*** Official*** South Africa in England 2017

[Furball]

Remember when people said Anderson was past it?

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Remember when people said Anderson was past it?

Of the pair Broad has looked past it until today. Good to see them bowl brilliantly as a pair for once this morning. Not happened often enough that both have fired in same spell.

 

[harsh.ag]

I hope George is feeling pleased with his day's work. Amla was out at 16:15 ftr.

Beaut.

 

[Bijed]

Time to revisit those predictions:

Score: 2-1 to South Africa
Most runs: Dean Elgar
Most wickets: Mark Wood
Surprise performance: Ballance to silence the haters once and for all
Disappointment: Root will struggle and his captaincy will not set the world on fire

• No
• Nope
• Lol
• Erm...
• Er...

Other statements of mine during the series include: 'Anderson is on his way out'. I don't know how I do it.

 

[Niall]

Um Morkel.

Good call that to be fair. However, of the rest, doubtful many will be satisfied. Its probably not helped this has been a long tour and for many the champions trophy would have initially been their main goal, something which they failed in. Pakistan went to England early to prepare for their respective test series. A few months off is needed for the likes of Rabada especially.

 

[fredfertang]

Remember when people said Anderson was past it?

He clearly did .......

 

[mr_mister]

Poor bloke was denied a ton and a michelle this Test.

Michelle means five fer which he got

 

[social]

Predicted after the first day of the first test that SA were staring into the abyss and so it proved

Their batting was abysmal virtually all series and their fielding worse which is a sad thing to see from a nation that prides itself on the latter

 

[Howe_zat]

Test series predictions

Score: 2-1 to England. England to win at Trent Bridge and Old Trafford but lose at the Oval.
Most runs: Alastair Cook
Most wickets: Vernon Philander
Surprise performance: TRJ to get a game and one good score with the bat
Disappointment: Quinton de Kock will score runs at the Oval but struggle elsewhere
Most infractions: Furball
AOP (Any other predictions): There will be a controversial dismissal that is only controversial according to a paper of the dismissed batsman's country

Score: Reasonably close
Runs: Not really, though he was one of maybe 5 batsmen to do decently
Wickets: Would have been a good shout if not for injury, ultimately well off
Surprise: I think I get points for this
Disappointment: Trent Bridge, but apart from that, good shout
Overall: A solid 6/10

Score: 3-0 to England.
Most runs: Jonny Bairstow
Most wickets: Stuart Broad
Surprise performance: Adil Rashid to bowl England to victory at the Oval
Disappointment: Haseeb Hameed won't get a game, and the Burnley Express will run out of steam
Most infractions: Benchmark00 to make a surprise return and pick up a perma
AOP (Any other predictions): ABDV will be persuaded to turn out in the final test

Score: Not far off
Runs: Again, not bad
Wickets: Broad overshadowed considerably here
Surprise: I want some of that stuff fred
Disappointment: Half marks, though that's being rather generous
Overall: 4/10, Started promisingly before venturing into dribble

Score: 2-1 to England
Most runs: Gary Ballance
Most wickets: Stuart Broad
Surprise performance: Ballance probably counts here
Disappointment: Faf to struggle.
Most infractions: Weldone with his standard England thing.
AOP (Any other predictions): Kyle Abbott to be mentioned every Test.

Score: Close
Runs: Nope.
Wickets: Again, no.
Surprise: It's all going a bit wrong isn't it
Disappointment: Getting some marks back here, precious few runs
Overall: 5/10. Too many eggs in the Ballance basket

Test series predictions

Score: 1-1
Most runs: Joe Root
Most wickets: Kagiso Rabada
Surprise performance: Bavuma to get a hundred and a fifty
Disappointment: Stokes
Most infractions: Scaly
AOP (Any other predictions): No five-fer for any English bowler

Score: No, and you have to lose marks for predicting two draws when no test came close
Runs: Nailed it with the safe option
Wickets: Close to it for SA wickets, but ultimately not in the top five
Disappointment: Stokes didn't star but most would agree had a good series, especially in the field, can't count this
Overall: 5/10, you can't claim much credit for picking Root I feel

Score: 2-2
Most runs: Amla
Most wickets: Rabada
Surprise performance: Ballance to score more runs than Cook
Disappointment: Cook to score fewer runs than Ballance; Root's captaincy
Any other predictions: Wood to only get injured for one match; Ballance to look slimmer than in his cricinfo profile picture

Score: Looked good last week, bit out in the end
Runs: Did okay without pulling up any trees or anything
Wickets: Same
Surprise: No
Disappointment: Shouldn't have doubled down there
Overall: 4/10. Nothing silly but nothing right

Score: 2-1 SA
Most runs: Hashim Amla
Most wickets: Vernon Philander
Surprise performance: morne morsel to bowl full with the new ball and take poles; moeen ali to play aggressively and come off
Disappointment: root to get exposed to the new ball too much and struggle: bavuma going to struggle early but work into it
Most infractions: weldone
AOP (Any other predictions): if there is a quota discussion in the thread, it will not descend in to petty name calling and mud slinging

Score: Way off
Runs: Not quite
Wickets: Another falls for him
Surprise: Two very good shouts
Disappointment: Nah, can't claim either of these.
5/10, some good stuff but couldn't pick the series winner

Score: 2-1 to England
Most runs: Joe Root. Won't do his usual thing by getting 4 70s but instead it'll a couple of humongous innings making up for several single digit scores. .
Most wickets: Vernon Philander
Surprise performance: Gary Ballance
Disappointment: Amla
Most infractions: Furball
AOP (Any other predictions): Match threads will be some of the worst since Ind-SA 2015.

