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**Official** South Africa in England 2012

Stumpcam

Stumpcam

U19 Captain
What I find strange is the low no. of Tests South Africa have played compared to most other 'big' cricket nations (big in terms of strength).

Aus 34
Eng 32
Pak, Ind, SL all 29
WI 25
SA 21


Anyone know why this disparity exists? The penchant for Ind, Pak & SL playing each other, or the regularity of Ashes series perhaps?
 
screamingfields

screamingfields

School Boy/Girl Captain
Stumpcam said:
What I find strange is the low no. of Tests South Africa have played compared to most other 'big' cricket nations (big in terms of strength).

Aus 34
Eng 32
Pak, Ind, SL all 29
WI 25
SA 21


Anyone know why this disparity exists? The penchant for Ind, Pak & SL playing each other, or the regularity of Ashes series perhaps?
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:D South Africans have a good team, they should be playing more tests. Not to mention England play too many tests.
 
Spark

Spark

Global Moderator
Blaming their lack of success on the FTP is such a massive cop-out though. They don't win enough series for their on-paper strength. End of.
 
Furball

Furball

Evil Scotsman
Stumpcam said:
What I find strange is the low no. of Tests South Africa have played compared to most other 'big' cricket nations (big in terms of strength).

Aus 34
Eng 32
Pak, Ind, SL all 29
WI 25
SA 21


Anyone know why this disparity exists? The penchant for Ind, Pak & SL playing each other, or the regularity of Ashes series perhaps?
Click to expand...
They'll play fewer Tests than any of the other top 8 nations over the course of this FTP as well.
 
Cabinet96

Cabinet96

Hall of Fame Member
The number of tests they play shouldn't be a factor though. Since the number of points is divided by matches played.
 
vic_orthdox

vic_orthdox

Global Moderator
Cabinet96 said:
The number of tests they play shouldn't be a factor though. Since the number of points is divided by matches played.
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Doesn't affect their ranking, but the more Tests that you play give you more opportunities to get better, and get into good form in that format of the game. SA never seem to get a big run of Tests going.
 
Cabinet96

Cabinet96

Hall of Fame Member
But on the contrary you could argue they are always fit and firing as a result of that. Because they play so little they never have any "meh" series, where their players may not be at their peak either mentally or physically due to the high number of matches and fatigue.
 
Stumpcam

Stumpcam

U19 Captain
Cabinet96 said:
But on the contrary you could argue they are always fit and firing as a result of that. Because they play so little they never have any "meh" series, where their players may not be at their peak either mentally or physically due to the high number of matches and fatigue.
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Or, more likely, they may not be Test Match ready when such a crunch series as this upcoming one comes along.
 
Heboric

Heboric

International Debutant
theegyptian said:
dude you have two modern (and potentially all time) greats in Kallis and Steyn. England have well no-one really close.

SA's last five Test series: 1-0 v NZ (A), 2-1 v SL (H), 1-1 v Aus (H), 1-1 v Ind (H), 0-0 v Pak (in UAE.

This South Africa team is one of the great underachieving teams of all time imo. In an era when there has been no great team SA really should have been the dominant nation with the players they have at their disposal but for some reason they reeally haven't been.
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Bull, we have no decent spinner, for ages, we have no regular opening pair, and for a while after steyn there was nothing in the bowling. Cricket is the third most popular sport in SA. With all that infrastructure England have they should have dominated more.

Jacknife said:
When have England gone in as one of the favorites for comps and then choked.
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Its not just about being favourites its also the position of the match, Gattings reverse sweep, More recent times the final against the West Indies(not the dominant Windies side mind you), Windies were 8 down I think and England blew it - to name a few. Its quite easy to say in retrospect that England were not very good anyway, but people sing a different tune each time a tournament rolls around.
 
Stumpcam

Stumpcam

U19 Captain
Heboric said:
Cricket is the third most popular sport in SA. With all that infrastructure England have they should have dominated more.
Click to expand...
Cricket is less popular here.

In terms of participation, a survey by Sport England in 2005/6 found Cricket to be the 17th most popular sport by participation, that's 0.9% of adults.
 
Heboric

Heboric

International Debutant
Stumpcam said:
Cricket is less popular here.

In terms of participation, a survey by Sport England in 2005/6 found Cricket to be the 17th most popular sport by participation, that's 0.9% of adults.
Click to expand...
England infrastructure light years ahead of the Saffers
 
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