Cricket......

[gemmerbal]

Disgraceful.

[Vetplant]

Proper hiding that.

 

11 consecutive home series wins by India, which is a record. Amazing.

[gemmerbal]

Amazing but not surprising

 

Proper hiding that.

 

11 consecutive home series wins by India, which is a record. Amazing.

Edited October 13, 2019 by gemmerbal

[Christie]

Which brings us to why we are where we are. And i say to you, go watch a domestic 4day game and then you will see why. Even better, go watch premier league cricket down at your local club, and it becomes even more apparent. Strength at the top comes from the bottom up.

 

 

This.

Imo the quotas enforced on the first class game plays a part, then add to this the lure of good pay. Harmer, Abbott, Olivier and Morkel took plenty of County wickets recently.

Stirr some ???? CSA management into that brew, (the kind that changes squad selection on midnight before the semi-final in 2015) and see SA cricket implode.

[gemmerbal]

so what was the point of ICC's 3month ban of Zim?

[gemmerbal]

local boy'tjie George Linde replacing Maharaj in the side for the last test, that is funny in so many ways... haha

[gemmerbal]

https://www.sport24.co.za/Cricket/Proteas/moroe-urges-fans-to-have-patience-with-the-proteas-20191014

 

Thabang already starting to make excuses, probably also trying to save their sponsorship deals.

[gemmerbal]

Jacob Zupta appeals more than an Indian Spinner... jirrrrrrrrrrrr !@#$%^&*(^%$#

[Shebeen]

good to see you watched some of it at least!!!

 

I also think Biff got a bad rap - KP was always the real chop! of all the players in our "purple patch era" it's probably him/kallis/steyn we will battle to replace long term.

 

 

 

Haha, punny fun [emoji12]

I often wonder why so many people took issue with Biff. I guess he’s brass nature put alot of people off, but in my view he could back up his bark more often than not. And i rate his captaincy and his tenacity. Based on statistics he is one of the most successful captains of all time. And as captain of SA he achieved a lot more success than any of his predecessors and ill go as far as to say his successors.

Maybe they should adopt the batt toss like in the Big Bash. Haha... As ive tried to illustrate in one of my previous posts, the value of the toss can be negated to a degree by having a very well balanced side. And therein lies the conundrum perhaps. From memory Biff’s side won a hellava lot of games batting 4th. And if you look at the great sides from history, Aussies under Taylor, Waugh, Ponting, they could win a game from almost anywhere, winning or losing the toss. So i guess my point is if you have a decent side, the toss should almost not be a factor.

It is difficult watching our current side yes. Markram, so much potential but he seems to lack the mental approach of test cricket. Same can be said of Kudu de Bruyn. Im not sure Enoch’s prodigal son Bavuma will become a solid test cricketer, he hasnt stamped his authority on the game yet, not in the way you expect from a middle order batsman. Nortje looks like a decent bowler, he showed glimpses of potential in his first spell yesterday. But i fear we will loose him to Kolpak as well, just a feeling.

Which brings us to why we are where we are. And i say to you, go watch a domestic 4day game and then you will see why. Even better, go watch premier league cricket down at your local club, and it becomes even more apparent. Strength at the top comes from the bottom up.

And while we have corrupt officials running the game that are unwilling to develop the game properly from grassroot level up, our strength as a national side will never be what it was. Its easier to force the numbers to please politicians than it is to lay the foundations for development to happen naturally. (Sorry for the politics).
 

[gemmerbal]

Watched a bit of the cricket this morning, and what grabbed my attention was the chat after play was suspended. Eric Simons is such a knowledgable chap. He was basically saying that we shouldnt be in this “transitional” phase in the first place, as its not like we didnt know that at some point we would have to replace the likes of ABD, Kallis, Hash, Steyn and so on. And that guys should be hardened at domestic level and shouldnt be coming into the national side to learn their game. Hash also contributed in saying that the administrators should have been aware of this and that it reflects on our domestic circuit. And then of course Makhaya contributes with totally irrelevant remarks about tecnical skills or whatever.

 

I had to privilege to be around Eric on occasion. Years ago he was the guest speaker at our annual awards and the one thing he said that has always stuck with me (funny enough it was a comment about a certain Mr Ntini) was about our bowlers being able to hit the top of off stump at least 4 out of 6 deliveries. His opinion was that that was their job and that there were guys in the national side when he coached that couldnt even do it 2 out of 6. And he said imagine you being at work and only achieving a 33% success rate at what you were employed to do, if that would he acceptable. That comment really stuck with me ever since. How often we see our bowlers nowadays straying down leg or being unable to bowl 4 good balls in the same spot?

 

Anyways. The team for this game looks very inexperienced. Im curious to see if they will he opening the batting with QdK. Not sure that will work. Read an article about Quinnie’s success batting at 7 compared to when he bats at 6 or 5 and i still believe he should stay in that Gilchrist role. We simply have to find 6 batters ahead of him that are capable of providing some sort of base for him to attack off of. The pressure of coming in at 100/5 week in week out is not ideal at all.

 

Hamza looks like a talented player. Stick him at 3 and give him an extended run. Dont piss him around in the batting order like they did with Stiaan van Zyl.

 

Will also be interesting to see how Lungi goes in this test. He looks like a talented player, he’s shown glimpses and i hope he goes well. Big strong lad, good attributes to have, he must just get his physical conditioning sorted out.

 

Nice sporty wicket supplied by the Indians. We cannot complain about the conditions like we did 3/4 years ago. Come on boys, show some heart, thats all we really want to see! ????????

[Kranswurm]

Another long day in the saddle today

[babse]

Red ball cricket under full lights, but let's wait for a few wickets before we decide if light not good enough ????

[Kranswurm]

Red ball cricket under full lights, but let's wait for a few wickets before we decide if light not good enough

You got your wish

Wham bam thank you mam

[babse]

yoh but we are getting our asses handed to us, again 

[gemmerbal]

ive decided im no longer pissed off with the players, im pissed off with the administrators for not making sure we have a conveyor belt of talented players to choose from and a sound domestic structure where guys are scoring runs/taking wickets thereby applying pressure on our national players to perform or move out of the way.

 

Faf has to go. Im sorry but he just seems uninspiring - to me as a supporter - and seemingly to the players as well.

 

Temba cannot be captain, currently he doesnt deserve to be in the team (sure, not many of the 11 on the field do...) same goes for Markram - these guys have been earmarked as potential leaders, but they also dont inspire the same way a young GC Smith did; Biff had a very clear plan and thats why he was given the support - even though it resulted in some disliking him for being THAT confident in his own plan.

 

As much as it pains me, we have to start fresh. get back to domestic structure, tell the national players to play there if they want to be considered for selection; stop accommodation all these T20 tournaments all over the shop, it weakens our domestic 4day structure by overburdening our players. pay them enough to not want to go.

 

We are going to have to make some serious decisions otherwise we can just forget about it. God knows how the first 3 days of the Newlands Test vs The Poms sold out within 2 hours or whatever it was because Im not paying money to go watch this current lot.

yoh but we are getting our asses handed to us, again 

Edited October 21, 2019 by gemmerbal

[gemmerbal]

Biff hitting the nail on the head:

 

https://www.iol.co.za/sport/cricket/proteas/proteas-pathetic-former-skipper-smith-35417949

 

https://metro.co.uk/2019/10/19/pathetic-graeme-smith-slams-south-africa-bizarre-toss-india-10946570/