***Official*** South Africa In Australia

[Matt79]

Is there some sort of unwritten rule that the Australian team must have a spinner? Ok, its understandable when you have bowlers averaging in the 30s or so, but 2 spin bowlers averaging nearly 50 are fighting it out for one of the top four bowling spots in the country. Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? I might even let it slide if it happened at Sydney but at Perth and Melbourne?!

What part of "you must bowl 90 overs in a day's play" is too complicated for you to understand?

 

[inbox24]

What part of "you must bowl 90 overs in a day's play" is too complicated for you to understand?

This should a non factor. Teams have managed it for years and years, no reason why it should change now.

 

[Matt79]

This should a non factor. Teams have managed it for years and years, no reason why it should change now.

We managed for years with warne in the team. It's a rule of the game and needs to be respected. Ponting got his butt kicked in India on overrates to the point where he bowled Hussey and White. Teams should be factoring it into their selection - to do otherwise is to seek an advantage by breaching a rule.

Name one international team that regularly gets 90 overs done in a game without a spinner

 

[GIMH]

We managed for years with warne in the team. It's a rule of the game and needs to be respected. Ponting got his butt kicked in India on overrates to the point where he bowled Hussey and White. Teams should be factoring it into their selection - to do otherwise is to seek an advantage by breaching a rule.

Name one international team that regularly gets 90 overs done in a game without a spinner

I'd imagine 90 overs in a game shouldn't be too much of a problem for many sides

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Called it a few pages ago. I think he deserves his spot, I'm very happy for him.

(Y)

(at least it isn't Henriques)

 

[Mister Wright]

Have been waiting for competitive test matches involving Australia for a very long time, and boy, these two tests have delivered, but Australia really should have won both matches. South Africa going great guns. If they win in Sydney they really do deserve the No.1 tag.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

EDIT: Nah, cbf.

 

[aussie]

I don't think the four man pace attack really makes much sense, the three seamers that are there in the team haven't done anything special to merit the selection of another seamer, and Hauritz has shown enough discpline in his bowling to support a three man pace attack given they bowl well too.

You might not like to hear the issue of the over-rates, but its a big issue for Ponting to deal with nonetheless.

I more talking about the SA tour when the Lee, Clark & Noffke will be fit. They all have to play plus Johnson.

Haurtiz nor Krejza aren't good enough to play as part of a 4-man attack. Simple.

Picking either of them as part of a 4-man attack would be SA picking Harris as part of a 4-man attack if Kallis wasn't an all-rounder or England during the Duncan Fletcher days picking Giles as part of a 4-man attack.

 

[Matt79]

Noffke is a dead man to selectors by all accounts.

 

[aussie]

Of course he was having a dig at the selectors and rightly so, as they don't have any consistency in their policies, they are virtually picking anyone and everyone, without any planning, the selectors have ended looking like bunch of fools with the way they have handled Casson, Krejza, Bollinger, Noffke, Symonds, Watson, etc..

Yes the selectors have been pretty foolish this year. But of that list only Symonds treatment & Casson been picked for the West Indies tour ahead of McGain plus White's selection in India are the real shocker. Hopefully i won't be adding the selection of McDonald in a few days.

Bollinger - well he deserves to debut in a few days no doubt. Before not really although its debatable.

Krejza - was rightly picked when he was & was rightly dropped IMO. No issue with the selectors on him.

Noffke - I buy the reasoning the selectors gave for not picking him for India. He's injured now because i believe he would have played this summer

Watson - the big man himself lol. The selectors were right not to pick him initally for the the SA series, but its clear now when fit again he has to bat @ 6 since Australia needs to play with 5 bowlers.

 

[aussie]

Im happy for SA. It is a lndmark victory. TBH, I dont think it is a special SA team but it is certainly decent.

It does beg the question though, this is the worst Australia team since when?

Add Imran Tahir to this team by the time England are in SA next year. Once Kallis still is bowling, Ntini doesn't fade off & Morkel finds himself in international cricket.

This team has a good shout in being considered best SA team since the casted away aparthied era.

 

[silentstriker]

EDIT: Nah, cbf.

Well, I don't think you can lose to the #3 side away and #2 at home, and still be #1, unless the other two haven't been winning anywhere else, which SA certainly have.

 

[aussie]

That I'll agree with. There were selection blunders in India, mainly with White, and dropping Clark was the worst selection decision Australia has ever made in my time following cricket, even worse than picking Symonds in Sri Lanka in '04.

Have had arguments with Richard on that in the past. That was by no means a bad selection at the time, but in hindsight its quite easy to say it was.

