***Official*** New Zealand in South Africa

[Laurrz]

Now there's a reason to have Cumming and How opening. They'd have the most punning potential of any opening pair since Salman Butt and Imran Farhat.

 

[gettingbetter]

Not sure how to sum the whole series up for South Africa. Even though they did win convincingly (at least in the Tests), they appear to be a team of players rather than ateam. In the Test series only Kallis, Amla and Steyn did something of note. ODIs, its harder for such an occurence to happen, but it felt the same way.

 

[gettingbetter]

Well, I have Langeveldt that there weren't enough of them on these forums. OK, I'd better stop before I lose the ability to form sentences without using cricket player surnames.

Teams with English last names are easy to do, it would be intersting what you guys could mills togetehr for the Pakistan/India series. Hopefully you guys will de villiers the same quality stuff.





I'm sorry.

 

[NZTailender]

Not sure how to sum the whole series up for South Africa. Even though they did win convincingly (at least in the Tests), they appear to be a team of players rather than ateam. In the Test series only Kallis, Amla and Steyn did something of note. ODIs, its harder for such an occurence to happen, but it felt the same way.

It's true that really only three players stood up for South Africa in the test series, but that doesn't mean the rest of the South Africans played abysmally. IMO if someone stands up in the way Steyn or Kallis did, then it means the rest of the players only have to input very little. Should a team go into a match with that mindset? Of course not - you'll always want to perform at 100%. But the fact is, there are very, very, few times when every single player in a test XI stands up with an outstanding performance. NZ basically had Hadlee and Crowe doing all the work in the 80's with the rest of the team acting as support. In this series we really had no one who stood out amongst the rest - no batsmen who hit 100's and no bowlers who took 10'fers. With Fleming all but retired and Bond constantly with injury, we don't have a Crowe and Hadlee for this decade. An entire team performing at the same level is good, but not if that level is mediocre. Either the entire team has to lift their game a few bars to win as a team (meaning the wickets are shared evenly through the bowlers and there are 70+ scores from most of the batsmen) or we need players who will have a great day and score big tonnes and take 10'fers so the rest of the team has less pressure on them.

 

[Flem274*]

It's true that really only three players stood up for South Africa in the test series, but that doesn't mean the rest of the South Africans played abysmally. IMO if someone stands up in the way Steyn or Kallis did, then it means the rest of the players only have to input very little. Should a team go into a match with that mindset? Of course not - you'll always want to perform at 100%. But the fact is, there are very, very, few times when every single player in a test XI stands up with an outstanding performance. NZ basically had Hadlee and Crowe doing all the work in the 80's with the rest of the team acting as support. In this series we really had no one who stood out amongst the rest - no batsmen who hit 100's and no bowlers who took 10'fers. With Fleming all but retired and Bond constantly with injury, we don't have a Crowe and Hadlee for this decade. An entire team performing at the same level is good, but not if that level is mediocre. Either the entire team has to lift their game a few bars to win as a team (meaning the wickets are shared evenly through the bowlers and there are 70+ scores from most of the batsmen) or we need players who will have a great day and score big tonnes and take 10'fers so the rest of the team has less pressure on them.

Which is why Peter Fulton, Matt Sinclair, Jesse Ryder and James Franklin to play alot of matches. They're the guys that can win games. We really need to add more bowlers to that list though. Potential candidates are Jeetan Patel and Kyle Mills. Hell maybe even Mark Gillespie if he discovers accuracy (he'll only be worth using in tests I feel).

 

[gettingbetter]

It's true that really only three players stood up for South Africa in the test series, but that doesn't mean the rest of the South Africans played abysmally. IMO if someone stands up in the way Steyn or Kallis did, then it means the rest of the players only have to input very little. Should a team go into a match with that mindset? Of course not - you'll always want to perform at 100%. But the fact is, there are very, very, few times when every single player in a test XI stands up with an outstanding performance. NZ basically had Hadlee and Crowe doing all the work in the 80's with the rest of the team acting as support. In this series we really had no one who stood out amongst the rest - no batsmen who hit 100's and no bowlers who took 10'fers. With Fleming all but retired and Bond constantly with injury, we don't have a Crowe and Hadlee for this decade. An entire team performing at the same level is good, but not if that level is mediocre. Either the entire team has to lift their game a few bars to win as a team (meaning the wickets are shared evenly through the bowlers and there are 70+ scores from most of the batsmen) or we need players who will have a great day and score big tonnes and take 10'fers so the rest of the team has less pressure on them.

True, I wouldn't go as far and say abysmal, but no one else really put there hand up. If you look at it, there weren't really any partnerships of note bar the Kallis/Amla ones and Steyns bowling performance. Its all and good for some players to play a support act, but I don't even think that they did that, then you look at the Australian team who often share wickets amongst each other and there are partnerships abundant.

Times change, and I wouldn't go as far and say that NZ were minnows back in the Crowe Hadlee days, but it is understandable why they took most of the burden.

Also, I hate to say it, but could you paragraph next time? A wall of text is really duanting to read.

 

[irfan]

Now there's a reason to have Cumming and How opening. They'd have the most punning potential of any opening pair since Salman Butt and Imran Farhat.

How's coming, Cumming's not going. Disastrous runout for NZ.