South Africa in Australia 2008-09

[Swervy]

I'm surprised how round his arm was TBH. Had never actually looked with real closeness before. I'll give you that, but even so, Roberts circa 1970s wasn't the greatest bowler who ever lived (much as his protege Michael Holding likes to paint it that he was).

sometimes the things you say are a total joke. You didnt even know Roberts bowled with a round arm action (he quite famously did) and yet you can backhandedly take a swipe at his prowess in the 70s. How the hell can you make judgements like this? A number of players from back then rate Roberts as an all time great fast bowler...he was not tall, he didnt bowl from a great height, and he was a phenominal quick bowler..but it doesnt fit into your hairbrained theory, so I guess Holding (and others) were wrong.

(Note..I am now just waiting for you to turn around and say 'I just said he wasn't the greatest bowler who ever lived')

 

[Swervy]

Nonsense, Steyn seems a perfectly nice lad to me and I certainly don't dislike him. Nor do I doubt he can be one of SA's best bowlers. But he is not and cannot be as good as Donald, or probably Shaun Pollock and Neil Adcock either.[/QUOTE]


It is just ridiculous rubbish

 

[tooextracool]

McKenzie (who has still to convince as an opener, pretty well all his big runs coming on stupidly flat wickets)

Thats a bit too harsh of him IMO. He did well at Egbaston ande genuinely looks the part as an opener. Personally, I though he really impressed and while I was initially annoyed at his selection as an opener I am starting to see the logic behind that move as he has the technique and the ability to succeed at the top.

 

[tooextracool]

Like the height (in Steyn's case), accuracy (in both's) and ability to swing the ball (in Morkel's).

Pollock's accuracy was about as good as anyone in history, while Donald's was mostly pretty good during his international days, though like most people he had his off-days. Donald was a phenomenally skilled bowler of swing, seam and just about anything else you could wish a bowler to bowl, which neither Steyn nor Morkel are yet. Donald and Pollock were both also taller than Steyn.

To date, both Steyn and Morkel are one-trick ponies. Steyn is almost totally reliant on the fast outswinger (much as this is an enormously potent weapon when he gets it right) and to date hasn't demonstrated an ability to do anything much without a new ball. He is also someone who is almost always going to go for runs due to his lack of height, and isn't the most accurate bowler you'll see either. Morkel meanwhile is almost completely reliant on bouncy, seaming decks. If he doesn't get this he offers nothing. He too can be prone to wild inaccuracy.

It truly astounds me that anyone would think they're likely to be as good as one of the best pairs of seam-bowlers in history.

Morkel is 23 and Steyn is 25. It would be stupid to assume that neither will develop any of those skills as their career goes on. I dont see Steyn being as good as Donald, as hes too short to ever do so, but Morkel at his height does not even need the ability to swing the ball to be a successful bowler. I dont particularly like his bowling action and i think part of it might be a real reason for his spraying the ball around and bowling too short but he would be a handful if he could bowl the ball in the right places.

 

[tooextracool]

Lolz, to date?

They'd been together just for one season and you are commenting as if you'd been seeing them for aeons! One-trick ponies? Goodness gracious me, if a bowlers is getting me 140 wickets @ 22 per wicket at an unheard-of-in-recent-times SR, I don't care he gets his with a trick or two tricks or just plain vanilla hard seam. It's all about deliverance.

And Donald- Pollock pair, while they were certainly destructive, cannot be classified in the league of the West Indian Quartet or the Pakistani WWs or with a slight tweak, Aussie McG-Warne. Though they indeed were SA's best bowling combo. And this pair looks promising to become that!

And as to your question of height:

Malcolm Marshall was not even 6 feet tall, says it all.

Isnt Steyn around 5'7? If so he's still about 4 inches shorter than Marshall which is a considerable difference. I think once he loses his pace, he will genuinely struggle to get good batsmen out.

 

[tooextracool]

Yes, it is moderate. Exceptional seam-bowlers are supposed to be able to prosper, well, in all conditions. Allan Donald, for one, did. Steyn merely did reasonably.

In both series', Steyn bowled well in 1 spell out of 4. Overall figures are utterly irrelevant. It's to his credit that he produced a decent burst in both series', but 1 out of 4 is still poor.

This is a rather dim view about whats going on. Interestingly enough, Donald on his only tour to Pakistan didnt even manage 1 good spell on the tour. The wickets that Steyn bowled on in Pakistan were so placid, that even bowlers of the caliber of Gul and Asif were struggling to take a single wicket and to brush off his performances on that tour as being only 1 out of 4 would be rather foolish to say the very least. I think your adulation of Donald is somewhat far fetched. He wasnt even the best bowler of his time, Ambrose and Waqar (pre 96) were head and shoulders above him IMO.

 

[Top_Cat]

Speeds? In 1993/94? No, they can't be reliable - the technology hadn't been introduced then.

It was older tech but was considered more reliable and stable than the IR measurements which are done on the fly. It measured distances and then did calculations which is why the results weren't available until a few overs later. Reliable speed-gun technology has been around for ages, was only made cheap enough for networks to buy it in the late 90's.

 

[Precambrian]

Isnt Steyn around 5'7? If so he's still about 4 inches shorter than Marshall which is a considerable difference. I think once he loses his pace, he will genuinely struggle to get good batsmen out.

Any link you have about Steynjie's height? I read somwhere he's 6 or whereabouts.

