*Official* England in South Africa

[wpdavid]

"most curious" being the operative words. Could it be we've been losing through other factors and not good cricketing skills on England's side? Makes one wonder.....

.... about the mentality of some of the Saffers, that's for sure. This tour is well on the way to breaking the record for the number of whinges by one side - Onions & Colly having the temerity to celebrate saving the 1st game, Trott taking his time to be ready, Broad doing what every fast bowler since forever has done to stop a ball, Anderson doing we're not sure what but let's moan anyway, Broad actually bowling well in Durban so he must have been cheating, KP eating saffie babies, etc, etc. And that's before we even get to the perpetual whines about Trott & KP clearing off to play in England.

Gee mate, you're going to win this by a mile, and probably the series now that you've got your act together. Why can't you just enjoy the fact?

 

[roseboy64]

Declaration now.

 

[GIMH]

.... about the mentality of some of the Saffers, that's for sure. This tour is well on the way to breaking the record for the number of whinges by one side - Onions & Colly having the temerity to celebrate saving the 1st game, Trott taking his time to be ready, Broad doing what every fast bowler since forever has done to stop a ball, Anderson doing we're not sure what but let's moan anyway, Broad actually bowling well in Durban so he must have been cheating, KP eating saffie babies, etc, etc. And that's before we even get to the perpetual whines about Trott & KP clearing off to play in England.

Gee mate, you're going to win this by a mile, and probably the series now that you've got your act together. Why can't you just enjoy the fact?

Haha, brillaint David. Love it.

 

[GIMH]

By my calculations we need to score runs at 3.22 an over to win this, should be a cakewalk

 

[Stapel]

So, 466 to win in ?145? overs. That's under 3.3 balls per over. 466 is a huge target, but with a flattened deck, I'd say the declaration is a bit early.

 

[King Pietersen]

By my calculations we need to score runs at 3.22 an over to win this, should be a cakewalk

Love the optimism. I'm just hoping SA bowl terribly, Strauss puts away his big flashy drive and we manage to bat these 4 and a bit sessions and get a draw. Either that or Bell comes in at 100/4 alongside Kevin Pietersen, Bell scores an unbeaten double ton and we wrap the game up just after tea tomorrow.

 

[wpdavid]

So, 466 to win in ?145? overs. That's under 3.3 balls per over. 466 is a huge target, but with a flattened deck, I'd say the declaration is a bit early.

They're playing England mate. Not much chance of our boys doing the Aus thing that we saw last summer and giving the hosts a serious fright about chasing down 500+

Still, it'll be interesting to see if we can show some gonads in the face of this total.

 

[Prince EWS]

Don't like the chances of a draw; I think England will get the runs if they bat out the time (not that I think that's likely). Hence I think the declaration was just a tad early.. not an awful one though.

 

[GIMH]

Love the optimism. I'm just hoping SA bowl terribly, Strauss puts away his big flashy drive and we manage to bat these 4 and a bit sessions and get a draw. Either that or Bell comes in at 100/4 alongside Kevin Pietersen, Bell scores an unbeaten double ton and we wrap the game up just after tea tomorrow.

If we bat it out we should win. There's no way they can stonewall long enough for the draw, just go out there and bat, like the crims did twice last summer

 

[Prince EWS]

I wonder if Steyn will actually open the bowling today. Farce if he doesn't.

 

[Stapel]

Love the optimism. I'm just hoping SA bowl terribly, Strauss puts away his big flashy drive and we manage to bat these 4 and a bit sessions and get a draw. Either that or Bell comes in at 100/4 alongside Kevin Pietersen, Bell scores an unbeaten double ton and we wrap the game up just after tea tomorrow.

They're playing England mate. Not much chance of our boys doing the Aus thing that we saw last summer and giving the hosts a serious fright about chasing down 500+

Still, it'll be interesting to see if we can show some gonads in the face of this total.

I'm simply hoping for a another great finish of another great Test Match.

 

[Jayzamann]

Were those extra 50 or so runs necessary, Smith?

 

[wpdavid]

I'm simply hoping for a another great finish of another great Test Match.

Yes, right now I'd settle for that too.

 

[Hit_Wicket]

I wonder how much Graeme Swann's drop off Onions will come back to bite England. The other Graeme has played a magnificent knock which has put his team firmly on the front foot. A rather aggressive declaration as well, though fair enough.

And GIMH, loving the optimism. Wish I had more of it, but can't say I share your buoyancy on this occasion. A target of this magnitude is pretty mentally fatiguing and creates more pressure than you're probably letting on. Will need a captain's knock.

Hope this match continues to have it's twists and turns though; been an intriguing battle thus far, from a neutral POV.

 

[Kyle]

.... about the mentality of some of the Saffers, that's for sure. This tour is well on the way to breaking the record for the number of whinges by one side - Onions & Colly having the temerity to celebrate saving the 1st game, Trott taking his time to be ready, Broad doing what every fast bowler since forever has done to stop a ball, Anderson doing we're not sure what but let's moan anyway, Broad actually bowling well in Durban so he must have been cheating, KP eating saffie babies, etc, etc. And that's before we even get to the perpetual whines about Trott & KP clearing off to play in England.

