South Africa v India tests - Jan 2018

[Dr Cricket]

So what happens now.

Are SA batting tomorrow?

no one knows, too many politic in play now.

[meninblue]

So what happens now.

Are SA batting tomorrow?

News spreading g that there will be a press conference shortly. That will clarify the status.

[mikesiva]

I watched the delivery that hit Elgar and IMHO it didn't misbehave. He just played it badly. It was a short pitched delivery he should have ducked.

[meninblue]

What the ICC's regulations say

6.2 Fitness of pitch for play: The umpires shall be the sole judges of the fitness of the pitch for play.

6.4 Changing the pitch: The pitch shall not be changed during the match unless the umpires decide that it is dangerous or unreasonable for play to continue on it and then only with the consent of both captains.
6.4.1 If the on-field umpires decide that it is dangerous or unreasonable for play to continue on the match pitch, they shall stop play and immediately advise the ICC Match Referee.
6.4.2 The on-field umpires and the ICC Match Referee shall then consult with both captains.
6.4.3 If the captains agree to continue, play shall resume.
6.4.4 If the decision is not to resume play, the on-field umpires together with the ICC Match Referee shall consider whether the existing pitch can be repaired and the match resumed from the point it was stopped. In considering whether to authorise such repairs, the ICC Match Referee must consider whether this would place either side at an unfair advantage, given the play that had already taken place on the dangerous pitch.

6.4.5 If the decision is that the existing pitch cannot be repaired, then the match is to be abandoned as a draw

[meninblue]

"The unfortunate thing is that nobody minds movement off the surface, but it's the uneven bounce that's the problem and it is quite dangerous from a batting point of view when you have pace attacks bowling around the 140 mark, tall bowlers hitting the deck hard. It is dangerous and it's not ideal. I have seen pitches like this around the world but, as we keep saying, you want a good contest between bat and ball and this one is not providing that. I'd give it a 3 out of 10."

Kepler Wessels, the former South Africa captain and television commentator present at the Wanderers Test "
"When you have the physio coming on the field so often to attend to injuries received by batsmen on their hands and chest, we are certainly in the territory of keeping an eye on this pitch and see if it's dangerous."

Sanjay Manjrekar, the former India batsman and television commentator covering the Wanderers Test
"It's certainly not a good pitch for Test cricket. It's the worst Test pitch I've seen at the Wanderers. However, I don't think it's a pitch worth abandoning the match for. Scoreboard still reads 100 for 3 in the third innings, so there are still runs being scored. Rating: 4.5/10."

Daryll Cullinan, the former South Africa batsman and ESPNcricinfo expert present at the Wanderers Test
"It's not the ideal pitch. As a batsman you want the bounce to be consistent. The bounce on this pitch has made it unplayable for batting. [But] I think we should see how it plays for another session [after lunch on day three] before deciding on whether to call it off.

Sunil Gavaskar, the former India captain and television commentator present at the Wanderers Test
"To play test cricket on this surface is unfair. Saw it in NZ in 2003. Batsman have minimum chance. ICC should look into it."

Sourav Ganguly, the former India captain on Twitter
"Naughty pitch. Yeah, misbehaving and how. Not good for cricket. Not done, ICC must look into it."

Harbhajan Singh, the former India spinner on Twitter
"Groundsman in SA need to get together and have a bit of a chat. This is a terrible Test wicket. All we want in SA is a little movement and pace and bounce. This is ridiculous!!"

Paul Harris, the former South Africa spinner on Twitter

"This pitch at Wanderers is getting dangerous... I am quite happy sitting in my room [rather] than playing on that pile of c**p facing those bowlers! #beentheredonethat #windies"

Dean Jones, the former Australia batsman on Twitter
"It's quite a spicy wicket. No one can hide from the fact that you can get out every ball. By the same token, it's challenging as a batsman. Sometimes we get onto wickets that are pretty flat and you can score lots of runs. [Here] it is just quite difficult to bat. Whether its too excessive or not, if you ask a batsman what do you think they will say?"

Hashim Amla, the South Africa batsman after play on day two
"Some balls are up and down, so that could be dangerous sometimes for the batsman. But we are not focusing on those things right now. We feel the match is in the balance right now."
Jasprit Bumrah, the India bowler after play on day two

[yuppie]

I watched the delivery that hit Elgar and IMHO it didn't misbehave. He just played it badly. It was a short pitched delivery he should have ducked.

The ball itself was not to bad, but had the pitch made him think it would do more. Obviously you must play each ball on its merits, but had he got it into his head that the pitch would play up more?

[Dr Cricket]

I watched the delivery that hit Elgar and IMHO it didn't misbehave. He just played it badly. It was a short pitched delivery he should have ducked.

he didn't see it either, bumrah action caused elgar the problem.
be interesting to see what happens now though considering india wouldn't back down from here.
suspect a very long meeting at icc buildings and in SA at the moment.
personally if the 4th innings started the game goes to the conclusion now and if SA feel it is too dangerous they forfeit the game and india wins.
for me it would be either india wins by forfeit or we play to the end.

umpires have been awful today, not sure what they were thinking it was going to happen.

[Dr Cricket]

I watched the delivery that hit Elgar and IMHO it didn't misbehave. He just played it badly. It was a short pitched delivery he should have ducked.

The ball itself was not to bad, but had the pitch made him think it would do more. Obviously you must play each ball on its merits, but had he got it into his head that the pitch would play up more?

yeah that probably the best summary so far.
holding said CSA would want the game to carry on as well, so a lot of politics will be involved now, if the game is abandoned he said Johannesburg can't host the Australian test match.

[meninblue]

Hats off to Indian batters. To bat and score 247 here is just gritty and superb batting. Saffers are considering not batting on this wicket and they are more used to pace wickets than us.

[yuppie]

India have made it clear that they don't think its a dangerous pitch after reading the comments from their players on cricinfo.

[Dr Cricket]

looks like india are egging SA on to play.
Rahane said in the press conference india tail was able to bat on it and SA batsman can't face half trackers.
Rahane called the pitch challenging and not dangerous.

[Dr Cricket]

India have made it clear that they don't think its a dangerous pitch after reading the comments from their players on cricinfo.

TBH you can't blame them when the majority of the batsman and team probably played to their best of their ability and probably felt proud of getting the runs that now suddenly it was unsafe for the South African batsman to bat on.
would be pretty hard to take on Kohli, Rahane, Vijay, Bhuvi and Shami.

especially on Rahane, Bhuvi and Shami that basically scored the runs that took the game away from SA.
all 3 took blows in the body and fraught it out because they knew india could win this if they score 50-80 runs more.

[Dr Cricket]

TBH the way gibson spoke, it sounds like SA might want to play as well, although it sounds more like because they don't want to be accuse of chickening out here.

going to be a very tough decision though.

[meninblue]

India will be disadvantaged if Saffers will not bat. This imo is more than a match winning total.

[yuppie]

It seems that SA are not happy about the pitch that was prepared. They asked for pace and bounce and got a pitch with more grass on it:))))

There will be play tomorrow, no problems.

I just wonder if the umpires are making more of this than they should be