Cricket Threat

[Watanbe]

Originally Posted by runningdog

Another fan here. I'm pretty new to this site, last place I expected to find a cricket thread.
A mate of mine keeps gloating that the wheels have come off the SAFA's wagon. I reckon one did on Tuesday but, as I keep telling him, don't gloat too soon. The thing about wheels is that they can be put back on.
As a long-suffering England fan, cricket, football and rugby, there is one thing I've learnt over the years, in sport we've forgotton where the jugalar is.
Good luck SAFA's and I hope you need it...........

well Jonny Wilkinson found it well enough in that World Cup Final. Grrr thinks what could have been an awesome fighting underdog aussie victory!

[runningdog]

Sorry, e-b, guess we've found the jugular again. You'll have to do better than this against the Aussies.........

[Heinz]

Just a note on Shaun Tate he's been named in our Australia A side now. Might see him sooner than I expected.

[JugBR]

when i was 11, we usually play a game in the street called bets, its quite like cricket but more amateur of course

[runningdog]

[quote=Watanbe;391942]well Jonny Wilkinson found it well enough in that World Cup Final. I know, I was having a panic attack at the time. You're proud to be an Aussie, mate. Good on yer!
I'm proud to be English. Long may it be that only the best team wins.............

PS. How do I replace the Union Jack with the Cross of St George. I've tried but failed.

[eddie_brunette]

welldone to england, they smashed us

edd

[Gnomey]

Whats happened to you guys though. Yes England have been playing well (and ruthlessly) but that isn't the point, the Proteas have been poor for most of this ODI series for some strange reason. They looked really good in the first 4 tests and then they seem like the have just come of the boil completely since KP took over England.

[eddie_brunette]

Politics in sport

edd

[Lucky13]

So, I take it that you all zip fine tea and speak posh upper class English then, eh?

[Gnomey]

Originally Posted by eddie_brunette

Politics in sport

edd

All that bollocks again then, f*cking ANC...

[eddie_brunette]

Yes they have it completely wrong!!! Players that get developed, never play in the national side (like Thandi Shabalala, which is a lovely spinner, which SA so badly need). Ntini is off form, so replacing him with Nel, who is white, means another white player must be dropped to make place for non-white, and then they dropped Albie Morkel for Philander who made a chewing useless contribution.

I love cricket and South African cricket is just not cricket.....
and I'm starting to support the game and not the country anymore......
BRING ON the PREMIER Leagues (Indian, English, and Australian)
I'll start supporting England in Tests, since this is where crickets’ history started

edd

[eddie_brunette]

Interesting Read:

Cape Town - Whether you regard some of them as "turncoats" or not, South Africa's foreign legion of cricketers are, ironically, keeping the country's battered reputation intact to a degree in the UK.

While the national team continues to undo all their heroic work in the Test series there this summer by staggering from one ODI pasting to another, South African players on the County Championship circuit - many of them Kolpak exiles - ride high in the averages.

Indeed, a healthy lobby of observers back home will bitterly suggest that at least a handful of them could be offering the embattled Proteas ODI side battle-hardened experience and skill at this time of deep adversity.

Whatever may be said about the strength or otherwise of county cricket, it remains a playground for a multinational array of tough and committed first-class cricketers, many of whom (not just South Africans) are there more because they have been shoddily treated by their various national selectors than for any "has-been" reasons.

Bidding to be the season's top-scorer

With three rounds of four-day matches to go for 2008, in most cases, the batting lists for Division One and Two feature at least five South Africans vying to be top dogs.

Leicestershire's HD Ackerman is the leading run-scorer in Division Two with 1 169 at 64.94.

He is one of seven batsmen in that division to have gone past 1 000 runs thus far, and among three who are South African-born: Lance Klusener of Northamptonshire and Jonathan Trott of Warwickshire are the others.

The evergreen "Zulu", who turns 37 on Thursday, clouted 202 in his last outing against Glamorgan to propel him to the top of the averages with 1 095 at 78.21.

Cape Town-born Trott, who has already played two Twenty20 internationals for England, has 1 020 runs at 63.75. In Division One, Jacques Rudolph, at 27 only approaching his prime, yet a Proteas yo-yo man for several years, is among five batsmen already in four figures each for runs accumulated and bidding to be the season's top-scorer in the elite division.

Competing fiercely

The Yorkshire left-hander has had a commendably consistent season at Headingley and boasts 1 130 runs at 56.50 with five centuries: competing fiercely with him is Kent's Martin van Jaarsveld, another Proteas discard (1 110 at 55.50).

Former England players Marcus Trescothick (1 179) and Mark Ramprakash (1 027) have chart-topping aspirations of their own.

In the Division One bowling department, Ryan McLaren (Kent) boasts the sixth most wickets - 42 at a suitably lean 22.59. Moves are reportedly afoot to try to get the promising all-rounder back "on side" as a South African rather than face the possible peril of the 25-year-old aspiring to strengthen Kevin Pietersen's rampant England yet further one day.

Continue to excel

Meanwhile in Division Two, two bowlers who could very well have enriched the Proteas' vulnerable and footsore ODI attack in England, Charl Langeveldt and Johan van der Wath, continue to excel.

Langeveldt has 50 Championship scalps for Derbyshire at 21.86 and has revelled in UK conditions which require a different approach to the sometimes naively South African "back-of-a-length" monotony. Only two bowlers presently eclipse him for total wickets taken.

Van der Wath, who also bludgeons a long ball down the order - a quality the current Proteas side chronically lacks in the post-Pollock era - has 43 wickets for Northants at 20.13. At 30, this Free State Eagles product is another player who may very well get slightly better before he recedes into the ranks of journeyman.

Food for sobering thought?

[Watanbe]

The upcoming series between India and Australia should be good. Im very happy to hear that Simon Katich has been selected, as a cricketer he has had the worst luck considering hes a fine player!

[eddie_brunette]

Match Drawn, but was good stuff.

edd

[Watanbe]

Ricky Ponting has done it all now, what a wonderful player. Finally scored a century in India. Ishant Sharma is so good, its hard to believe hes only 20, will be a really good player if India manage him well.