***Official*** South Africa in England

[Richard]

Exactly and they can let loose with no inhibitions, knowing the score they have to get. The records show enforcing the follow on works, it would be interesting to discuss situations when not enforcing the follow on would be ideal, but thats another issue.

Some recent research has also shown that bowler injuries occur far more regularly when the follow-on is enforced. It's also fairly basic common-sense that the longer you bowl for consecutively (and England could conceivably have three days in a row in the field if SA bat well here) the more tired you'll be and the longer you'll take to recover.

I'd also imagine records show that not enforcing the follow-on works as well. I can't think of many occasions where a game has been drawn when the would-be-follow-on-enforcing team was looking for a win after a captain has turned-down the follow-on. If you've got time left in the game, use it.

And BTW Sidebottom is back on for the moment and bowls one that shapes in to Smith and then goes away down the slope.

 

[Richard]

Smith not far from being caught behind off MSP there either.

 

[Natman20]

44/0 in 20 overs. Seems low when comparing to T20 scores

 

[Lillian Thomson]

This game is the first of a series, and the first of back-to-back games. Sidebottom already appears somewhat tired on the fourth day of this game, and he's almost certainly going to have to bowl a fair bit more sometime today (and maybe tomorrow too).

If England manage to pull-off an easy victory here it'll be directly cancelled-out if they then bowl poorly next week (or, worse, have injuries to bowlers) and hence lose the next game. However, if they pull-off a victory later this game but are in better shape next week so therefore win again, this is rather more ideal.

What in God's name are you on about? England's best chance of winning this match is by enforcing the follow on, end of story.

You seem to be suggesting that they shouldn't have enforced the follow on in case they bowl badly next week and this will be influenced in some way by whether they win before lunch tomorrow or after tea.................very very strange..........Richy....

 

[Goughy]

Im not going to debate any of this, just state my POV. IMO you HAVE to enforce the follow on in this situation. There isnt any logic not to.

 

[Richard]

What in God's name are you on about? England's best chance of winning this match is by enforcing the follow on, end of story.

No, not end of story. This isn't a one-off Test (fortunately), it's a series.

You seem to be suggesting that they shouldn't have enforced the follow on in case they bowl badly next week and this will be influenced in some way by whether they win before lunch tomorrow or after tea.................very very strange..........Richy....

No, I'm suggesting something fairly basic. The longer you're in the field for, consecutively, without a break, as a bowling unit, the more tired you're going to be and the bigger your chances of getting injured. The more tired you're going to be, the longer it'll take to recover. And the longer you take to recover (from tiredness or injury) the higher the chances of you bowling poorly next week. The higher the chances of you bowling poorly next week, the higher the chances of the team losing the next Test.

See?

England will almost certainly win this Test whether they enforce the follow-on or not. If they don't win, it will be because they've bowled poorly and SA have batted well. The chance of these two things won't be altered by whether or not England have enforced the follow-on - in fact England are probably more likely to bowl well having had a break and SA more likely to bat poorly having had another pasting in the field. So enforcing the follow-on is virtually pointless, because if you play well you'll win whether you do or don't.

Oh yeah... and don't Richy me.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Im not going to debate any of this, just state my POV. IMO you HAVE to enforce the follow on in this situation. There isnt any logic not to.

Thank you, I'll join you in that statement as it'll save me the bother of replying to the latest "logic" supplied by poor old Richy.

 

[social]

Richard

How you can like Smith and dislike Hayden is totally beyond me

Smith would have to be one of the ugliest players I've ever seen and makes Hayden look like a poster boy for technical proficiency

 

[Richard]

Thank you, I'll join you in that statement as it'll save me the bother of replying to the latest "logic" supplied by poor old Richy.

Well it'll save you the effort of trying to argue something which you can't refute, yes.

 

[Speersy]

Dwta. Even if they score at 5 an over, to have any chance of saving the test England can't be batting before lunch tomorrow. Keeping their wicket in tact is still much more important than runs at this stage.

I was talking about if they did not enforce the follow on. Obviously now the goal is to stay in and the runs will come, so far so good.

 

[Richard]

Richard

How you can like Smith and dislike Hayden is totally beyond me

Well, the fact Smith's South African and Hayden's Australian probably has something to do with it. The fact Hayden is Andrew Symonds' best mate almost certainly does too.

Smith would have to be one of the ugliest players I've ever seen and makes Hayden look like a poster boy for technical proficiency

That's a different question to why I like one and dislike the other. I've said several times that Smith has several of the same technical deficiencies that Hayden does, I've never denied it in fact. But Smith I've always believed capable of changing this, Hayden hasn't over a long career. Smith hasn't so far either, but I always retain the hope.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Well it'll save you the effort of trying to argue something which you can't refute, yes.

Nice try there Richy........failure..........but nice try.

 

[Speersy]

Goooooooooonnnnnnneeeeeee!


to bed, boring

 

[Richard]

Nice try there Richy........failure..........but nice try.

 

[Richard]

A boundary after 97 balls.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

There you go, how hard was that? I knew we'd get there in the end.

 

[Richard]

Lunch and it's still zero down. Notwithstanding the fact both in batsmen should have been out, SA will be happy with that.

 

[wpdavid]

Aye, and the words 'SL' and '2006' spring immediately to mind.

I'm struck by how sparingly Vaughan has used Anderson & Broad this morning, given that the ball was still relatively new for most of it.

 

[open365]

I don't agree with the commentators when they say that SA have to be 'aggressive' or 'look to score runs' even when scoring runs isn't going to save them the test match. Nearly every time a team is in this situation all the commentators say exactly the same thing, that the batting side have to be 'positive' so that they don't become sitting ducks.

I think this is just wrong. I mean, the value of runs is almost nil at this point, it doesn't effect England at all whether McKenzie hits a 4 every over or every hour, Vaughan would still set the same field and the bowlers would still bowl the same, the only thing that would change would be that the batsmen have more of a chance of getting out.

Apparently, if you score 10 runs of 10 overs, England can 'get on top of you', but that clearly isn't true, it's just one of these random cliched illogical phrases that commentators trot out every time a certain situation occurs.

Thoughts?

 

[Jono]

Agreed open365.

SA did everything they were supposed to do in that session. Well played.