*Official* England in South Africa

[four_or_six]

Yup, barring injury I'd say there's more chance of KP waltzing out to the crease at the fall of the first South African wicket than there is of Duminy being dropped.

There's probably more chance of KP waltzing out to the crease at the fall of the first English wicket too.

 

[jboss]

For the same reason that Australia dropped Hughes and because he has been out 3 times in the ODI series off short pitched bowling. His average is not that good and is inflated by the 176 knock plus 2 not outs. If we had the space for an extra batsman, he would be the man, but we do not. we need 5 bowlers and because we have Harris, there is no way that our 5th bowler/all rounder will be a spinner on a South African wicket. 1st test is not at Cape Town.

 

[Jarquis]

I am sure that Peterson was chosen as opener anyway as Prince's position was a temp one. We probably will see a 1st test lineup of

1)Smith
2)Peterson
3)Amla
4)AB
5)Prince
6)Mclaren
7)Boucher
8)Harris
9)Morkell
10)Ntini
11)Steyn

Any bet on Ntini in the team is a safe one as CSA have done huge marketing on this being his 100th game.

No Duminy would be an outrageous decision.

 

[Jarquis]

Duminy will be in the team.

If Duminy doesn't play the first Test, barring sudden injury, I'll stop posting here for a year. There's no way in hell they'll leave him out.

More to the point, why would they drop Duminy?

Yup, barring injury I'd say there's more chance of KP waltzing out to the crease at the fall of the first South African wicket than there is of Duminy being dropped.

No Duminy would be an outrageous decision.

Perhaps I should've read the least page before replying....

 

[marc71178]

I forgot to mention that if they do not play Mclaren who will they play as our 5th bowler?

Do what most teams do and use fill in bowlers from the batsmen - it's not as if the likes of Duminy are useless with the ball.

 

[jboss]

Here is JP stats for @home vs Aus and from the time he was discovered to be sh*t against the short ball.
3 5 1 143 73* 35.75

Take away the knock of 73* and he had an average of 17. Vert ompressive indeed. He must fix this problem or our order will crumble the moment we lose 3 quick wickets. Good luck to him though.

 

[TT Boy]

Well I don't know which stats you are looking at? He has 2 FC hundreds and one can say that he is in his third FC season so can presume that by now his stats are starting to improve. He has an average of 35.00 and a SR of 59 which are worse and better than Kallis respectively. And usually this far in to a career, stats start to improve.

We are looking at the same stats but I know that Smut has scored only one franchise hundred, the other was scored for the Eastern Province amateur side, the side which Smut’s has played for the most and yet he still only averages 30 odd. To put that into some context, Cape Cobras Richard Levi played a whole year of amateur cricket for Western Province and averaged about 80 odd; at one time he even had a first class average over 100.

 

[Prince EWS]

McLaren at seven would be acceptable if you had a strong #6 and a strong #8. When it's Boucher and Harris though there's no way it'll happen.

 

[jboss]

it's not as if the likes of Duminy are useless with the ball.

Well with a SR of 70 on a home pitch at Newlands he is not gonna exactly walk through the Eng order or contain an Eng team that are far stronger vs spin bowling than Aus were when they toured here at the begining of the year. I don't recall us going into any game since readmision even in the sub continent with 2/5 bowlers as spinners.

 

[popepouri]

Dodgy action?

Tsotsobe needs the stars to be aligned to be touching over 135kph.

He was able to touch 145 against Australia and he has expressed intent to bowl quicker. That was before he got injured though so I don't know how quick he's bowling now.

Care to explain how Rudolph gets in the team before Elgar?

I think Elgar needs another good season before throwing him into tests. He's only 22 and he can wait. He was abysmal last season so he needs to show he's not a one season wonder. Rudolph has faced the English bowlers so he has the experience and he's been more consistent.

Take away the knock of 73* and he had an average of 17. Vert ompressive indeed. He must fix this problem or our order will crumble the moment we lose 3 quick wickets. Good luck to him though.

You seem to forget context. That 73 came when everyone was falling around him and it was against a devastating Mitchell Johnson and lets not forget the 166 and what the situation was there.

