***Official*** South Africa in England

[wpdavid]

I'm less uptight about these slips not being straight in a line with no gully than some are, but there should be more than 3 men in the cordon IMO. This ball is still doing plenty.

Plus neither of these guys is even close to being set.

Morning all, btw.

 

[Richard]

Plus neither of these guys is even close to being set.

Was going to edit that in TBH but the edit function was sloooooooooooowwwwwwwwww so I couldn't be arsed.

Morning all, btw.

Here for the day?

 

[GIMH]

Almost want Sidebottom to clean-up the rest TBH.

Would demonstrate once more that you don't neccessarily have to take five-fors to bowl extraordinarily well.

Well of course you don't, but Flintoff deserves a 5 for his efforts.

 

[GIMH]

Uninteresting fact of the day, cricinfo seems to be keeping up with play today, always seems behind when I'm in work (ie someone will say GONE and then 1 minute later the out will come up on cricinfo)

 

[GIMH]

New ball, plan

 

[wpdavid]

Was going to edit that in TBH but the edit function was sloooooooooooowwwwwwwwww so I couldn't be arsed.

Here for the day?

Regrettably not. In fact I'm popping out for a bit soon after typing this. And I'll have no chance of sitting down & doing this after lunch.

Sounds like I missed a wonderful battle between Fred & Kallis yesterday - perhaps more Holding vs Boycott than Donald vs Athers? In terms of the final result, anyway.

 

[Richard]

Get round-the-wicket Fredd FFS.

 

[Richard]

Sounds like I missed a wonderful battle between Fred & Kallis yesterday - perhaps more Holding vs Boycott than Donald vs Athers? In terms of the final result, anyway.

Indeed, and in terms of the relative brevity too.

AAD-Ath in 1998 seemed to go on for nearly an hour. This couldn't have been much more than 10 minutes or so.

 

[Richard]

New ball, plan

Sheeysh, I hope this works. If this new nut doesn't swing, when the old one was, they'll be kicking themselves royally.

No reason that should happen, and indeed Sidebottom gets it to bend in nicely 1st delivery, but you always worry in these sorts of situations.

 

[GIMH]

Aye. Wanna see these 3 knocked over really quickly. A deficit of 50 is nothing when you're batting third.

 

[GIMH]

Is it raining or is that woman just a bit odd?

 

[Richard]

Aye. Wanna see these 3 knocked over really quickly. A deficit of 50 is nothing when you're batting third.

Hmm, nothing?

A good opening stand and it's nothing, but a couple of early wickets and it's potentially crucial.

Sidebottom trying hard for the magic ball so far here. Can't really criticise him for doing so, but it hasn't worked yet.

 

[Goughy]

Aye. Wanna see these 3 knocked over really quickly. A deficit of 50 is nothing when you're batting third.

Agreed.

This is where teams with a pretention to be good need to make a move. They have SA in the position they want, but the lesser teams are not able to finish it off.

We will get a peek at what type of team England are. Hard work is done but can they leap upon an wounded SA?

 

[GIMH]

Okay got a bit carried away with nothing, but in theory it can be offset by the fact that they have to bat 4th

 

[Manee]

Anderson at backward point, who does he think he is? RP Singh?

 

[Richard]

I just cannot fathom Flintoff bowling over-the-wicket at the left-hander here. He's had all success doing otherwise.

EDIT: good, round-the-wicket now. Morkel smacks it for four 1st up, but never mind - keep at it.

 

[GIMH]

Agreed.

This is where teams with a pretention to be good need to make a move. They have SA in the position they want, but the lesser teams are not able to finish it off.

We will get a peek at what type of team England are. Hard work is done but can they leap upon an wounded SA?

Yes. So often in recent years we have seen us go 6 or 7 to all out in no time, and then spent hours trying to get the opposition tail out

 

[Flem274*]

Come on England, get some wickets!

More importantly, score some bloody runs. None of you are Matthew Bell so no excuses.

 

[Uppercut]

Vaughan maybe should have considered giving Panesar a few with the old ball against Morkel. Morkel looks like a batsman against pace but against spin he looks like an old lady waving her broomstick at passing flies.

 

[Richard]

Plenty of rain here. Should spice the pitch up but might also deaden the effect of the new-ball.

Either way, hope it blows over quickly.