 

[oldmancraigy]

Haurtiz nor Krejza aren't good enough to play as part of a 4-man attack. Simple.

Picking either of them as part of a 4-man attack would be SA picking Harris as part of a 4-man attack if Kallis wasn't an all-rounder or England during the Duncan Fletcher days picking Giles as part of a 4-man attack.

Agreed.

One might argue that MacDonald is the 5th bowler (he's more a bowler than a batsman - although he isn't really a batsman...)

Marcus North should feel pretty hard done by: the guy has 2 centuries and 2 50s in 6 shield games - averaging 44 with the bat.
His 8 shield wickets have cost him 35 each (compare that to Hauritz 10 at 40). (North's economy rate is 2.62 and he actually makes the ball spin sideways )

Now I'm not denying that MacDonald is having a super shield season, averaging 46 with the bat and 25 with the ball. But if you're picking him as a batsman, you need to take a closer look and notice that he hasn't scored a century this season. Yes, he has 4 50s, but his high score is 60... And in his career (as a 28 year old) he has 2 centuries. At best he's a number 7 type batsman who would need to be selected for his bowling - and if we bat him at 7 (Haddin at 6) then we lengthen the tail significantly with none of the bottom 5 any sure thing of scoring over 20.
Yes, they've done well for us in the past, but picking Hayden means we're still carrying him - so the tail is going to need to score, and effectively we've switched out a batsmen for a bowling all-rounder, and lee (20 test average) for a bunny (sorry Hilfy or Boll - but you're not run scorers..).

Why did we not pick Marcus North as the all-rounder? He's having a fair season, and is probably a better spin option than Hauritz, PLUS he would allow us to carry 4 quicks into the game.

Now perhaps we'd want to take MacDonald anyway, and in that case the bowling 5 for Sydney could have been Johnson; Hilfenhaus; Bollinger; MacDonald; North.
Force Katich to bowl in the nets - he tends to land the ball nicely when bowling well - and a chinaman cleans up the tail nicely (which surely we missed in Melbourne).

Yes, I dropped Siddle back to 12th man - but the guy just looks a yard slow to worry test batsmen. His 4-fer in the first innings was fantastic, but he was steaming in at 145ish kph. Every other time he's bowled (Perth; 2nd dig; India) he's been around the 136-138 range, with an occasional 142 ball.
His style seems to be a 'bang it in' style and intimidate the batsmen. It might work against the shiled batsmen, but at the next level it seems to be failing him - except when he can find the extra pace.

Whatever he did in the first dig, the selectors need to send him off to find that pace and then he's a test-quality bowler.

We've lost the series anyway - why not see what Hilfenhaus can do with his sharp away-swing?

[I realise North isn't going to play - just noting that it's a shame! - But Hilfy in front of Siddle anyway!]

 

[Son Of Coco]

Mitchell Johnson summarizes the attitude of the Australian selectors tbh- bowl tight and hope that batsmen will play stupid shots. Well this isnt NZ or the WI and thats not going to happen. My advice is to pick bowlers who have the potential to take 20 wickets, even if it means picking someone along the lines of Shaun Tait.

Really? Well, if that's the hole the SA top order can get itself into when they're not playing silly shots...God help them if they get a rush of blood. Twice they got themselves into bad positions in the first innings only to dig themselves out in the second. The Australian bowling wasn't good enough to take wickets in the second innings both times, I'll grant you that, but SA didn't exactly take the game by the scruff of the throat with their first innings knocks. Fortunately Australia have come right back to the field and they can get away with it this time around.

And you'd add another bowler who bowls it all over the place to the line up with Johnson? Wasn't your initial problem with him that he doesn't bowl enough balls on stumps? Selecting Tait will hardly fix the problem, did you miss his first few test efforts?

 

[GIMH]

Well, I don't think you can lose to the #3 side away and #2 at home, and still be #1, unless the other two haven't been winning anywhere else, which SA certainly have.

Don't think that's what his original post was about tbh

 

[Zinzan]

Why the hell is Bracken never considered for the test side? I mean he's a genuine swing bowler isn't he, not to mention the no.1 rated ODI bowler

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Well, I don't think you can lose to the #3 side away and #2 at home, and still be #1, unless the other two haven't been winning anywhere else, which SA certainly have.

What the ****? My comment was a reply to EWS, had nothing to do with that.

 

[Craig]

Noffke is a dead man to selectors by all accounts.

What crime has Noffke committed?

 

[inbox24]

What crime has Noffke committed?

The crime of not having his hand in their pocket.