*Official* England in South Africa Thread

[Tom Halsey]

As for "such a good player..", how good is Vaughan really? We've seen one purple patch, most of which was against weak or depleted attacks. Take away 12 months from a 5 year career, and his average isn't at all special.

Just noticed this post when going back a little - Australia are discounted then? Granted they had Warne missing for 2 Tests, but that is still not a 'weak attack'.

 

[Tom Halsey]

Exactly. It isn't like the team is performing at 100% and getting beaten. To have the series level and not playing to potential is a good sign for England. They can only improve, and I'm sure they will, they have a very good captain and the players capable to beat South Africa. When they lose 5 in a row, then it is time for concern. The last thing England need before an Ashes series is the side being messed with. The current team they have has only lost once in a year, cut them a little slack.

Yes, but think about it a little. This is England fans we're talking about here.

 

[tooextracool]

You English fans are strange lot. Your team has just come off an 8 or 9 test winning streak (which is incredible given the last 15 years or so of english cricket). Yet after this one test loss, I see the knives and daggers are out and all the english players are suddenly hopeless. I also note there were very few suggestions that the opposition actually played well.

theres a difference between losing to a better side and losing it on your own. its quite clear that england lost the game rather than SA winning it. all credit to SA though, they made sure that they did as well as they could.

Given the fact that England struggle in most sports (pub-sports aside) given the population of 60 million, you lot should be satisfied with 9 out of 10 test wins.

that quite frankly is a loser's attitude.

Let be realistic, 9 out of 10 is fantastic result for the english cricket team in a 12 month period.Remember this is the English cricket team are talking about , not Australia!!

the thing is that its quite pointless to have a good english cricket team that is incapable of beating SA and one that still gets hammered in the ashes.

Having said that when Australia lost that last test to India 2 or 3 months ago, You didn't see Australia fans suggesting that suddenly they weren't a great team any more.

and of course dead rubber games count as much dont they? or the fact that australia didnt have 3 batting collapses in their first 3 games. incase you havent been noticing, england have performed far below par in all of the firstr 3 tests. whether or not SA performed even worse for the first 2 is irrelevant.

 

[tooextracool]

I think that is Harmison's problem, not so evident with Flintoff, seeing as he is our leading wicket-taker.

just analysing our bowling attack, flintoff averages 24 this series, hoggard 28 and jones 27. it doesnt take much to realise whos underperforming here.

 

[Marcus]

, england have performed far below par in all of the firstr 3 tests. whether or not SA performed even worse for the first 2 is irrelevant.

well said...we could of accepted a test loss (weve been doimng it for years) if we had performed well and put up a good fight and performed to the best of our potential ability. The fact that we coundnt bat defensively in the lst innings last test shows how badly we played....with Vaughes shot being the tip of the ice burg......yes south africa played well......but like tomextracool said england lost that test rather than South Africa winning it...roll on Joburg

 

[tooextracool]

and scores very slowly,.

and you think we couldnt have used a batsman who can grind it out in the last test?

 

[Langeveldt]

Rather than South Africa winning it?? Conveniently ignoring messrs Langeveldt, and of course Kallis..

 

[tooextracool]

Just noticed this post when going back a little - Australia are discounted then? Granted they had Warne missing for 2 Tests, but that is still not a 'weak attack'.

and inidentally that attack is far stronger than the attacks hes been failing against of late.

 

[Marcus]

Rather than South Africa winning it?? Conveniently ignoring messrs Langeveldt, and of course Kallis..

agree with you...but englands performance over the 5 days was pathetic...and yes kallis etc played well......but england didnt put up a good fight and let South Africa play well without any pressure from either our batsmen or our bowlers

 

[tooextracool]

Rather than South Africa winning it?? Conveniently ignoring messrs Langeveldt, and of course Kallis..

rubbish, all langeveldt did was put the ball in the right place, yes he was disciplined and all credit to him for that but unless the ball is seaming around you dont get wickets unless the batsmen make mistakes. and as was fairly evident,the batsman showed poor footwork and played rubbish strokes. hardly surprising that he didnt get any wickets in the 2nd inning either, when most of the english batting applied themselves far better.
kallis yes he played well, but surely he didnt win the game on his own did he?

 

[tooextracool]

whats made things even worse is that our batting has been over reliant on strauss, no surprise that the 3 innings where he got over 50, were the 3 innings where england actually batted well.
yes i know we can bat without strauss etc, im just pointing out that on this tour an inexperienced batsman has suddenly become the mainstay of the england batting.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

whats made things even worse is that our batting has been over reliant on strauss, no surprise that the 3 innings where he got over 50, were the 3 innings where england actually batted well.
yes i know we can bat without strauss etc, im just pointing out that on this tour an inexperienced batsman has suddenly become the mainstay of the england batting.

Take away Kallis and you could say the SA batting is as bad.

 

[Langeveldt]

rubbish, all langeveldt did was put the ball in the right place, yes he was disciplined and all credit to him for that but unless the ball is seaming around you dont get wickets unless the batsmen make mistakes. and as was fairly evident,the batsman showed poor footwork and played rubbish strokes. hardly surprising that he didnt get any wickets in the 2nd inning either, when most of the english batting applied themselves far better.
kallis yes he played well, but surely he didnt win the game on his own did he?

Since when has putting the ball in the right place ever been a problem?? Thats all McGrath does.. He gets a lot of wickets from frustrated batsmen, and nicks to slip, just like Langeveldt did.. How do you want us to take our wickets?

 

[tooextracool]

Take away Kallis and you could say the SA batting is as bad.

he scored in the 2nd test too and SA nearly lost that game, and even that was when england underperformed.

 

[tooextracool]

Since when has putting the ball in the right place ever been a problem?? Thats all McGrath does.. He gets a lot of wickets from frustrated batsmen, and nicks to slip, just like Langeveldt did.. How do you want us to take our wickets?

and by right places i did not mean that he was bowling every ball in the corridor of uncertainity and had players wondering whether or not to go on the front or back foot. he was simply disciplined, which meant that he didnt bowl too many balls down the legs side or bowl half volleys etc.

 

[BoyBrumby]

This is completely inconsequential, but I enjoy a statistical peculiarity so I thought I'd share it: In the current series Michael Vaughan's bowling average is lower than Steve Harmison's & Harmison's batting average is higher than Vaughan's!

What's all that about, eh?

 

[marc71178]

Why not?

Because to be frank there's better options.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

This is completely inconsequential, but I enjoy a statistical peculiarity so I thought I'd share it: In the current series Michael Vaughan's bowling average is lower than Steve Harmison's & Harmison's batting average is higher than Vaughan's!

What's all that about, eh?

Total Cricket

 

[marc71178]

Kabir Ali 2 seasons ago another example..

Except Kabir was helped by the conditions considerably and didn't actually bowl that well.

 

[marc71178]

Really?

Don't see where we went wrong in the 1st Test, apart from 1 day out of 5.

2nd Test, I thought we held the edge overall, although both teams had good and bad patches.

In the 3rd Test we were bad throughout.

Don't see how that is 3 Tests.

Even the players said that they didn't play well in the 1st Test.

I don't see how you can say they held the edge in the 2nd when they were skittled out then samcked around.