 

[Prince EWS]

Here is JP stats for @home vs Aus and from the time he was discovered to be sh*t against the short ball.
3 5 1 143 73* 35.75

Take away the knock of 73* and he had an average of 17. Vert ompressive indeed. He must fix this problem or our order will crumble the moment we lose 3 quick wickets. Good luck to him though.

So what you're saying is.. if you only look at his worst series and ignore his best score of that series, his record is horrible.

Similarly, if you ignore the best 707 balls Shane Warne bowled in Test cricket, he averages a staggering 17,995.0 with the ball.

 

[Furball]

Well with a SR of 70 on a home pitch at Newlands he is not gonna exactly walk through the Eng order or contain an Eng team that are far stronger vs spin bowling than Aus were when they toured here at the begining of the year. I don't recall us going into any game since readmision even in the sub continent with 2/5 bowlers as spinners.

No-one is saying Duminy should be picked as a front line bowler.

 

[TT Boy]

Care to explain how Rudolph gets in the team before Elgar?

Two of Elgar's four hundreds this season were scored in bore draws and he has never scored a run when representing Emerging RSA or RSA A. Not a big fan of Rudolph but I would currently take him over Elgar.

 

[jboss]

McLaren at seven would be acceptable if you had a strong #6 and a strong #8. When it's Boucher and Harris though there's no way it'll happen.

under normal curcimstances, i would agree but this squad lacks anyone else I would say is gonna make the team as our no1 all rounder.

 

[TT Boy]

He was able to touch 145 against Australia and he has expressed intent to bowl quicker. That was before he got injured though so I don't know how quick he's bowling now.

He was pedestrian against Zimbabwe.

 

[jboss]

He was pedestrian against Zimbabwe.

IMHO our whole team was. We went almost 6 months without cricket except for 2 games. Whats more is that Ntini's future looks less promosing by the game and surely it is time SA start finding a replacemnt of color and this one happens to fit the profile on merit which is a bonus.

 

[jboss]

No-one is saying Duminy should be picked as a front line bowler.

Help us if the pitch is flat and not turning and our third bowler is very wayward. We then have 2 spinners 2 contain on a pitch with no assistance.

 

[jboss]

So what you're saying is.. if you only look at his worst series and ignore his best score of that series, his record is horrible.

Similarly, if you ignore the best 707 balls Shane Warne bowled in Test cricket, he averages a staggering 17,995.0 with the ball.

No I am saying he has been found out + the stats show it. He looks even worse in the ODI series than he did vs Aus against the short ball.

 

[Prince EWS]

Help us if the pitch is flat and not turning and our third bowler is very wayward. We then have 2 spinners 2 contain on a pitch with no assistance.

It's far from ideal, but it's much less of a risk than having McLaren or Boucher come out at #6 and Paul Harris come out at #8.

You yourself said that you can't recall South Africa going with two spinners since readmission, but equally.. can you remember them going into a Test with a six-to-eight as bad as McLaren/Boucher/Harris?

Either way it's far from ideal but the sixth batsman is worth more than the fifth bowler. You can argue that a fifth bowler would be of more use than a seventh batsman, but Boucher is not a #6 batsman so that's not the debate. You of all people should be able to see that.

 

[jboss]

It's far from ideal, but it's much less of a risk than having McLaren or Boucher come out at #6 and Paul Harris come out at #8.

You yourself said that you can't recall South Africa going with two spinners since readmission, but equally.. can you remember them going into a Test with a six-to-eight as bad as McLaren/Boucher/Harris?

Either way it's far from ideal but the sixth batsman is worth more than the fifth bowler. You can argue that a fifth bowler would be of more use than a seventh batsman, but Boucher is not a #6 batsman so that's not the debate. You of all people should be able to see that.

Lol true but I can not recall us having a top 6 so sold on paper without our Kallis. I mean there is nothing between the days of Richardson and the order I posted. Our batting used to fail splendidly with Rhode/Mcmillan/Richardson/Mathews always having to bail us out. Besides on any day I bet that a decent coupld of runs would come from Smith/Amla/AB/Prince alone.