South Africa in England July-Sept 2012

[puddleduck]

He's also a fantastic fielder and worth runs in the field.

 

[nelson111]

I think they'd be silly giving the gloves to de villiers, it's not just that he's one of their best batsmen, he's also their most attacking top order player. take him out of the top 4 and it begins to look a bit stodgey to me.

What's stodgey about Kallis, Amla and Smith, all in the top 10 in the rankings together with De Villiers? And why would you take him out of the top 4 because he's the wicket keeper?

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

they score quite slowly, there's a lack of intent in their stroke play I think de villiers is the one that can really take the game to the opposition. I suppose he wouldn't necessarily be out the top 4 (er 5 actually, he playes 5 doesn't he?) but the experiment never worked when sri lanka gave the gloves to sangakkara, the responsibility of batting in the top order and keeping wicket proved too much.

 

[nelson111]

I think they can all bat as the circumstances require. De Villiers is not an experiment as a wicket keeper - I think you've all forgotten (or don't know) that he is a bona fide keeper for his province and always has been. The only reason he hasn't kept in tests before now is Mark Boucher's availability.

Check out his profile: http://www.espncricinfo.com/southafrica/content/player/44936.html

 

[War]

Ye like Sangakkara, De Villiers is very good keeper. He just happens to be a world-class batsman also.

 

[MUFC1987]

Such a shame about Boucher, one of the best of his time in terms of 'keeping ability, so it's sad to see him go. However, the much bigger issue is his injury and hopefully he makes a decent recovery from it. It'd be horrible for this to affect the rest of his life, through a freak occurrence.

For me the biggest thing coming out of the warm-up for England, was that innings from Peter Trego.

Been keeping an eye on him of late and i think if given a chance, he could be useful addition to England's T20 squad.

Can't buy a run this year and even got dropped from Somerset's T20 team a few games back, so I doubt that. I just hope he's back in form after that knock.

On De Villiers, while I think he's a decent keeper, it would be stupid to make him keep in Tests when he's already a key part of their order and only going to move even further up the order in the future. Tsolekile seems to be the man of choice, interesting to see how long he lasts this time. In theory, with their top 5, he shouldn't be needed to score runs, so his keeping is all that matters. But then you always hear that keeping in England seems to be a lot different to other places, so could be a challenge for him. I don't think he's going to take much to get rid of when he bats, but like I said, that only matters in the others fail really.

 

[isrararrafi]

I also believe De Villiers shouldn't be keeping. I do not doubt his ability in keeping but in the end he is a human. keeping for a whole day must put a lot of strain on ur back and waist, all it will do is tire him off easily and make him injury prone. he may seem fit but once he ages a little bit a lot of injury problem might surface due to all this. In the end saffars can't afford to lose a batsman like de villiers. without him the middle order does look very weak with only kallis as the sole trusted man.

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from what i have heard and read, it doesn't seem like tsolekile is the best choice for the team. this might be another quota selection but i would be happy to be proven wrong. David vilas and de Kock seems much more prolific and younger and more talented. specially De kock seems a very interesting prospect given he is only 19

 

[Owzat]

Thami Tsolekile is not someone who will score a bucket load of runs against anyone. LOL

England have a habit of making non-entity batsmen get runs, just see the rabbit that nearly made a hundred and the highest score for a #11

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I think they can all bat as the circumstances require. De Villiers is not an experiment as a wicket keeper - I think you've all forgotten (or don't know) that he is a bona fide keeper for his province and always has been. The only reason he hasn't kept in tests before now is Mark Boucher's availability.

Check out his profile: AB de Villiers | South Africa Cricket | Cricket Players and Officials | ESPN Cricinfo

I've always felt if you have a batsman who can keep wicket to a good standard without dramatically impacting on his runscoring then play him as a keeper. If he drops lots then it's not such a good idea, but someone like a Stewart can improve as they keep more regularly and while keepers can improve their batting they will never become proper batsmen and lack the ability to play those big innings as often as a batsman-keeper

 

[War]

England news: Time to give Flower a break | Cricket Features | Global | ESPN Cricinfo

Ye Flower should get a break soon. We love it if England could have him for like 6 years like when we had Duncan Fletcher from 1999-2006/07.

