Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

Matches where 250 is par and 300 a big score are always the best to watch

Fantastic test match, thrilling throughout, never a dull moment, well bowled Philander, and a deserved win for SA

Philly gets Man Of The Match.

I don't think SA will miss Steyn too much for the rest of the series...coped without him for a year, and the rest of the attack are potent... i think Phelukwayo will come in next game, and he is useful too..plenty in reserve for SA

andy wrote:I don't think SA will miss Steyn too much for the rest of the series...coped without him for a year, and the rest of the attack are potent... i think Phelukwayo will come in next game, and he is useful too..plenty in reserve for SA

I watched some part of the recent test match between Zimbabwe and South Africa. Andile bowled well.

Wowsers, I went to bed thinking India had that one in the bag. Low scoring but exciting contest.

Kohli's comments about not needing decent warm-up games are exposed for the garbage they are.

I wonder what would happen on a flatter wicket? Amla has been fairly out of form recently - I'd probably back Kohli, Chet, Rohit et al to go big over the current SA batting line-up. But the SA bowlers are going to be more penetrative when there isn't much help for the quicks. I wonder if there will be one, or if SA will serve up spicy pitches all series.

Surely Steyn's finished? He's barely played any cricket for two years due to injury, and South Africa have shown they can win without him.

I was in somebody's house this afternoon when the last 2 wickets fell. I confess to being surprised.

Dont think sa will risk a spicy deck like this one again considering it only brings india into it more, it really should be noted the difference between the teams was only 77 runs in this game, very close and sa never really were so ahead of India that they felt confident of a win or a big win, suspect when Kohli was batting and only 130 odd to win they lost the game was around the time the pace men were feeling tired.

Sa best policy is a flatter deck which makes sa better pace attack more likely to outbowl India pace attack, think India pace attack is decent enough that you don’t want them getting help especially considering they have a variety of fast men.
Swing and seam, bhuvi, bit of everything shami, pace and Yorkers, bumrah and quick all rounder pandya.
Not sure I want a green deck against india especially if I was a South African batsman.
Only really Ab scored runs for them this test.
they can’t afford that again.

Plus if I was a South Africa batsman I would be pissed my stats would be mucked up against India now considering they got hammered in India with the low scoring games there and now they will be mucked up again if they facing similar conditions in the other two test.

Don’t care what anyone says but sa were crapping themselves when they collapsed today for 65/8 it was a 50-50 games that had no place to be a 50-50 times.
They probably though they mucked it up a couple of times as well.
Not sure they could risk another spicy deck against India especially when it seems like the Indian bowlers have the length and line and radar right for the series.
They right in the money straightaway.

India put up a very good fight in the first Test...lots of credit to them.

Bring on the second Test....

"South Africa have added the fast bowling duo of Duanne Olivier and uncapped 21-year-old Lungi Ngidi to their squad for the second Test against India later this week. The changes came into place after Dale Steyn picked up a heel injury in the Cape Town Test that ruled him out of the series."

http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/ ... econd-test

Squad for second Test: Faf du Plessis (capt), Hashim Amla, Temba Bavuma, Theunis de Bruyn, Quinton de Kock (wk), AB de Villiers, Dean Elgar, Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, Morne Morkel, Chris Morris, Andile Phehlukwayo, Vernon Philander, Kagiso Rabada.

bigfluffylemon wrote:Wowsers, I went to bed thinking India had that one in the bag. Low scoring but exciting contest.

Kohli's comments about not needing decent warm-up games are exposed for the garbage they are.

I wonder what would happen on a flatter wicket? Amla has been fairly out of form recently - I'd probably back Kohli, Chet, Rohit et al to go big over the current SA batting line-up. But the SA bowlers are going to be more penetrative when there isn't much help for the quicks. I wonder if there will be one, or if SA will serve up spicy pitches all series.

Surely Steyn's finished? He's barely played any cricket for two years due to injury, and South Africa have shown they can win without him.

This decision to avoid the warmup was a blunder. Shastri and Virat were both overconfident. Someone (probably Shastri ) during the awards post SL final match said "We have nothing to prove". The fact that our batsman have nothing to prove for tours of England, SA , AUS and to some extent NZ made me laugh because i have been following cricket since 1990 and i don't think we have won a test series in these countries. Probably in NZ but I doubt no test series wins in England, Australia and South Africa. If one is not going to accept obviously clear weaknesses then they are unlikely to even work upon it. It will lead to more failures like we have seen this test.
Shastri was also of the opinion that no team does well overseas. India is one of the the top cricketing nation now and the fact that we are accepting we can be bad because others are bad shows the thinking pattern. Why can’t India win overseas . England came to India in 2011 and won. Why can’t we. Even if England had not won, it does not means no team should win overseas because that is the pattern. It is a very negative approach to this tour, neither Shastri is motivating by giving such comments, nor there is proper planning in preparation as seen by avoiding warmup. Too many mistakes. I don’t expect us to win every tour in SA, AUS, ENG or NZ. However we can certainly at least look to win one test series . And this is getting labelled as one of the most awaited test series apart from Ashes. The most awaited test series should not be prepared like this, it should not be approached like this imo. Most things need to be got right from squad selection, to warmup , to net sessions, to series leading to this series, determination to win etc etc.

