***Official*** Australia in South Africa + South Africa in Australia 2016/17

[Starfighter]

Lyon is going to stay thats for sure

Would prefer to see O'Keefe get a run though, at least for the Pak series. He's got more control so I think Smith will have a better idea how to captain him, and he provides a bit more batting spine.

 

[Black_Warrior]

So ****ing happy for Abbott. One of my favourite bowlers today and the guy barely gets a game. Got his chance with Steyn out and how he responded. Hope he plays the entire summer series against Sri Lanka and continues to play until Steyn comes back and Philander breaks down

 

[Tangles]

Memos going out as we speak to the other test curators for highways for the 4 remaining tests of the summer.

 

[OverratedSanity]

The problem for Australia was not their bowling attack. They have done their job. They bowled out SA on Day 1 for 240. The batsmen didn't show up, not their fault.

They bowled well here and restricted South Africa to 326 when they had only 85 to use as scoreboard pressure.

If Pakistan's bowling attack is as good as Australia, they will do just fine. The difference will be in the batting. The question we need to as is which is the better batting line up

Sami
Azhar
Shafiq
Younis
Misbah
Babar/Nawaz
Sarfraz

or

Warner
SMarsh/Burns
Khawaja
Smith
Voges
Ferguson/M Marsh

Depends a lot on the pitches imo. One with pace and bounce but not necessarily a lot of movement off the deck is what Australia should be targetting. That's their best bet. On any other kind of pitch, I'd say Pak's lineup is clearly superior at the moment.

 

[AndyZaltzHair]

Hope channel nine plays highlights of old matches for the rest of the day.

Odds on the favor of complete black out

 

[GotSpin]

This is just depressing

 

[Starfighter]

Memos going out as we speak to the other test curators for highways for the 4 remaining tests of the summer.

Would be cynical but predictable. The big problem with highways is that Pakistan will have a very good chance of outperforming us on them.

And they create boring as **** cricket.

 

[Blocky]

Smith surely needs to go at the end of this series as captain? I don't see how you can keep him when the team is performing this poorly.

 

[SteveNZ]

Smith surely needs to go at the end of this series as captain? I don't see how you can keep him when the team is performing this poorly.

And who takes over? Not dum dum Davey, surely.

 

[Black_Warrior]

Depends a lot on the pitches imo. One with pace and bounce but not necessarily a lot of movement off the deck is what Australia should be targetting. That's their best bet. On any other kind of pitch, I'd say Pak's lineup is clearly superior at the moment.

Agreed. Extra pace and bounce is what troubles this Pakistan side as they are pretty disciplined outside their off stump against the ball. The one game their batting fell apart in England was the second test with extra bounce.

 

[Black_Warrior]

Hats off to the curators of this test match. In this day of increased home advantage and pitches being prepared accordingly, to prepare a pitch like this after being 0-1, knowing your batting is **** against the moving ball shows a lot of courage and class. Thank you.

 

[Tangles]

Smith surely needs to go at the end of this series as captain? I don't see how you can keep him when the team is performing this poorly.

No viable candidate and ****** batting by others isn't his fault.

 

[Nate]

So much more of this to come, under the current administration.

 

[Starfighter]

Hats off to the curators of this test match. In this day of increased home advantage and pitches being prepared accordingly, to prepare a pitch like this after being 0-1, knowing your batting is **** against the moving ball shows a lot of courage and class. Thank you.

Actually, I don't think it takes much courage to prepare such a wicket during a cool November in Hobart.

 

[Burgey]

Yeah, it's the bloke who's averaging nearly 60's fault that the rest of them don't know which end of the cue to hold. Sack him as skipper.

There's nothing wrong with the bowling. They've rolled SA for 240 odd day one Perth, and for 320 here after posting sfa themselves. I don't give a **** who's captain, you don't win tests defending **** totals. You don't get to be a tactical genius in the use of your spinners when he's bowling to a total of 80 odd. It doesn't happen.

Smith won't go as captain, and nor should he.

 

[Blocky]

Yeah, it's the bloke who's averaging nearly 60's fault that the rest of them don't know which end of the cue to hold. Sack him as skipper.

There's nothing wrong with the bowling. They've rolled SA for 240 odd day one Perth, and for 320 here after posting sfa themselves. I don't give a **** who's captain, you don't win tests defending **** totals. You don't get to be a tactical genius in the use of your spinners when he's bowling to a total of 80 odd. It doesn't happen.

Smith won't go as captain, and nor should he.

Just because he's a brilliant bat doesn't make him a brilliant captain, and the signs are that the team doesn't perform under him.

Why isn't he calling his batsmen to account for these weak dismissals?

 

[GotSpin]

Saw off Lehman and bring punter into the fold

 

[Spark]

Just because he's a brilliant bat doesn't make him a brilliant captain, and the signs are that the team doesn't perform under him.

Why isn't he calling his batsmen to account for these weak dismissals?

We've had massive collapses for almost a decade now under four different captains. Gonna put it out there that it's not the captains who are the problem.

I'm down for blaming Lehmann though.

 

[Black_Warrior]

Yeah, it's the bloke who's averaging nearly 60's fault that the rest of them don't know which end of the cue to hold. Sack him as skipper.

There's nothing wrong with the bowling. They've rolled SA for 240 odd day one Perth, and for 320 here after posting sfa themselves. I don't give a **** who's captain, you don't win tests defending **** totals. You don't get to be a tactical genius in the use of your spinners when he's bowling to a total of 80 odd. It doesn't happen.

Smith won't go as captain, and nor should he.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with the bowling. It's not as fierce-some as South Africa's and not as skilled as England's but it's still a pretty good bowling attack. They can bowl out teams just fine. They just don't get enough runs to play with.

Lyon, while not great, had to bowl with nothing on the scoreboard. These are difficult circumstances to judge a spinner.

 

[Black_Warrior]

Smith is not a great captain either, but the collapse is not his fault and has nothing to do with captaincy.