The sad part is that the SA bowling attack is probably still bowling at about 80% of their actual best and they were still able to take 20 wickets. Maybe no one is as effective as Steyn when he is swinging the ball at 90mph, but hes the only regular bowler who can genuininely swing the leather (and Kallis). In Sid, Anderson and to an extent Flintoff(and if Jones or Hoggard play in the 3rd test they can too) England have 3 quality bowlers in those conditions.
I wouldnt say Amla is out of touch, but he hasnt looked the most convincing at the crease so far in this series even while he was compiling his 104 at Lords.
Hmm, but playing an all-swing attack has its obvious disadvantages too. Also Ntini gets good shape on the ball when it's overcast. Minimal movement but a bouncy straightener to the left-hander is every bit as awkward as a Hoggard trademark swing-the-ball-round-a-corner ball.
This is a decent SA bowling lineup no doubt about it but if you want to be realistic they havent even bowled significantly better than England in the last 2 tests. They were comfortably outbowled at Lords and Morkel was exceedingly poor in the 2nd test and still ended up with 7 wickets for the game. Honestly, Anderson bowled better than each and every SA bowler at Headingly and its rather a shame that they ended up with better figures almost solely due to the poor quality of the England batters and with the benefit of the conditions in the first innings.
I dont think KP threw away his wicket in the 2nd innings. He made an error of judgement and that happens in cricket. He should have either played or left and in the end he got caught in the middle of both and ended up nicking what was essentially a straight ball. His dismissal in the first innings dismissal however was poor.
Probably not, but you can quite clearly tell the difference in the way he batted against Australia in the Ashes down under in comparison to the way in which he plays against other teams.
The difference was at Headingley, the South African seam attack had no weak link. They shared the wickets between them, but no one bowler stood out. Anderson bowled pretty well, fantastically so in certain spells, with not much luck. Same with Flintoff. But once they were out of the attack, the pressure was off. South Africa on the other hand, had Steyn bowling a little erratically but always very threatening, Ntini ditto, Morkel doing well to unsettle the batsmen and Kallis chipping in with some huge wickets. A full-strength England are indeed well capable of matching this attack.
I knew who he was, because I'd looked him up a while before he got England notice. I keep an eye on County Cricket, and I recognized his name from Pura Cup cricket a while ago, then checked to see why he was playing for Notts as a non-overseas player. All was revealed in time. I just did not expect him to be called up at this stage, so I found it hard to associate Pattinson - the international bowler - with Pattinson, the Notts bowler. He just seemed like such a nobody. Strange, I suppose.
Ntini is ordinary when the ball is swinging. Always has been. If theres seam movement, he usually goes all right, but Ntini simply bowls far too short to ever be able to exploit swing bowling conditions. He might go ok, but he wont be a consistent threat like his opening bowling partner or most of the England bowlers.
Indeed. I was referring moreso to the general feeling amongst cricket journalists and some fans that he slogged and threw his wicket away, when that simply didn't happen.
That's probably to the advantage of South Africa though, because he will look to score those runs with authority. Needless to say, he gets himself out often enough.
But as Rich alluded to, South Africa is not just another team. You've got to think he will come good at least twice more before the series is out.
If Jones bowls even at 75% of what he did at the Ashes in 2005, he is likely to be far and away the best bowler on either side. However, Jones is at the moment an unknown quantity for no one truly knows how well he has actually been bowling of late. As i said earlier, I think you are vastly overrating this SA attack. I agree with you that there is no such weak link in the SA bowling attack, but I dont think any of them has been exceedingly good so far this series.
Yes, the rest of the England batsmen were also out driving the swinging ball. But that is exactly my point. KP is often put on a pedestal above the rest of the England batting lineup yet in recent times hes been doing no better than the rest. However, its almost always that everyone else is criticised while KP is somehow always blameless. I think the fact that some of the members on here seem to make out the Kallis ball to be some sort of devil rearing out of the pitch is just one such example.
Hmm, there hasn't been a stand-out performance, but at Headingley they all bowled at about 8/10. I'm sure Ntini will have one big performance, because he blows hot and cold, and Steyn surely will too because he's probably the best quick in the world at the moment IMO (him or Lee). I don't think it's vastly overrating the attack to say it's the equal of England's. And should England continue to bat as poorly as they are doing, that's all they'll need to be.
I've seen a lot of both Steyn and Lee over the past year or so, and Lee is comfortably better IMO. I've seen Steyn bowl poorly and pick up wickets at the end of an innings to flatter his figures. Lee has just been more consistently excellent in general.
I suppose it's because he's so obviously the best batsman they have at the moment. For all his faults, the thought of dropping him is utterly inconceivable, which is more than can be said for any of the others.
Sangakkara > Khan/Jayawardene/Pietersen >>> Sarwan, IMO.
I was thinking the same thing actually. But Steyn does have a case to be the best considering the ridiculous amount of wickets he's picked up in the past two years.
Mm, perhaps, i've never really thought how i'd compare those batsmen to each other. The point was, Pietersen definitely isn't in the top bracket.
