The end of the road for SA and my last thread on proteas.

[Burgey]

Well, I don't think SA does stink personally. It's an amazing, beautiful country with plenty of opportunity if you work hard and don't hang on to every minute perceived injustice. So yeah, I will thanks

Nice riposte frankly.

 

[Dissector]

SA didn't have any better alternatives at the time. Plus as i showed above he was passed his best days.

Morke potentially is obvious, whether he never fullfills it is another question. I certainly dont think SA have many better than him in the bowling stocks whether white or black to replace him.

That's kind of my point. There doesn't appear to be a huge amount of depth in South African cricket so complaints about selection policy miss the mark. The quota policy simply doesn't make that much of a difference. At best if selectors were given a free hand they would replace one mediocre non-white player with a slightly less mediocre white player.

As i said the reason why SA lost in the return series in AUS was because the bowling attack was in decline. The main reason why SA where the form test team between 2006-2009 was because they had a 5-man attack of Steyn/Ntini/Morkel/Kallis/Harris who where all bowling very well together.

Ntini then hit a steady decline & Morkel has not lived up to his talent as yet, although he has been very impressive to date againts England.

It goes beyond the bowling though. When they hosted Australia in 2009, the batting flopped in the first innings and conceded huge leads in the first two tests. Then when the pressure was off with a dead rubber, the batting clicked and South Africa won by an innings. In the last test the batting collapsed again. IMO the whole team seems to freeze when they are on the verge of becoming no.1.

 

[Jono]

But he's from Mumbai so he was obviously picked because of that and picked early just so we'd have players from Mumbai in the team. He justified his place later.

Need to start an end of the road for Indian cricket due to Mumbai thread.

Why has Virat Kohli been selected then?

 

[social]

As I said after the test series vs Oz early this year (and again in relation to both the current Indian and Oz teams), the main problem is with having expectations that are too high.

Quite frankly, based on whom is being chosen, THERE IS NO OUTSTANDING TEAM IN THE WORLD ATM

India's bowling, outside the subcontinent, is extremely average

Australia have weaknesses in the middle order, 3rd seamer and no Warne

SA are struggling for opening batsmen and bowlers (and things arent helped by the political situation where people are abandonding the country)

We can all point to dodgy selections but the fact remains that standards have dropped and slighlty surprising results like we've seen in this test will be commonplace

 

[pasag]

As I said after the test series vs Oz early this year (and again in relation to both the current Indian and Oz teams), the main problem is with having expectations that are too high.

Quite frankly, based on whom is being chosen, THERE IS NO OUTSTANDING TEAM IN THE WORLD ATM

India's bowling, outside the subcontinent, is extremely average

Australia have weaknesses in the middle order, 3rd seamer and no Warne

SA are struggling for opening batsmen and bowlers (and things arent helped by the political situation where people are abandonding the country)

We can all point to dodgy selections but the fact remains that standards have dropped and slighlty surprising results like we've seen in this test will be commonplace

Our third seamer is doing quite well at the moment! It's our first two which are the problem

 

[social]

Our third seamer is doing quite well at the moment! It's our first two which are the problem

Dougeh and Mitch are fine but Sidds is struggling and I dont think a fit Hilf is that great

Anyway, on the topic of SA, I dont really think that politics is the main issue

Looking at everyone that is even remotely connected to the country, the only guy that I'd pick from "outside" is Strauss

Amla deserves to be at 3 in front of Trott, who is largely unproven

Kallis is miles in front of KP

DeVilliers is at least KP's equal (especially considering form of the last 2 years and DeV's fielding)

Prince has been very good at 5/6 and there's no real gain to be had from putting KP/Trott in front of him

So the only issue is Ntini and that, my friends, is internal SA vs internal SA and comes down to loyalty rather than politics

Bottom line is that SA is a good rather than great test team and wont be dominant with the players potentially at their disposal

 

[BoyBrumby]

I'm biased in favour of our yarps, obviously, but I reckon Strauss, Prior & KP would all make the SA team and Trott would have a pretty strong case too. KP mightn't be better than Kallis nor in great nick just now, but him against Duminy or Amla is a no-brainer, tbh.

 

[Richard]

In 2003-04, Duminy was among the top performers statistically(Domestic).

2003-04 South African List A Highest Batting Averages

2003-04 South African First Class Highest Batting Averages

However he had been playing for 5 minutes and was selected in a totally pointless role.

There is absolutely no way on Earth that Duminy should have been selected in 2004. Plain idiocy.

 

[Richard]

Indeed. Nothing from JP in that game or any ODI he played between 04-08 looked like any special talent. He always came across to me like another Justin Ontong style token black selection..

He was merely picked for the wrong format of the game. Duminy shouldn't have been playing ODIs... at all, really. Yet when picked for Tests the idea couldn't have been better. Perfectly timed, he was an obviously class player, and he'd been performing at domestic level for a number of years.

 

[Richard]

Nel had one good year in 2005 but was mediocre both before and after. I think the Harmison comparison is a good one and IMO Nel has never seemed the type of bowler who would build a successful test career. Yet selectors continued persisting with him till as late as 2008. There seems to be an undercurrent in this thread that if only selectors were given a free hand there is all this awesome white talent which would take South Africa to no.1. The careers of Dippenar, Nel and Morkel suggest otherwise.

