played better than us during key periods, mostly during the Durban test, it could so easily have been 2-1 for us - I think thats what is so depressing for our team because we know we shouldnt be without a victory yet especially since 2/3 of the tests so far we've taken the game away from England within the first 4 days.

But yeah, not making excuses, but results can be a little deceiving. We've had one bad collapse and two games we were fully in control of....who knows another 20 minutes in both the 1st and 3rd tests it could have been a completely different story. The fact that England managed to hold on to a draw twice via the bat of Onions isnt really anything to cheer about from the English point of view really....its actually sugarcoating the issue a bit.

Valaskjalf added 15 Minutes and 40 Seconds later...

Why would Peterson be at 7? Obviously He's a better batsmen that JP, so why don't you put JP at 7 or don't pick at all and bring in Harris

Because at the moment Harris isnt worth the sunblock he's putting on his face. Duminy has proven to be way more potent. And be leaving Harris out and bringing in Peterson we effectively still have 4 quicks and a spinner but with a bonus batsman - the Wanderes pitch isnt going to be easy for the bastmen and adding an in-form (granted he's a debutant, but still) batsman it could act as a buffer against a collapse.

And I wouldnt move JP out of position to accommodate a debutant...especially since it looks as though he got a little of his form back in the last game and doesnt need more distractions at this point.

I might think of moving Prince out of the opener slot...his average there is the worse than all of the positions he's batted in the top 6. Who will take the opener's spot is another question...

 

[MUFC1987]

I would agree that 'on paper' South Africa are the better team, but as the scoreline in the series shows, we've been the best team so far. Kind of sums up South African cricket for me really, just because you should win, you still need to put all the effort in and to actually pull off the results, which is what South Africa have been failing to do. Hence why they've never gotten rid of that 'chokers' tag.

 

[spaga1994]

Why dosnt botha play in tests for south africa? hes done a great job in ODI's and cant be worse than harris

 

[JD10]

cant be worse than harris

Not wrong there mate, i don't rate harris, he can't spin the ball, bowls full tosses. He's just awful:laugh. Swann>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Harris

 

[spaga1994]

Not wrong there mate, i don't rate harris, he can't spin the ball, bowls full tosses. He's just awful:laugh. Swann>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Harris

haha yeah and after every ball he bowls he seems to put his arms up like he thinks hes about to take a wicket that ball rofl

 

[Ayub 95]

haha yeah and after every ball he bowls he seems to put his arms up like he thinks hes about to take a wicket that ball rofl

Botha got dropped in the ODI's, if SA need a spinner give Roelof Van der Merwe a chance. The problem SA have a lack of spinners that gets wickets. ATM von Berg, Petersen and Con de Lange can stake a partial claim to be in the squad, but that's about it really.

 

[Valaskjalf]

I would agree that 'on paper' South Africa are the better team, but as the scoreline in the series shows, we've been the best team so far. Kind of sums up South African cricket for me really, just because you should win, you still need to put all the effort in and to actually pull off the results, which is what South Africa have been failing to do. Hence why they've never gotten rid of that 'chokers' tag.

I hardly think what we've been doing this series can be considered choking. I think it is quite admirable that we managed to make the games very close on placid pitches where an hour before the close we weren't even close. Still overall I think we were the least consistent side throughout the series....yet we should have been 2-1 up and England were lucky to survive. Whether you want to sum it up as "choking" that we didnt make it is debatable...id like to see it as England being lucky and allowing us to get very close.