Beige Brigade Interview

[Smudge]

Whatever! im more of a Cantabrian anyway.

Slightly off-topic, but my mum moved to Auckland about three years ago, and has found it's been very hard to meet neighbours compared to in Dunedin. People seem to be a lot more aloof and more concerned about living to work in Auckland.

 

[mavric41]

The interview was a good read. I particularly liked his view on the 20/20 game and his experiances with the players. Thank you for asking my question (why beige?) He gave a pretty good answer. I just wish I thought of this question before - are all your members Kiwis?

 

[Grubb]

Nice interview James; had a good chuckle here and there. Cheers. Just out of interest, was it face to face or via email? I'm assuming email?

 

[Scaly piscine]

"As a game it's all about momentum - if you slip behind by losing a few wickets then you're stuffed so from a cricket watcher's viewpoint it lacks the ebb and flow that even a one-dayer provides."

That would explain why Australia were 54-4 and scored 214-5 then. While NZ were 49-0 after 5 overs and got nowhere near the 215 target.

 

[James]

Yes - was done via email guys. The easiest and most straight forward way of doing it

 

[Richard]

You what?

England played nowhere near their best in SA, and should've done far better.

How is people saying that praising England?

No, SA played nowhere near their best against England, and should have beaten what wasn't actually a particularly fantastic England side.

 

[Somerset]

Great interview, a fantastic read. Extremely pleased that my question was asked too, but great work to get the opportunity to interview them, James.

 

[marc71178]

No, SA played nowhere near their best against England, and should have beaten what wasn't actually a particularly fantastic England side.

That's a strange one - don't remember anyone else saying that, but then again, what would the rest of us know compared to you?

 

[Richard]

The rest of us might well believe that Harmison, Anderson and Key were capable of doing better. I simply believe their substandardness was exposed. And that Butcher and Vaughan underperformed.
As for Strauss, no-one could possibly have predicted he'd do as well as he did; and I don't think many would have guessed Hoggard'd take 12 in a match, either.
I believe that Smith, Dippenaar and Kallis the bowler were capable of doing much better; and that Boucher and Nel playing from the start would have made a difference.
Of course, those who've observed England over the last year wouldn't like that take on things, but then again - they wouldn't.

 

[Swervy]

and so England yet again cant get credit for outplaying their opponents

 

[Richard]

No, just Strauss deserves credit for being exceptional beyond belief, Hoggard deserves credit for one brilliant game, Flintoff for bowling relatively well, and Trescothick, Thorpe, Vaughan and S. Jones deserve some credit for doing sporadically well; and Flintoff and G. Jones the batsmen deserve a bit of credit.
Harmison, Anderson and Key certainly don't deserve much credit; nor, sadly, does Butcher.

 

[Scaly piscine]

and so England yet again cant get credit for outplaying their opponents

I wouldn't take too much notice of the overzealous SA fan. The rest of the planet can clearly see England are a better side than SA and that had both sides played near to their best England would have wiped the floor with SA in the Tests.

 

[Smudge]

Can't we move this discussion to the SA-Eng tour thread?

 

[Richard]

I wouldn't take too much notice of the overzealous SA fan. The rest of the planet can clearly see England are a better side than SA and that had both sides played near to their best England would have wiped the floor with SA in the Tests.

I wouldn't take much notice of the overzealous England fan.
Anyone with any cricketing sense can tell that had South Africa hit the ground running instead of stumbling then they might well have exposed more of England's overrated bowlers as substandard instead of just 2, and quite possibly won the series too.

 

[Swervy]

I wouldn't take much notice of the overzealous England fan.
Anyone with any cricketing sense can tell that had South Africa hit the ground running instead of stumbling then they might well have exposed more of England's overrated bowlers as substandard instead of just 2, and quite possibly won the series too.

well it was SA's job to 'hit the ground running'..its a distinct advantage of playing at home to be in a position to do that...but SA didnt grab hold of that advantage...and so tough luck, they lost the series, and on the whole were outplayed by a superior team on a roll

 

[Richard]

Yes, but had they played to their potential they would beyond all question have both won the series and exposed more of England's players as substandard.
Plenty of England's players looked better than they were - more South Africans looked less good than they are.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Only a complete fruitcake could think a team that had recently lost to India and Pakistan and only scraped a draw with NZ could possibly be better than a team that had just won 10 out of the last 11 Tests.

 

[Smudge]

Can't we move this discussion to the SA-Eng tour thread?

Allow me to repeat myself.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Allow me to repeat myself.

Yea I forgot how everyone here is suppressing discussion on a thread that died five days ago. If you actually want to do something useful you would say something relating to the thread to get it back on topic instead of just making pointless statements about how this should be moved (since when did you become a mod anyway and I notice you only seem to care when it's me that's off topic) when you're just as bad as other off-topic posters by making those statements. If you must complain you should be e-mailing the mods not adding to the off topic count.

 

[Smudge]

Yea I forgot how everyone here is suppressing discussion on a thread that died five days ago. If you actually want to do something useful you would say something relating to the thread to get it back on topic instead of just making pointless statements about how this should be moved (since when did you become a mod anyway and I notice you only seem to care when it's me that's off topic) when you're just as bad as other off-topic posters by making those statements. If you must complain you should be e-mailing the mods not adding to the off topic count.

Somone's a touch hypersensitive...

I care when it's the same old discussions taking over a thread that started out as something totally different - while some posters may be common villains (and it may come as some surprise to you that I wasn't thinking of you when I posted the message), my message goes out to anyone who is regurgitating the same old topics.

I've never said I was a mod, and if I was, wouldn't I have moved/closed the discussion, rather than asking nicely for it to move?

Can't we move this discussion to the SA-Eng tour thread?

See?