South African Tour of India 2010

[pcfan123]

Taking 20 South African wickets will be India's biggest challenge but its not exactly impossible either.

They have never been great players of spin, their tail is fairly weak and Duminy is horribly out of form.

 

[LongLegs?]

The only thing I fear for Badrinath is that he should not become this domestic run machine that turns out to be a failure in internationals. He has the history of a few Tamil Nadu players to contend with. There was this guy, Sridharan Sriram who scored bucketful of runs in domestic cricket for Tamil Nadu but in a few chances given in international cricket, he was a mega failure. Same with Sadagoppan Ramesh, but atleast he had a little success initially in his career at international level. But they also had this problem of not being selected because they were from the South (at that time, South was given a very raw deal)

Hopefully now with Srikanth in, there will be fair treatment of these players.

Sriram was never an outstanding List A player - he was a superb First Class player. However, he was picked for the ODI team and never for the Test team. Can't blame the guy for not performing, when in domestic he wasn't performing in the same format. Same thing happened to Venugopal Rao.

 

[Cricketman]

Is the one that does that really gay bow every time he takes a catch?

I think that's pretty cool . Can't compare to Nayar's though, just lifts the ball up, looks at the crowd and just pumps his fist.

Cricketman added 2 Minutes and 14 Seconds later...

Taking 20 South African wickets will be India's biggest challenge but its not exactly impossible either.

They have never been great players of spin, their tail is fairly weak and Duminy is horribly out of form.

Zaheer has a great record vs Smith too. I feel our biggest problems will lie in Hashim Amla, and of course facing Steyn.

 

[Leggie]

Is the one that does that really gay bow every time he takes a catch?

I'm sure he did that when he hit the stumps in the T20 bowl out against Pakistan. It's scary.

 

[Valaskjalf]

They have never been great players of spin, their tail is fairly weak and Duminy is horribly out of form.

That is another thing thats been completely blown out of proportion - over the past few years we have become much better against spin. We were mostly terrible against it in the 90's, but mostly because of Shane Warne, and everyone struggled against him. We had a draw in India in 2008....if we were so terrible against spin I suppose the series would have been much more one-sided dont you think?

Secondly I think our tail is pretty strong actually...Steyn, Morkel and Parnell isnt the worst tail Ive seen at all - its probably better than the Indian tail. Sreesanth and Ishant are hardly the best 10/11 in the world.....they certainly wont pose the same kind of challenge the English tail did in the recent series.

Duminy might be out of form, but India is without Yuvraj and Dravid which is a much bigger blow.

 

[sohum]

Duminy might be out of form, but India is without Yuvraj and Dravid which is a much bigger blow.

No Yuvi may actually be a boon more than a blow, but Dravid is definitely a missing piece.

Sreesanth is injured for this series. Our bowlers are looking like Bhajji, Zak, Mishra and Ishant, of who only Ishant hasn't scored a Test 50. But they're definitely not comparable to the Aussie/English tail.

 

[SaiSrini]

Yeah, Yuvraj's injury is a boon for India because it gives guys like Vijay and Badrinath a chance. Dravid will be missed, but if the wickets are batting beauties, we might not miss him much too. He comes into play more on wickets that are challenging for strokeplay and that require hard hours of grafting.

 

[pcfan123]

As stated earlier, YVs absence will help India more than harm then and Badri is supposed to be a mini-Dravid to begin with.

It ultimatly will boil down on the spinners to win it for India and for SA to try and survive.

1-0 to India after a massive runfest draw in the 1st Test

 

[stefan]

Taking 20 South African wickets will be India's biggest challenge but its not exactly impossible either.

They have never been great players of spin, their tail is fairly weak and Duminy is horribly out of form.

SA are as dire against spin then why has india never beaten us by a bigger margin than 1-0?? I guess this stigma will just continue to stick even though we actually have a more than decent record in the subcontinent.

They key for sa is to break the gambhir/sehwag partnership early. They set the tone, if they can be broken early then that puts lots of pressure on sachine(who has a poor record vs SA compared to overall) and the new middle order players. Dale steyn is key, neither parnell or morkel has played in india so it will be a big test for them. Kallis and jp will also need to contribute since there is no telling how harris/botha will go(neither is convincing).

Key for SA is to bat well in our first innings. Pressure on jp and prince since they had a dreadfull series vs india but both are good players.

I am backing the SA boys to surprise and take the series 1-0.

 

[shravi]

neither parnell or morkel has played in india so it will be a big test for them.

Morkel has already played 3 tests in India.

 

[pcfan123]

From what I remember Steyn did not have too great an outing in India last time (barring the innigns where India collapsed for 70 odd) There will be a lot of pressure on Morkel and the 3rd seamer if they are to make up for the lack of a quality spinner.

The Indian spinners should do most of the damage, will be a tough ask for the SA seamers to match them

 

[TumTum]

1-0 to India after a massive runfest draw in the 1st Test

:rtfl

And the 2nd Test is a raging turner?

 

[pcfan123]

^ exactly, JP better plan on bowling a lot of overs, I dont see SA picking Botha and Harris in the same match

 

[deerkick]

Now looking at SA batting lineup its hard to imagine India taking 20 wickets. Batting wise though we could probably force a draw

 

[SaiSrini]

:rtfl

And the 2nd Test is a raging turner?

Not really true. You guys have been following matches on Indian wickets when it has either been close to winter or winter. Wickets in India are livelier at the start and all throughout summer. Also Nagpur (venue for first test) is known to have a pitch with good carry and bounce (it hosted an ODI vs Australia and Sri Lanka and a T20 vs Sri Lanka, and people praised the bounce and carry off the pitch).

Same with Kolkata but its more of a spin friendly track with not much bounce and carry as Nagpur. I wont be surprised if both tracks provide results.

SaiSrini added 2 Minutes and 11 Seconds later...

Now looking at SA batting lineup its hard to imagine India taking 20 wickets. Batting wise though we could probably force a draw

We are playing in India. We can take 20 wickets even if we are playing in SA. Zaheer is almost there at his best, and Ishant has shown signs of revival. Harbhajan is under the cloud, but in Indian conditions, I wont write him off. Mishra and Ojha are adequate second spinners who can also take on the mantle of the first spinner. I wish they pick Mishra because his batting is decent, and a leggie and a finger spinner (Bhajji) would be a better combo.