Australia v South Africa

bush doctor

God damn that's some turn around by the Aussies from the first day.

Symmo looks like he's finally come good and that middle order ain't lookin that weak now. Ntini's absense doesn't bode well for Sydney and the one-dayers either. :mad: :mad: :mad:

county

DMC wrote:

Aye....

felt a bit of a tit the next day i guess:D

DMC

I blame the Guinness...

Play in 20 minutes... Sky Sports are showing a profile of Graeme Pollock... I'm sure the Proteas would like him batting at No. 7 now.....

DMC

Day 5: Australia won by 184 runs

Took them until the over after lunch, mainly becasue of Shaun Pollock's 67*
Prince, as predicted, fell to Warne, though how the umpire Rauf gave it out is beyond me.... completely unsighted, as the batsman was turned away, he couldnt be totally sure where it came off.. McGrath and MacGill mopping up the tail, Ntini did bat, for 6 balls, scoring 2, but was it worth it chancing his injury...

Onwards to Sydney for January 2nd so...

Iago

bad tactical move by Pollock taking that single in the first ball of the last over before lunch.

He should have played defensively for the first 3-4 and then tried for a single before the end of the over.

Psychologically it would have been a big improvement for SA.

JacksonHeightsOwn

the biggest mistake i thought was in the first innings when Hussey and mcgrath where on

what i didnt understand was when hussey went for a sungle on the last ball of the over and hit it fairly hard, why didnt he let the ball run for 4 keeping hussey from going up the other end, ok, you`re sacrificing 3 runs, but id rather ntini have at least a chance of throwing 6 at McGrath than 1,

ok, in hindsight its pretty irrevelant now, hmm

what do we know

JacksonHeightsOwn

just a quick question

Graeme smith bats as a left hander, but if im not mistaken ,wasnt he bowling with his right hand?

weird or what, i know my dad plays golf like a lefty, but he`s right handed, hmmm, did i imagine it

DMC

From his Cricinfo page...

Batting style Left-hand bat
Bowling style Right-arm offbreak

Royale with Cheese

chrisbonnie wrote:

just a quick question

Graeme smith bats as a left hander, but if im not mistaken ,wasnt he bowling with his right hand?

weird or what, i know my dad plays golf like a lefty, but he`s right handed, hmmm, did i imagine it

There are plenty of players who bowl with one arm and bat with the other, Simon Jones and Ashely Giles spring to mind. People do it (are taught at a young age to do it) so that your strongest hand is the top hand on the bat and not the bottom. Playing a shot with your bottom hand gives you power but not alot of control. People have the tendency to just bat with their strongest hand when they are young. This meaning a right handed person will bat more with their right (bottom) hand.. Thus they are taught to bat the other way around to stop them from playing the ball in the air so much. The top hand is the hand used for shots like the drive, playing a drive with your bottom hand isn't a good idea. It's something like that I think.

I'm sure there are plenty more specialist batsmen like Graeme Smith who do this. I think it's 1 in 10 people are left handed, but there are far more than 1 in 10 batsmen who bat left handed.

JacksonHeightsOwn

just after watching the 1st innings from the SCG, Hussey does the same, he bowled 2 overs right handed

anyway, enough about the funny handed batsmen, the south africans are back in the game Sotuh Africa 230/3 close of play, Kallis at 80 n.o and Prince 62

they`ve really pulled the south africans back into it, they where on the ropes for 86/3 but fairplay to kallis and Prince, some lovely shots and dare i say it, knocking Warne and McGill like they where Ashley Giles

have to admit im looking forward to seeing this young lad brought into the side, Johan Botha, a mustery bowler, or spinner even, should be interesting how he takes to the SCG

county

south africa 451-9 dec
and 4-1
aussies 359
good come back from the aussies with ponting getting 120,i can see a draw a mile away but SA need to win to draw the series

DMC

Forecast is for frequent showers for the next two days.

JacksonHeightsOwn

i knew them aussies would get the luck

and the mad thing is its been unhumanly hot over there the last few weeks, an australian friend of mine went back to sydney for the christmas and she was aying its been about 40 degrees every day, then when the cricket is on and the aussies are under the cosh, they get bad weather, whats the bloody chances of that

cgf

chrisbonnie wrote:

just after watching the 1st innings from the SCG, Hussey does the same, he bowled 2 overs right handed

anyway, enough about the funny handed batsmen, the south africans are back in the game Sotuh Africa 230/3 close of play, Kallis at 80 n.o and Prince 62

they`ve really pulled the south africans back into it, they where on the ropes for 86/3 but fairplay to kallis and Prince, some lovely shots and dare i say it, knocking Warne and McGill like they where Ashley Giles

have to admit im looking forward to seeing this young lad brought into the side, Johan Botha, a mustery bowler, or spinner even, should be interesting how he takes to the SCG

Apparently Johan Botha played for Malahide & Ireland last summer

http://www.ecb.co.uk/stats/fixtures/ireland-v-yorkshire-3-5-05,1602,FF.html

It's mad the amount of overseas players that have played in Ireland as club pros and then gone onto to play test cricket. It can only be good for the game here.