Nel was an obviously good bowler who made a relatively late entry to Test cricket. However between 2003/04 and 2006/07 he was a pretty good Test bowler. There is no way he should be compared with Dippenaar who consistently failed to make the step-up from First-Class to Test - or Harmison for that matter. Harmison was decent (nowhere near as good as Nel) for no more than a few months at Test level, and otherwise hopeless, picked again and again on expectation for him to be something he wasn't. Nel merely, like more cricketers than not, declined and continued to be picked for a little while after said decline on the hope that it wasn't permanent.

 

[aussie]

That's kind of my point. There doesn't appear to be a huge amount of depth in South African cricket so complaints about selection policy miss the mark. The quota policy simply doesn't make that much of a difference. At best if selectors were given a free hand they would replace one mediocre non-white player with a slightly less mediocre white player.

Well yea the depth problem has become an issue in recent years indeed. But i'm not 100% sure who are the young probable stars playing domestic cricket ATM, so i cant be certain.

It goes beyond the bowling though. When they hosted Australia in 2009, the batting flopped in the first innings and conceded huge leads in the first two tests. Then when the pressure was off with a dead rubber, the batting clicked and South Africa won by an innings. In the last test the batting collapsed again. IMO the whole team seems to freeze when they are on the verge of becoming no.1.

That was because AUS learnt from their mistakes in previous series & picked a better bowling attack - a 4-man pace attack. Plus the key factor Mitchell Johnson from nowhere began to swing the ball at always 95 mph (according the the SA speed guns ) which shocked the Saffies as much as it did AUS.

By the capetown test, when the probably adjusted themselves to Johnson it was too late AUS had already won. Although compared to the first two test in Jo'Burg & Durban - Capetown was a road, so that also nuetralized Johnson's wing as well.

So overall it was no fault of SA.

 

[aussie]

He was merely picked for the wrong format of the game. Duminy shouldn't have been playing ODIs... at all, really. Yet when picked for Tests the idea couldn't have been better. Perfectly timed, he was an obviously class player, and he'd been performing at domestic level for a number of years.

Yea this is likely how it went down..

 

[stephen]

Well yea the depth problem has become an issue in recent years indeed. But i'm not 100% sure who are the young probable stars playing domestic cricket ATM, so i cant be certain.



That was because AUS learnt from their mistakes in previous series & picked a better bowling attack - a 4-man pace attack. Plus the key factor Mitchell Johnson from nowhere began to swing the ball at always 95 mph (according the the SA speed guns ) which shocked the Saffies as much as it did AUS.

By the capetown test, when the probably adjusted themselves to Johnson it was too late AUS had already won. Although compared to the first two test in Jo'Burg & Durban - Capetown was a road, so that also nuetralized Johnson's wing as well.

So overall it was no fault of SA.

I'm still as smitten by Johnson's inswinger in South Africa as Mark Nicholas is with blonde Aussies.

 

[G.I.Joe]

Re: Rohit.

He's from Mumbai.

Origins in Andhra, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[silentstriker]

Plays for Mumbai though. Nobody is actually born in Mumbai anymore .

 

[social]

Sums it up - not simply a race issue

Graeme Smith: dropping Makhaya Ntini is "sensitive issue" - Times Online

 

[BoyBrumby]

Sums it up - not simply a race issue

Graeme Smith: dropping Makhaya Ntini is "sensitive issue" - Times Online

Tone of the article suggests that it very well might be, from my reading of it, anyway. How else can one take this?

When asked whether dropping Ntini would be a sensitive issue, Smith said: "It's a sensitive issue in South Africa. That's being honest.

"Makhaya is an icon to the country. He's not only the most iconic player of colour we've had, he's also been one of the most iconic cricketers in terms of performance over the last decade.

"When senior players are at the point where a lot of questions are being asked about them it's always a tough time for a leadership group to manage. We've always tried to support Makhaya as much as we can behind the scenes and he's been working hard on his game. Let's hope there's some confidence left in him for the future."

---

Unless you were being ironic and I've missed that, in which case I apologise.

 

[Goughy]

---
Unless you were being ironic and I've missed that, in which case I apologise.

Yeah surely he was being ironic. The article basically says that race is the reason.

 

[social]

50/50 tbh

Race is bound to be an issue but you cant ignore the fact that Ntini has had a highly successful career and dropping him now would likely spell the end of him

Tough one for both the sentamentalists and the affirmative action types

Fortunately, I'm neither so I say **** him off and get someone in the team that looks likely to take wickets

 

[BoyBrumby]

50/50 tbh

Race is bound to be an issue but you cant ignore the fact that Ntini has had a highly successful career and dropping him now would likely spell the end of him

Tough one for both the sentamentalists and the affirmative action types

Fortunately, I'm neither so I say **** him off and get someone in the team that looks likely to take wickets

I suppose there could be some truth in that, tbf. Gillespie was retained for at least a test too long in the 2005 Ashes (IMHO, obv) and there was no racial agenda to that selection that I'm aware of; Dizzy's putative Aborginal heritage notwithstanding. Selectors are a conservative bunch, by and large.