Gee mate, you're going to win this by a mile, and probably the series now that you've got your act together. Why can't you just enjoy the fact?

It has been a great series so far. Ups and downs all over. But I want to clear a couple of these things.

Onions & Colly - No issues with them celebrating. Haven't seen much whinging on this, but maybe I missed that?
Trott - It is annoying watching it, but it's not that big of a deal.
Broad - There's stopping with a foot, and standing, which he apparently did several times. It drew the attention of the commentators at the time, and everyone since, so it's obviously not that normal. If it wasn't tampering, it was a really stupid way to treat a fairly new ball.
Anderson - I didn't hear much until the video was out this morning, and it's pretty undefendable, tbh.
KP/Trott/etc - Two way street, really. I've sat in big English crowds when they play SA over here, and I always get "here comes KP, our hero!" and when he gets out cheaply "well, he's South African", and if he plays a dumbass shot at a bad time, he's more South African than ever. I don't like that it's allowed (the selection of foreign players in general), but the banter between SA/England, for me, is in (reasonably) good humour.

 

[jot1]

South Africa were undone by good bowling and nothing else in the last Test. Swann took five of the wickets, and Broad just hit the top of offstump. Honestly....

.... about the mentality of some of the Saffers, that's for sure. This tour is well on the way to breaking the record for the number of whinges by one side - Onions & Colly having the temerity to celebrate saving the 1st game, Trott taking his time to be ready, Broad doing what every fast bowler since forever has done to stop a ball, Anderson doing we're not sure what but let's moan anyway, Broad actually bowling well in Durban so he must have been cheating, KP eating saffie babies, etc, etc. And that's before we even get to the perpetual whines about Trott & KP clearing off to play in England.

Gee mate, you're going to win this by a mile, and probably the series now that you've got your act together. Why can't you just enjoy the fact?

Which makes my point and why I asked originally, Why resort to this sort of thing?

 

[GIMH]

It has been a great series so far. Ups and downs all over. But I want to clear a couple of these things.

Onions & Colly - No issues with them celebrating. Haven't seen much whinging on this, but maybe I missed that?
Trott - It is annoying watching it, but it's not that big of a deal.
Broad - There's stopping with a foot, and standing, which he apparently did several times. It drew the attention of the commentators at the time, and everyone since, so it's obviously not that normal. If it wasn't tampering, it was a really stupid way to treat a fairly new ball.
Anderson - I didn't hear much until the video was out this morning, and it's pretty undefendable, tbh.
KP/Trott/etc - Two way street, really. I've sat in big English crowds when they play SA over here, and I always get "here comes KP, our hero!" and when he gets out cheaply "well, he's South African", and if he plays a dumbass shot at a bad time, he's more South African than ever. I don't like that it's allowed (the selection of foreign players in general), but the banter between SA/England, for me, is in (reasonably) good humour.

Fair on most counts, I think it was your skipper who made an issue of the first two though

I disagree with your stance on KP & Trott, but we've discussed that before

 

[wpdavid]

It has been a great series so far. Ups and downs all over. But I want to clear a couple of these things.

Onions & Colly - No issues with them celebrating. Haven't seen much whinging on this, but maybe I missed that?
Trott - It is annoying watching it, but it's not that big of a deal.
Broad - There's stopping with a foot, and standing, which he apparently did several times. It drew the attention of the commentators at the time, and everyone since, so it's obviously not that normal. If it wasn't tampering, it was a really stupid way to treat a fairly new ball.
Anderson - I didn't hear much until the video was out this morning, and it's pretty undefendable, tbh.
KP/Trott/etc - Two way street, really. I've sat in big English crowds when they play SA over here, and I always get "here comes KP, our hero!" and when he gets out cheaply "well, he's South African", and if he plays a dumbass shot at a bad time, he's more South African than ever. I don't like that it's allowed (the selection of foreign players in general), but the banter between SA/England, for me, is in (reasonably) good humour.

Yup, the banter is generally fine, and no-one minds a bit of micky taking anyway. And I know full well that most of the saffer posters on CW are fine.
fwiw it was G. Smith who saw fit to comment on Onions & Colly failing to don sackcloth after seeing out the drawn test, and I think it was also he who had a moan about Trott. As for yesterday's issues, if it turns out that Anderson was ball tampering, then fair enough. tbf I haven't seen it. The issue over Broad using his foot just strikes me as mischief making, but if the ref sees it differently then also fair enough. As I said, there has been rather a lot of this from one side in this series, but maybe they're all angels.

The other thing was the insinuation by one of the other guys that Broad's success in Durban was down to ball tampering. Whilst not a complete expert on that particular art, my understanding is that you don't do that as early in the innings as when Broad took those 3 wickets. At that stage, you want to take advantage of the still newish ball don't you? Goodness knows Broad has his faults, but I thought it unpleasant of the other guy not to accept that he simply bowled well.

 

[four_or_six]

You kind of get the impression, certainly early in the series, that it was a deliberate plot from Smith/Arthur to mouth off and try to wind us up. Pretty ridiculous tactics against people such as Strauss and Flower, but there you go.

 

[Jayzamann]

Goodness knows Broad has his faults, but I thought it unpleasant of the other guy not to accept that he simply bowled well.

There's plenty of Australians that can attest to how well he can bowl