Score: Decent
Runs: Correct name, should have shut up after that
Wickets: Didn't quite happen
Surprise: Didn't even slightly happen
Disappointment: Would be harsh to call this correct though the wasn't his best
Overall: 6/10, made a decent fist of it but another who falls prey to Ballance

Score: 2-1 England
Most runs: Alastair Cook
Most wickets: Stuart Broad
Surprise performance: Gary Ballance to average over 40 and score a century.
Disappointment: Faf to average under 30.
Most infractions: weldone
AOP (Any other predictions): Mudslinging. Lots and lots of mudslinging.

Score: Not bad
Runs: Not really
Wickets: Even less good
Surprise: GARY BALLANCE DID NOT SCORE RUNS
Disappointment: Oh look, something correct
Overall: 5/10. Next.

Score: 2-1 to SA, with SA winning at Lords and the Oval.
Most runs: Heino Kuhn
Most wickets: Morne Morkel
Surprise performance: Moeen Ali
Disappointment: Stuart Broad, de Bruyn
Most infractions: Me if SA lose this series badly....
AOP (Any other predictions): edited for brevity

Score: No.
Runs: Not even close.
Wickets: An acceptable but still incorrect call.
Surprise: Ding! Rather rescues this sorry effort
Disappointment:Broad was fine. De Bruyn, yeah, fair enough
Overall: 4/10. You can have something for Moeen, rest, nah.

Test series predictions

Score: 2-1 to South Africa
Most runs: Dean Elgar
Most wickets: Mark Wood
Surprise performance: Ballance to silence the haters once and for all
Disappointment: Root will struggle and his captaincy will not set the world on fire

Score: Wrong.
Runs: Got the most for SA but well off the top spot
Wickets: Literally the only bowler to get nothing out of the series
Surprise: Hoo boy.
Disappointment: Few things have not happened like this did not happen
Overall: 2/10, almost complete gibberish from start to finish


Final predictions ranking:

1. OverratedSanity
2. Howe_zat
3. harsh.ag
4. ShadySlim
5. Pothas
6. morgieb
7. fredfertang
8. MW1304
9. StephenZA
10. Bijed

 

[Bijed]

Tbh I'm ironically impressed with myself for, even in a bunch of on the whole dodgy predictions, managing to be the worst by some margin

 

[Adders]

Remember when people said Anderson was past it?

Yeah, people are ****ing stupid.

 

[Pothas]

Yeah the Ballance thing was silly.

 

[fredfertang]

Tbh I'm ironically impressed with myself for, even in a bunch of on the whole dodgy predictions, managing to be the worst by some margin

Probably as well you didn't go for the AOP tbh

 

[Bijed]

Probably as well you didn't go for the AOP tbh

In all seriousness I was close to putting something like 'Moeen to have a terrible series with the bat and be ineffective with the ball'. Just couldn't seem him doing well going into the series.

 

[Starfighter]

Mooen

 

[Moonsorrow999]

He clearly did .......

Be interesting to see how he bowls in Aus.

 

[MW1304]

If he didn't get injured Ballance would have cleaned up tbh.

 

[91Jmay]

Shaun Pollock: South Africa player ratings following Test series defeat to England | Cricket News | Sky Sports

Some baffing ratings from Polly here. Bavuma 8, De Kock 7, Faf 7 look ridiculously generous.

I'd go Bavuma 5, De Kock 3 and Faf 3.

 

[Bijed]

Lets see how wrong I can be on player ratings (hadn't seen Pollock's ratings when I was typing these):