There is some realization of our inept batting performance though which Virat acknowledged post match:
Reference: http://www.news18.com/cricketnext/news/ ... 26439.html
"Taking 20 wickets to win a Test match is the priority. But if your batsmen don't bat well, then it doesn't matter. If you are not getting close to their total, it doesn't matter if you have taken 20 wickets or not. We needed to bat better than what we did, To not having got the job done, it hurts and it should hurt because that's the only way you can rectify the mistakes and come out with more motivation in the next match," Kohli said, talking to the media after the game.
However, he was adamant about not accepting blunder of avoiding practice match. If a captain of a major international team thinks , practice matches are useless, given a lot of bad reputation of the team , then there is a lot to worry imo. Yes we could see the well preparedness. 75 runs loss is a much more margin loss on this wicket. The batters have badly let us down.
"We were very well-prepared. I don't think we felt any lack of preparation. Even they got out for 130 in the second innings and they play here all the time. It was a wicket where things were happening every day. We let ourselves down with the bat, that's for sure."

Some South African player (one of their batsman, dont remember the name) said that they will give India pace bowler friendly wickets. Seeing the inept batting performance of our team, they will serve such a wicket again. Their batting has without any doubt the better ability to survive on these wickets than ours. The result was horrible. Steyn did not even bowled a single over which shows the efficiency of even the restricted SA pace bowling line up. A win by 72 runs on such wicket is equivalent to a strong win. I would put these 75 runs as 150 odd runs on other wickets. There i lot of upset amongst Indian cricket supporters.

Let us have a look at overall averages of the batsmen in SA:
Shikhar - 18
Vijay - 24

Clearly the openers are flop. To look into details they have scored 46 runs in this first test in 4 innings. Same batsmen will average 70 – 80 or even 100 when we play in Asia. They are like top class specialist batsmen or worst specialist batsmen - it entirely depends where they play. Neither can they see off the new ball in tough conditions nor can they score big runs when the wickets are better. This batting average is worse than that of an all rounders batting average. Problem is we can only test whether Rahul can bat properly if same conditions exists. Even he is untested. But one of Vijay and Shikhar will have to make way.

Chet - 38
Virat - 51
Chet does not has a flop average (but he is averaging 52 overall so he also struggles in SA), however Virat shows his class by performing in adverse conditions. This imo will be the backbone of whether we will give enough runs to our better pace bowling attack in SA.

Rohit - 11
Rohit too is one of the batsman who struggles when the wickets are like this.

Saha - 4
His keeping is good against pace bowlers and the ball carries here a lot. I would ignore his flop performances with bat and still have him as keeper over Parthiv who i don't rate as much against pace. Saha has taken 10 catches this test. Parthiv may score more than Saha, however the difference in keeping or missed chances will still keep him in negative. The runs that Elgar, Aiden, Amla, ABD, Faf, Quinton can score will be more costly that what Parthiv is going to score. And if he drops a lot more than one catch, it is all over. Match will be lost.


Steyn is ruled out from cricket for 4 to 6 weeks due to bruised heels. Steyn’s absence will be a big boost for Team India and we should capitalize on it by putting a better batting performance. Surely Duanne and Lungi are not Dale Steyn at this point of time. Steyns absence will work in favour of India.

SA squad for 2nd Test
Faf du Plessis(c), Hashim Amla, Temba Bavuma, Quinton de Kock, Theunis de Bruyn, AB de Villiers, Dean Elgar, Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, Morne Morkel, Chris Morris, Andile Phehlukwayo, Vernon Philander, Kagiso Rabada, Duanne Olivier, Lungi Ngidi

Pretty certain Shastri and kohli want to win this series and do well overseas if anything they been looking at this series 2-3 yrs ago.
the blame for the preparation has to go for BCCI for playing sri lanka and not Shatri and co.
Also by the way you are reading Shastri and kohli the comment the wrong way round considering Shastri said he wants india to win everywhere and be the only team that can win in all conditions and not be like other sides that can only win in home conditions and by the way india won in England in 2007.
Drew in SA twice and won a test in Australia and won a test in England last time around so isn't all doom and gloom like you like everyone to believe adi.

"I'm a very fast-bowling minded coach and I guess we will always have to find a balance to see if we can get four fast bowlers in the team, first of all. We'll look at things like are the conditions suited to four fast bowlers. If not we try and shape the team in other ways," Gibson said. "Ultimately, especially in this series and for the rest of the summer, we will be looking to see how best we can fit four fast bowlers into whatever formula we come up with."

http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/ ... ome-summer

'Steyn has been ruled out of the remaining matches with a heel injury, which means one of Duanne Olivier, Lungi Ngidi, Chris Morris or Andile Phehlukwayo will likely be included in the XI for the second and third Tests. Which one will depend on whoever can convince Gibson they're up for the biggest fight. South Africa's new coach is interested in a bowler who is willing to show his fast and furious side.'

Plenty of options to cover one spot.