 

[Swervy]

Any link you have about Steynjie's height? I read somwhere he's 6 or whereabouts.

Afetr a bit of research, I found he is 6ft

 

[subshakerz]

I think if Steyn bowls impressively against Australia this winter, something Donald struggled to do, that will end a lot of this conversation of 'Steyn not being in Donald's class'.

 

[Richard]

Donald certainly did not struggle to bowl impressively against Australia.

 

[Richard]

Morkel at his height does not even need the ability to swing the ball to be a successful bowler. I dont particularly like his bowling action and i think part of it might be a real reason for his spraying the ball around and bowling too short but he would be a handful if he could bowl the ball in the right places.

Of course he would. What we wait to see is if he can do that.

 

[Richard]

It is just ridiculous rubbish

And that is a ridiculously pointless post.

 

[Richard]

sometimes the things you say are a total joke. You didnt even know Roberts bowled with a round arm action (he quite famously did) and yet you can backhandedly take a swipe at his prowess in the 70s. How the hell can you make judgements like this? A number of players from back then rate Roberts as an all time great fast bowler...he was not tall, he didnt bowl from a great height, and he was a phenominal quick bowler..but it doesnt fit into your hairbrained theory, so I guess Holding (and others) were wrong.

(Note..I am now just waiting for you to turn around and say 'I just said he wasn't the greatest bowler who ever lived')

Well then what did I say?

Yes indeed - not unusually, you are responding to what you'd like me to have said rather than what I actually have.

 

[subshakerz]

Donald certainly did not struggle to bowl impressively against Australia.

Really? His record, even excluding his injury-ridden final series, was markedly less impressive than against other nations. He may have performed, but not consistently enough to garner the respect the Aussies had for Ambrose or Wasim.

 

[Richard]

And others failed to perform as well against one odd team as they did against everyone else. Wasim himself averaged 29 or 30 against all three of England, India and South Africa and in fact played just 4 Tests against the latter. McGrath averaged 25 against South Africa - like Donald's 27 against Aus, certainly not poor but not up to his standards against everyone else. Ambrose's record against India, the strongest batting unit of his day, was extremely poor indeed - far worse than any of Donald, Wasim or McGrath's nemesis teams.

Truth is, there is pretty well no bowler who has performed outstandingly well against everyone since we got 8 (and for a fairly brief time - a decade, 1992 to 2002 - even 9) genuine Test-class teams. It's just so difficult for the cookie to crumble that way.

Donald could have done better against Australia, and it's disappointing that he didn't. If he had he'd have a fair case for being the greatest seam-bowler who ever lived. Yet despite this he still had his moments aplenty, as did Wasim against those who overall he did less than outstandingly against, and these are not major holes in anyone's record.

 

[Uppercut]

And others failed to perform as well against one odd team as they did against everyone else. Wasim himself averaged 29 or 30 against all three of England, India and South Africa and in fact played just 4 Tests against the latter. McGrath averaged 25 against South Africa - like Donald's 27 against Aus, certainly not poor but not up to his standards against everyone else. Ambrose's record against India, the strongest batting unit of his day, was extremely poor indeed - far worse than any of Donald, Wasim or McGrath's nemesis teams.

Truth is, there is pretty well no bowler who has performed outstandingly well against everyone since we got 8 (and for a fairly brief time - a decade, 1992 to 2002 - even 9) genuine Test-class teams. It's just so difficult for the cookie to crumble that way.

Donald could have done better against Australia, and it's disappointing that he didn't. If he had he'd have a fair case for being the greatest seam-bowler who ever lived. Yet despite this he still had his moments aplenty, as did Wasim against those who overall he did less than outstandingly against, and these are not major holes in anyone's record.

To be fair, averaging 25 against South Africa is pretty exceptional. It's incredible, in fact, just not quite as incredible as McGrath was against other teams.

I agree with the general point though, criticising someone for averaging over 30 against one out of eight or nine test standard teams isn't really fair.

 

[Richard]

To be fair, averaging 25 against South Africa is pretty exceptional. It's incredible, in fact, just not quite as incredible as McGrath was against other teams.

And yet, just like with Donald against Australia, that 25 or 27 can be claimed to be not quite what it appeared on face value. McGrath played 14 Tests against South Africa from 1996/97 to 2005/06, and did really well in just 3 of them (1 in which was virtually meaningless as everything about SA that game simply imploded, I've never seen such a good team field, bowl and bat so woefully - and don't anyone have the nerve to suggest McGrath himself caused that implosion, it was well underway before he even picked the ball up). 9 out of those 14 produced moderate to poor performances, with 2 of them seeing acceptable-to-get-by ones.

Now, as said, this certainly isn't awful - and it's exactly the same as the charge levelled at Donald against Australia. But Donald gets far, far more criticism for it. Why? Because his team lost, McGrath's won. It'd be the other way around if the results were the other way around.

 

[pasag]

However hilarious it was, them getting done for 83 has me worried. They'll probably do some massive soul searching, train that much harder and come to Australia all revved up with a point to prove.

 

[Richard]

TBH, any one-off disastrous performance like that rarely registers for me. It's so obviously just a one-off - if they put in a good performance for the rest of the series, it'll be forgotten.

That said, Australia's ODI team is quite possibly stronger than theirs and I'm not out-and-out expecting SA to win whatever it is they're playing this season.