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Can't buy a run this year and even got dropped from Somerset's T20 team a few games back, so I doubt that. I just hope he's back in form after that knock.

Well yea that's my hope - if he can regain his form, he is a more natural # 7 batting all-rounder, than Bresnan for the T20/ODI set-up.

 

[Owzat]

England squad for first Test v South Africa, starting at The Oval on 19 July:

Andrew Strauss (Middlesex, captain), James Anderson (Lancashire), Ian Bell (Warwickshire), Ravi Bopara (Essex), Tim Bresnan (Yorkshire), Stuart Broad (Nottinghamshire), Alastair Cook (Essex) Steven Finn (Middlesex), Graham Onions (Durham), Kevin Pietersen (Surrey), Matt Prior (Sussex, wicketkeeper), Graeme Swann (Nottinghamshire), Jonathan Trott (Warwickshire).

Source : bbc website

No great shocks there

 

[vorgaphe]

England squad for first Test v South Africa, starting at The Oval on 19 July:

Andrew Strauss (Middlesex, captain), James Anderson (Lancashire), Ian Bell (Warwickshire), Ravi Bopara (Essex), Tim Bresnan (Yorkshire), Stuart Broad (Nottinghamshire), Alastair Cook (Essex) Steven Finn (Middlesex), Graham Onions (Durham), Kevin Pietersen (Surrey), Matt Prior (Sussex, wicketkeeper), Graeme Swann (Nottinghamshire), Jonathan Trott (Warwickshire).

Source : bbc website

No great shocks there

Dissapointed Moggie isn't there, he deserves another chance and should never have been dropped. But the main thing is that Finn should be included. His bowling has been nothing short of world class, he's far more likely to rip through the Saffers than Bresnan.

 

[puddleduck]

They'll go Bresnan because they'll be worried about the batting.

 

[War]

Surprised they included Onions. Could that be a sign that England are contemplating my favoured XI of including both Finn and Bresnan in the starting XI?

Strauss
Cook
Trott
KP
Bell
Prior
Bresnan
Broad
Swann
Anderson
Finn

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Can't buy a run this year and even got dropped from Somerset's T20 team a few games back, so I doubt that. I just hope he's back in form after that knock.

Yea i'm aware of his poor season so far with Somerset, but i was speaking of him more based on his performances over the last coupe of years.

 

[puddleduck]

Surprised they included Onions. Could that be a sign that England are contemplating my favoured XI of including both Finn and Bresnan in the starting XI?

Strauss
Cook
Trott
KP
Bell
Prior
Bresnan
Broad
Swann
Anderson
Finn

I think it would be pretty bold if they lined up like that. Would be a show of confidence that they can win.

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Strauss and KP have been scoring runs in county cricket in the last week so the whole batting lineup has runs at the moment. That would be a bowling attack that would put South Africa under a lot of pressure.

 

[MUFC1987]

Yea i'm aware of his poor season so far with Somerset, but i was speaking of him more based on his performances over the last coupe of years.

He doesn't even bowl for Somerset much in T20 or One Day cricket, if at all, so he's not going to be batting at 7 and bowling overs, as he's not really good enough. Last year or the year before was his time to get into the side, much in the same way that we played Luke Wright at 6 and got the odd over out of him when we won the T20 World Cup, but that time has passed.

I do feel privileged that you replied to the same message from me twice though.

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Onto the England team, I can't see us going with just 5 batsmen and Prior, simply because of the fear of Steyn and Philander. If we're going to collapse against anybody, it's South Africa, so I can't see us weakening the batting. Unless of course we can't bowl them out and do it later in the series. I just think England picked Finn and Onions as they like to manage bowlers workloads more, in case Anderson or Broad get injured, whereas they don't need to do that with the batsmen, hence no cover.