Group A - Australia, South Africa, Scotland, Holland

[Fusion]

Kallis gone. He played a very bad innings considering the situation.

 

[PY]

Gross incompetence from Kallis, I bet Smith is fuming.

 

[Lostman]

why do people get surprised anymore when kallis does this?

 

[pasag]

Watson bowls Pollock. Yay!

 

[TT Boy]

Might as well pad up now, don't want to gift bowlers who don't deserve nice figures free wickets.

 

[pasag]

Very nice stuff from Bracken there. 9/280

 

[TT Boy]

Charl gone.

 

[LA ICE-E]

sigh...so is aussie back to being #1?

 

[jot1]

Game over. Congrats, Aussies.

 

[TT Boy]

Didn't need that four but due to the wickets my loss on this game is pretty minimal.

 

[pasag]

All over! Brilliant stuff from the Australians here, especially from Tait and Hogg during the crucial 30-40 over mark. Really good feeling coming from this, nice to beat the number 1 side every once in a while Finally going to bed, thank God for the end of daylight savings, would be nearly 9am otherwise.

I also think people who look at the scorecard wont realise how much chance SA had to win this and were cruising at one stage. If Smith wouldn't have gone down....

 

[TT Boy]

Game over, great win by Australia.

 

[age_master]

Good stuff from Bracken getting the final wicket - he was far and away the most economical bowler. Very good performance all round from Australia

Hoggy got more wickets this game too - hopefully he has cemented his spot in the side again now.

 

[oz_fan]

Great win by Australia. They did well to fight back after SA got off to a good start. Australia's bowling seemed to improve the further they got into SA's innings and Hogg and Tait in particular bowled really well.

 

[TT Boy]

All over! Brilliant stuff from the Australians here, especially from Tait and Hogg during the crucial 30-40 over mark. Really good feeling coming from this, nice to beat the number 1 side every once in a while Finally going to bed, thank God for the end of daylight savings, would be nearly 9am otherwise.

I also think people who look at the scorecard wont realise how much chance SA had to win this and were crusing at one stage. If Smith wouldn't have gone down....

For sure and one thing for is certain is that both teams are dead certs for the last four, alongside Sri Lanka the rest of the pack look pretty far behind.

 

[pasag]

Lol! Hayden and Gibbs becoming honorary citizens of St Kitts and Nevis.

 

[age_master]

haha Hayden and Gibbs have been made Honorary citizens of St Kitts

 

[BoyBrumby]

Bit confused about this post Brumby.

Win or lose, I think you can hardly fault Graeme, considering the mental edge SA and NZ have over Australia in chasing down big totals. If the ball moved around early, advantage South Africa. If it didn't, ah well let's chase 400 with out batting line-up which stretches till 9.

If that was Smith's thinking then he's even more culpable, as far as I can see. It may be true that Oz have had a few big scores chased down recently, but not being able to defend 340+ is a problem most teams wouldn't mind having to solve! You score that many & you'll win more often than you'll lose.

Surely any captain worth his salt looks at the pitch before making a decision? It was obvious from the off that the pitch was flat as, so I still say Smith dropped a moderate sized bollock by inserting Oz.

 

[Beleg]

Not really, I don't think WI and NZ are too far behind.

In any case, if blame can be pointed at any single person, it's Kallis. His innings really messed up the tempo of the run-scoring; I think the management should have realized that and promoted Gibbs, or even Prince. There needs to be a transitionary player in the middle-order (the likes of Inzamam, Sangakkara, Lara) who can smooth things over from an opening blitz to the lower-order hitting on-slaught and Kallis, unfortunately, isn't cut for that job.

 

[TT Boy]

Not really, I don't think WI and NZ are too far behind.

In any case, if blame can be pointed at any single person, it's Kallis. His innings really messed up the tempo of the run-scoring; I think the management should have realized that and promoted Gibbs, or even Prince. There needs to be a transitionary player in the middle-order (the likes of Inzamam, Sangakkara, Lara) who can smooth things over from an opening blitz to the lower-order hitting on-slaught and Kallis, unfortunately, isn't cut for that job.

? I would have put Ntini in front of him. If South Africa are going to see flat wickets in Guyana then Loots Bosman should be brought in. He would have loved it against the likes of McGrath and Watson, Tait would be to quick for him and Bracken to smart but he would have been of more value than Ashwell. 50 overs is not enough time for him, especially on these wickets.