*Official* England in South Africa

[aussie]

England are like a dog with rabies. Most of the time they chunder along looking a bit daft and useless and you wonder how they ever get anything done. Then occasionally they'll suddenly go absolutely crazy and viciously ravage a perfectly good opposition batting lineup into tiny little pieces. It seems almost rude of them to be so dangerous when they appear somewhat hopeless most of the time.

. Well said, long may ENG continue to play above potential though..

 

[Sir Alex]

. Well said, long may ENG continue to play above potential though..

 

[Neil Pickup]

Ian Bell - Only scores runs when a batsman before him has already done so. What a rat-faced jerk.

Fair play to England. Even with their inability to bowl to the tail, they surely have this one in the bag. Its as guaranteed as a Shane Watson century.

Bastard. I shall be making sure I sleep through it all, as the last time I got up to watch England bowl themselves to victory in a Test match was in Chennai, twelve months ago - and we all know how that ended.

 

[Burgey]

It was dragged out unnecessarily. There was no point carrying on once Swann got out because at most England were going to need what... another 100-120 runs. Which given it's only a small amount you can get much faster with proper batsmen at both ends with virtually zero risk of being bowled out. Also there's a slight risk of your bowlers getting injured when they're trying to hit Steyn against the hard new ball. The equation is different when you need 150+ runs with reasonable amount of time left.

DWTA - should have batted longer, got more runs. Percentages and **** like that (insert truculent comment here), result doesn't justify the fact it was poor etc.

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

England are like a dog with rabies.

Its better to shoot them in the head to put them out of their misery?

 

[Scaly piscine]

DWTA - should have batted longer, got more runs. Percentages and **** like that (insert truculent comment here), result doesn't justify the fact it was poor etc.

So Santa brought you a dictionary for Christmas then eh.

 

[Burgey]

So Santa brought you a dictionary for Christmas then eh.

Yep, but you've been naughty this year - still no personality?

 

[BoyBrumby]

SA isn't a big force at home. Australia proved that earlier this year.

DWTA. Since their readmission only Oz & ourselves have won test series in SA. 'Stralia have had their number, but they've had a lot of teams' numbers these last fifteen or so years.

If Colly misses out then I reckon they'll bump Bell up one and pick wright

edit - but I guess you mean into the squad

If we call a batsman in for Colly the selectors must be made to swallow hemlock, IMHO. We already have an 18 man squad. Surely one proper reserve batsman would've been judicious?

Anyway, what a day. Really couldn't have gone a lot better. Well played chaps.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Whose Broad leave was worst, btw? Kallis's looked a shocker, but it was a very good nut that came back into him quite a way. JP's was the howler IMHO; caught in two minds and ended up doing neither.

 

[zaremba]

Just watching Kallis' now on the highlights. The accusatory look he gave to the pitch (despite the fact that the movement was in the air) can't have instilled much confidence in his watching team-mates

 

[four_or_six]

Whose Broad leave was worst, btw? Kallis's looked a shocker, but it was a very good nut that came back into him quite a way. JP's was the howler IMHO; caught in two minds and ended up doing neither.

ABs wasn't too clever, given he'd just seen Kallis get out.

 

[zaremba]

Whose Broad leave was worst, btw? Kallis's looked a shocker, but it was a very good nut that came back into him quite a way. JP's was the howler IMHO; caught in two minds and ended up doing neither.

There's Duminy broken hearts in the world

 

[BoyBrumby]

ABs wasn't too clever, given he'd just seen Kallis get out.

Yeah, pretty much an identical ball. Broad looks a different bowler when he piches it up a bit, doesn't he?

 

[GIMH]

Should bowl like that all the time.

 

[BoyBrumby]

There's Duminy broken hearts in the world

Ouch. A SAWful pun.

 

[four_or_six]

There's Duminy broken hearts in the world

Ah, those were the days.

 

[four_or_six]

Yeah, pretty much an identical ball. Broad looks a different bowler when he piches it up a bit, doesn't he?

Indeed. Hopefully he will remember that now.

 

[Craig]

Wow, the South African top order made New Zealand's top order look good for once.

 

[Burgey]

What target was set by England and what was the final score please?

 

[GIMH]

We declared about 250 ahead (possibly a bit less) and Saffa finished up 76-6

Hoping they score an absolute maximum of 23 more runs tomorrow, would be so awesome

Setting my alarm, will go down as our best away performance since Mumbai 06 if we do finish it off, which god knows we should