Cook - 6.5 - Statistically an ordinary series, but saw off the new ball a few times and his 88 at the Oval was good enough to get him marked up a bit. His 60 odd at Lords was actually pretty good too - made to look a little redundant by SA collapsing but if he hadn't hung around maybe things would have turned out differently?
Jennings - 2 - For the reasons above with Cook, his 33 at Lords was actually kinda valuable, but other than that, really not a lot. Suppose his 48 was in the face of some good bowling, but I think he had to be dropped in order to get that far.
Ballance - 3.5 - Got starts in 3 innings after coming in early, which is useful, but never really looked like going on.
Westley - 4.5 - Similar to Ballance except he did at least get to 50 at one point and tbf could have go on further except he got out trying to accelerate. Didn't look totally out of his depth.
Root - 8.5 - Captaincy was good, though not fully tested - definitely promising. Conversion still a problem with his batting, but he led the runscoring by miles so seems wrong to mark him down too much for that.
Malan - 1 - Not sure he can be said to have contributed at all. Shades of James Vince itbt
Stokes - 7 - Struggling here. Was inconsistent as ever, but his century was very good and set us up for the win. Also, his 2 50s both had meaning as far as setting up the game went. Disappointing with the ball, though fielding was typically excellent.
Bairstow - 8 - Batting was on the whole solid - his 99 was excellent. Very impressed with his keeping too.
Moeen - 9.5 - Perhaps underwhelming with the bat given his recent habit of making tons (though he was on for one today), but since he was back at 7/8, his contribution here was perfectly fine. Bowled like a god.
Dawson - 2.5 - Bowling wasn't actually totally dire, but he was redundant here and not good enough, and his batting was terrible.
Roland-Jones - 7.5 - Didn't do so great in his 2nd test, but was fairly sparkling in his first. Shows promise of being at least someone not terrible to call on in the coming years.
Broad - 6.5 - Actually bowled well to start the first couple of tests, but then ruined it by being awful later in these innings. Eventually did well at OT, though. Batting was Martinesque, other than his 57 which was actually very useful.
Wood - 1 - Effected a meme JP Duminy dismissal. Suppose his 28 at Lords was pretty respectable, but other than that he was utterly woeful.
Anderson - 8.5 - Was magnificent. Being picky, to get top marks he would probably have needed to rip through the top order at some point, but he was still brilliant throughout. Hit a six too. WAG

Elgar - 6 - Other than his 50 at Lords, I'm not sure he actually did his job whilst any games were really alive, though I suppose he should get some credit for his 2nd dig at TB since we could still have won if they'd totally capitulated at that point. His century was still a quality knock, though.
Kuhn - 1.5 - Did his job at Trent Bridge, but that's it.
Amla - 6.5 - Good knock first up at Trent Bridge, 2nd innings was good too but less important. Today's innings could have actually saved them, depending on the weather, if they hadn't started so badly and collapsed as soon as he got out, so he gets some points for that though. Did actually average 40 in the end, which surprised me a bit as it felt like he was having a much worse series than that.
Duminy - 1 - Didn't do anything.
du Plessis - 4 - As with Amla, today's knock could have turned out to be important, but other than that he didn't really make an impact. Had a shocker at the Oval, what with the padding up. Captaincy was generally good, though.
Bavuma - 6 - Did hang around and build a partnership with regularity, which was doubtless useful, but didn't even kick on to a 70-80 at any point. Credit for the fight he showed, though.
de Bruyn - 3 - Had a good partnership with Bavuma at Lords whilst the game was alive, but failed from thereon in. Was arguably unlucky to be cast off at the point he was, but since he was back by the end of the series I'd say he can't complain too much.
de Kock - 5 - Started positively with the bat, then something happened and he just lost it. Keeping was good until partway through the last test, when he went badly downhill in that regard too.
Philander - 7.5 - Was good, certainly, although you might have been expecting even more from him in these conditions? Batting was very impressive. Not sure how to factor in his fitness issues here.
Morris - 4 - Bowled well at Trent Bridge and his first innings was handy. Was a liability with the ball at the Oval, though, and looked awful batting first up there.
Rabada - 7 - Disappointing bowling, but not bad by any means. Couple of handy knocks too.
Maharaj - 8 - Really impressed me and deserved a better series average than what he ended up with. Under-performed with the bat, but then so did basically everyone.
Morkel - 8 - Good series from him - solid bowling and made a few runs too.
Olivier - 5 - Didn't bowl well at Trent Bridge, but was better at the Oval, though his best performance only came when SA were probably already out of the game.

 

[Bijed]

Shaun Pollock: South Africa player ratings following Test series defeat to England | Cricket News | Sky Sports

Some baffing ratings from Polly here. Bavuma 8, De Kock 7, Faf 7 look ridiculously generous.

I'd go Bavuma 5, De Kock 3 and Faf 3.

Yeah, some of them seem weird. I'd say he's a bit too generous all round, as if they all get marked up because they look relatively better than they might if their colleagues hadn't underperformed.

Temba Bavuma - 8
257 runs @ 32.12, two fifties
He was impressive, he was probably as solid as any of the batsmen on the tour. He got himself in on countless occasions. I think every time he got to the crease he got over 20. He'll be disappointed not to go and get a big score or more fifties after the starts he got.

Thing is, he didn't, and you probably should get your facts straight before using them to mark a player up.

Vernon Philander - 9
10 wickets @ 23.40
177 runs @ 44.25, two fifties
I have to give him a nine, I thought he was superb with both bat and ball. When he wasn't playing it showed how much South Africa miss him. He contributed in every Test match he played, made vital breakthroughs on pitches that assisted him but also got stuck in and got some runs.

Don't see how that's relevant to player ratings