JacksonHeightsOwn

cgf wrote:

Apparently Johan Botha played for Malahide & Ireland last summer

http://www.ecb.co.uk/stats/fixtures/ireland-v-yorkshire-3-5-05,1602,FF.html

It's mad the amount of overseas players that have played in Ireland as club pros and then gone onto to play test cricket. It can only be good for the game here.

thats mad, but i still dont agree with that residency rule thingy, you should only be able to play for 1 country

county

play due to start midnight gmt

DMC

Day 4: Close

South Africa 451/9d & 94/3 (22.0 ov)
Australia 359

They lost the first session, and play ended early due to bad light, then the rain came.

DMC

Day 5: Australia won by 8 wickets

South Africa 451/9d & 194/6d
Australia 359 & 288/2 (60.3 ov)

That was mighty generous by Smith..... 287 to win off 70-odd overs.... Ponting made light work of it... 143 off 159 balls. Some records broken along the way, the biggest chase in Sydney, and Ponting scoring two hundreds in his 100th test.

I'd like to know what Smith said to Kallis later.....

county

what test series is next for the aussies?

cgf

This link will give you the full list of international fixtures thru to the World Cup next year.

http://www.cricinfo.com/db/FORTHCOMING/YEARLY_CRICKET_CALENDAR.html

RuggieBear

Well at least the S Africans tryed to win the Test. Suppose the thinking was post too high a score and the aussies would defend and force a draw... so instead they set a make'able figure and tryed to bowl out the attacking australians which obviously failed

county

cgf wrote:

This link will give you the full list of international fixtures thru to the World Cup next year.

http://www.cricinfo.com/db/FORTHCOMING/YEARLY_CRICKET_CALENDAR.html

nice one

smarty

chrisbonnie wrote:

thats mad, but i still dont agree with that residency rule thingy, you should only be able to play for 1 country

Botha played for Ireland in the C&G Trophy as our overseas player. He did not play any international matches for Ireland.

In order for Ireland to compete in the C&G Trophy with professional country sides, who also have overseas players, we must have high quality players.

Ireland are treated as county rather than a country in the C&G Trophy. As far as I am aware we will be getting two overseas players this year and I expect that they will both be test players from other countries.

JacksonHeightsOwn

smarty wrote:

Botha played for Ireland in the C&G Trophy as our overseas player. He did not play any international matches for Ireland.

In order for Ireland to compete in the C&G Trophy with professional country sides, who also have overseas players, we must have high quality players.

Ireland are treated as county rather than a country in the C&G Trophy. As far as I am aware we will be getting two overseas players this year and I expect that they will both be test players from other countries.

ah ,thats fair enough then, does anybody have an idea of who our overseas players may be?

bush doctor

Pretty good series overall despite the 2-0 scoreline. The South Africans had good opportunities in each test but couldn't drive home the advantage. Fair play to the Aussies they came up trumps when then needed to, though they did seem to get most of the luck.

Looking forward to the one-dayers now with Sri Lanka joining should be some great matches.


As an aside the Zimbabwe government took control of Zimbabwe Cricket today which looks like the final nail in the coffin for international cricket over there.

kyp_durron

Botha is up for chucking, and righty so. did no one see his terrible action? complete straighting of his arm.

DMC

Twenty20 International today....

Australia 209/3 (20/20 ov)
South Africa 114 (18.3/20 ov)

Australia won by 95 runs

Good to see Damien Martyn back and getting MoTM... 96 off 56 balls, just fell short of 100. Symonds helping... 54 off 26.

SA were always behind, only when Boucher and Pollock were together did they have a chance.

county

DMC wrote:

Twenty20 International today....

Australia 209/3 (20/20 ov)
South Africa 114 (18.3/20 ov)

Australia won by 95 runs

Good to see Damien Martyn back and getting MoTM... 96 off 56 balls, just fell short of 100. Symonds helping... 54 off 26.

SA were always behind, only when Boucher and Pollock were together did they have a chance.

that aussie innings was more like stick cricket stats,over 10 an over

cgf

Unfortunately the SA score is more reflective of one of my stick cricket innings. I refuse to use the "slog-sweep" to cow-corner which seems to be the way to post a big one in stick cricket.

On the subject of Botha, check out the Ireland forum for 5th January on CricketEurope for some astute observations by some of the contributors. Quite funny to read him referred to as Johan "the power" Botha

http://www.cricketeurope.net/CRICKETEUROPE/GENERAL/FORUM/ireland.shtml

kyp_durron

Johan modelled his doosra on Harbhajan's who was also reported by Chris Broad, It seems that the doosra cannot be delivered legaly on a consistent basis. Perhaps it should be outlawed altogether.

South Africa were hockeyed today, felt a bit sorry for them.