I agree Bopara should be in the team, but I'd drop Yardy. Collingwood has batted what, twice so far? Both after 40+ overs, so it's harsh to call him out of form in my opinion. KP showed today that he can do a job with the ball when needed, so for me, it's a no brainer.
Mar 6 - England v South Africa
- Thread starter Gaurav_7
- Start date
I agree Bopara should be in the team, but I'd drop Yardy. Collingwood has batted what, twice so far? Both after 40+ overs, so it's harsh to call him out of form in my opinion. KP showed today that he can do a job with the ball when needed, so for me, it's a no brainer.
Hehe how wrong I was, sorry SA fans but that was a choke if I ever saw one. Broad is one dam good ODI player, makes quite the difference to this English attack. And credit to the English, they suck against the minnows but they are delivering the goods against the favourites.
On wickets like this KP can do a job, whether he can on less friendly wickets, I'm not so sure. I just think the team is shouting for Samit to stop eating pies.
As for Colly, you forgotten the rest of the winter?
As for Colly, you forgotten the rest of the winter?
He cracked a few in the warmup game, plus against Ireland and India we seemed to be a batsman short at the end of the game. Bopara brings the aggression that we need, so Collingwood can keep the number 5 spot incase the top order fails. I still think Yardy could get seriously smashed if someone bats long enough to get used too him. Plus, I want to see Ravi bowl, 5 bowlers is stopping that. 
Papa_Smurf
International Cricketer
160-odd? Are you kidding me?
Go home England, you don't deserve to win this
Just shows how much I know
Well bowled England 
It seems Strauss and co. are hell bent on matching their standards to their opponents - whether they be SA or Holland
Haven't had one easy game yet.They are the single reason why this group is more interesting than the other one. Good show lads!
War
Chairman of Selectors
- Joined
- Feb 10, 2010
- Online Cricket Games Owned
Talk about your crazy wins. I guess all the historical "chocker@ knives will be thrown @ SA now, since i dont know how they lost that.
ENG ODI teams still looks crappy though, would be stunned if they manage to make it past the QFs.
ENG ODI teams still looks crappy though, would be stunned if they manage to make it past the QFs.
MasterBlaster76
ICC Chairman
Wow - I just caught the highlights of that now on BBC 2 - England out of the World Cup? Hell no - we've just beaten one of the favourites. 
BlueString
School Cricketer
Great game! This was the first time in the tournament I've thoroughly enjoyed a hard fought game - the England-India 700 run tie means nothing to me, this was real cricket. Hopefully we see more of these kinds of pitches in the matches to come.
sami ullah khan
Panel of Selectors
As usual South Africa failed to seal the win when the pressure was on. South Africa have to find a way to win in tight situation. They have lost so many games of such type.
The highlights were praising Strauss for his use of the bowlers, I am of the opposite opinion. He gave us a chance by chopping and changing, but then he gave Yardy and KP 17 overs off which 76 runs came for just one wicket when he didn't need to, in fact he should have stuck with our likeliest wicket taking options until such a time as he had to 'call for back up'. How does Strauss explain that our best bowler was 4th (?) change and when he'd taken 2/12 was taken off? Same for Anderson, bowled ok but Strauss was so in awe of what Peterson and Tahir had done that he couldn't see past spin.
I'm not saying he shouldn't have tried Yardy or Pietersen, but if we were going to win that game it wasn't going to be Yardy and Pietersen winning it. Spinners bowled 27 overs for England and took two wickets, quicks bowled 20.4 overs and took seven wickets. Raises the age old question of whether you pick horses for courses (donkeys in Yardy's case
) or pick your best bowlers regardless of type or course. Considering Yardy had taken 1/113 in the previous two matches, 0/49 against Ireland, and Pietersen had bowled just two overs for 19 runs against HOLLAND, I think I'd have been sticking with the form bowlers.Who comes in to replace KP? Well there is a good question, I'd promote Trott to open and find a half-decent spinner batsman to come in. Shame they decided to take Look Shight (is Shight) and Tredwell, although I wonder if they'll play Tredwell soon. Would have been wise to play him against the minnows, maybe they will against Bung-le-dash
riz7khan12
Panel of Selectors
The commentators were talking about how South Africa fail in pressure situations and they came up with a suggestion to purposely put themselves under pressure and see if they can win from there... and that's exactly what they did in the match.
They failed again but they (hopefully) learnt from their mistakes and should improve, they should've played Botha instead of van Wyk and stick with their original decision of having AB as keeper.
StinkyBoHoon
National Board President
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2009
- Location
- Glasgow, Scotland
SA's squad looks a batsman light imo.
du pleissis would be ok if he was an all-rounder of any sort of quality, but I don't think he is.
but yeah, after this match I give up making predictions.
du pleissis would be ok if he was an all-rounder of any sort of quality, but I don't think he is.
but yeah, after this match I give up making predictions.
Maybe they just need to give the gloves to De Villiers, accept this may affect keeping but enable an extra batsman and better balance.
Back when Trescothick was playing for England I thought he should keep in ODIs, lessened the need to balance up the side with the problem of trying to fit in five bowlers, a keeper and then as many batsmen as possible with some doubling up. So why not double up the keeper? Then again, as said elsewhere, maybe too much focus is always placed on the keeper but if you have a batsman who is a tidy keeper a la Stewart then why not utilise it?
Back when Trescothick was playing for England I thought he should keep in ODIs, lessened the need to balance up the side with the problem of trying to fit in five bowlers, a keeper and then as many batsmen as possible with some doubling up. So why not double up the keeper? Then again, as said elsewhere, maybe too much focus is always placed on the keeper but if you have a batsman who is a tidy keeper a la Stewart then why not utilise it?
