**Official** New Zealand in South Africa

[Spiced]

NZ will do better in there second innings. Everything worked for SA in the morning and the conditions did favor the bowling team. I will predict them to lose by an innings but score at least 200.

It is strange if you look at the stats where teams where bowled out for less then 50. Out of the 19 times it happened, 5 of them was at Cape Town.

 

[Rasimione]

Fair enough. Think he was one of those players that has to work hard to gain total respect. He did that with me.

He always has to prove people wrong ala Ashwell prince.

 

[SteveNZ]

On a ground where a side scored 47 only 14 months ago (and the other side made 96) against the identical bowling line-up that caused that destruction, on a pitch that mirrors his side's greenness in terms of batting, choosing to bat first ranks as one of the most inexcusable decisions in living memory.

If you can smell the hops in Cape Town you bowl first...Brendon must've been drunk on the fumes.

I'm as disappointed in our effort as the next guy but if we were inserted on that and fell over for 45, fair enough. But we organised our own slaughter. This management group is making mistake after mistake. Any wonder with a rookie coach at the helm

 

[Garson007]

Nah, piss off. The quality of Channel 9's commentary team has absolutely **** all to do with the fact that South Africa's commentators, Pollock excepted, are all ****ing terrible.

Robin Jackman is good. However he is fighting cancer or something. Not sure anymore.

 

[wellAlbidarned]

Brilliant, so now we've also discovered that we're playing this match with only two genuine pace options. Way to play to our only strength.

 

[Spiced]

On a ground where a side scored 47 only 14 months ago (and the other side made 96) against the identical bowling line-up that caused that destruction, on a pitch that mirrors his side's greenness in terms of batting, choosing to bat first ranks as one of the most inexcusable decisions in living memory.

If Graham had won the coin toss he would have elected to bat too, but also stated it will be "tough" the first session.

 

[SteveNZ]

If Graham had won the coin toss he would have elected to bat too, but also stated it will be "tough" the first session.

Difference being SA have world-class batsmen capable of weathering the sort of stuff that was dished out in the first session. We do not.

Any little advantage we could give our bowlers, we had to take. And that's clearly going to come on the first morning. McCullum said he knew the first hour/session would be tough. I'm certain he also knows our batsmen are incapable of getting through that against a line-up of the likes of Morkel, Steyn and especially Philander on that deck. But he decided to be bullish, to our detriment. Having a bold approach to captaincy is all good but he's doing with 3-7 off suit as opposed to pocket queens, and bluffing don't work in the international cricket game.

 

[hendrix]

I've heard the argument that Philander just bowled a brilliant spell and the NZ batsmen didn't give away their wickets.

Sorry, but lacking the ability to block straight deliveries (McCullum, Williamson) is poor batting. Edging to slip at a good length outside off (Franklin) when the bowler is angling across you is poor batting.

Watling and Bracewell got unplayable deliveries.

Only Flynn showed enough technique to look like being able to bat against good bowling.

 

[NasserFan207]

Meh, reckon you bat first probably 90% of the time in cricket. Find it hard to criticise Mccullum on that front, particularly being the first test. Maybe if it was the second test after a hammering you would do it, but bowling first on the first morning is like giving up pre-series. You may as well not even turn up if you don't think you can win.

 

[wellAlbidarned]

this was a 10% situation for sure. I don't really understand what's so defensive about bowling first anyway, especially on a spicy deck like this.

 

[straw man]

I was doing some thinking.

Were New Zealand batsmen that bad today ?

I know we can question whether some have the technique to handle this sort of attack where it does a little bit but do you take it as a positive that most of the wickets were taken due to good bowling by the opposition.

I don't think too many of the batsmen got out to bad deliveries.

It was wonderful bowling by Philander - no doubt. It's nice of you to try to be positive about NZ's batting however suspect the way some of our batsmen played some of those deliveries made them look unplayable rather than just difficult.

Brendon McCullum may have suffered due to an average technique but a couple of away-swingers then a beuty of an in-nipper got through the gate? How much different is Kane Williamson getting a similar delivery but going out LBW instead for example?

The ball to get Williamson came in a lot further than the one to get McCullum iirc. Philander's ball to Williamson was probably the best of the day considering that he was frequently getting the ball to leap to elbow height from that same length, so Williamson would have been hard pressed to get forward.

I reckon the bowling was absolutely excellent today and Philander would have taken 3-4 wickets against most teams in those overs he bowled but you'd have a chance of one quality bat standing up and getting the team to a decent score if bowling against a better team IMO.

Awta. And NZ's only batsmen who have regularly scored difficult runs in the last few years are Taylor, and Vettori (whose run-scoring days may now be passed).

 

[hendrix]

I don't have too much of a problem with McCullum's decision to bat first, because it is a decision that a captain should be able to make. However, this is a case in which a coach should step in and temper his aggression with what he knows to be reality.

The reality is that our bowling attack>our batting lineup. By a long way

The best we can hope for batting first on a spicy deck: 300, absolute max against this bowling attack.
The worst that may happen batting first: 45 all out.

The best we can hope for bowling first: opposition 150 all out.
The worst that can happen: 350/2 at the end of the day.

At some point someone has to make the decision to do justice to our bowlers. That has to come from the coach.

It's not the captain's job to be entirely realistic, IMO. He has to maintain positivity. He just needs to have that tempered by reality from the coach.

 

[Hurricane]

If Graham had won the coin toss he would have elected to bat too, but also stated it will be "tough" the first session.

iirc - Smith said it would have been a tough decision but he would have bowled first.

 

[BeeGee]

Disappointed to see Amla "failed". Was looking forward to watching him bat for several days.

Philander Superb spell. Outstanding.

 

[wellAlbidarned]

If you lose the toss as a captain you always claim that you were going to do what you end up doing anyway. So I don't think those words count for much.

 

[Flem274*]

I think the fact is without a middle order of Williamson-Taylor-Ryder-Flynn, this is going to happen often to this very NZ A esque batting order.

 

[SteveNZ]

Meh, reckon you bat first probably 90% of the time in cricket. Find it hard to criticise Mccullum on that front, particularly being the first test. Maybe if it was the second test after a hammering you would do it, but bowling first on the first morning is like giving up pre-series. You may as well not even turn up if you don't think you can win.

Don't understand your logic. Bowling first=declaring that you can't win? If you can seize the best of the conditions at any stage, do it. It's not like we have a world-class spinner that makes batting first an obvious advantage in the fourth innings.

With all options considered, to me, bowling first was the best idea. The pitch was only going to become better to bat on, we don't have a world class spinner (nor do they) so them batting fourth is not a poor option.

And yeah, Philander et all bowled well. But nigh on every batsmen fell when tighter techniques would have served them better.

 

[hendrix]

I think the fact is without a middle order of Williamson-Taylor-Ryder-Flynn, this is going to happen often to this very NZ A esque batting order.

They will drop Flynn even though he's our most capable batsman against the moving ball.

I can see it happening.

It will be stupid.

 

[Prince EWS]

Flynn scored 8. Even if we take the Martin factor into account, he scored 8*. Lets not get too carried away.

 

[hendrix]

Flynn scored 8. Even if we take the Martin factor into account, he scored 8*. Lets not get too carried away.

I'm not saying he's a great batsman or anything, just that it would be a very poor selection move to drop him.