Why aren't South Africa a better side?

[Goughy]

Originally Posted by Pratyush

Because

1) Case can be made for colored players being favoured to an extent even in Cronje's time.
2) There are other big factors which cannot be ignored. For instance..

South Africa don't have Allan Donald now or a big replacement. Pollock is declining. South Africa don't have the all rounders they had before. The captain isn't black and yet he isn't half as good as Cronje was.

I wouldn't put it down to 1 reason frankly.

1) It was nowhere close to the current situation. Cronje had a near all white team. Gibbs and Adams played some games but there is a case to be made that they got there on merit not on tokenism. Gibbs was well known coming out of his 'white' school and Adams filled a void that SA had. It was not as if he was keeping a long line of talented white spinners from playing. As well as being good publicity, he could possibly have been the best available at the time. As for Ntini, he only played 4 games under Cronje and is irrelevant in this discussion.

Quite simply there was nowhere near the pressure of quotas, targets etc during Cronjes reign and that made the team vastly superior as it had the nations best players on the field.

2) The current captain is a fool. Of that I agree. This is pure speculation, not fact based like the other stuff I mention, but I cant help but think that part of the reason he was appointed so young is that he was inexperienced and politically weak and could be easier controlled by the board.

An ovioulsy there is no Allan Donald. These are all factors, but secondary to the fact that there is a system that prevents the best XI playing.

[Goughy]

Originally Posted by Langeveldt

There are no Quota players in SA's 1st XI as far as I'm concerned

[Pratters]

Originally Posted by Goughy

An ovioulsy there is no Allan Donald. These are all factors, but secondary to the fact that there is a system that prevents the best XI playing.

Right we disagree on the degree of effect of colour selection compared to other factors when comparing RSA under Cronje vs RSA now.

Cheers..

[Langeveldt]

Originally Posted by Goughy

Name them then?! Gibbs? Ntini? Prince? All in on merit in my book..

In ODI's Peterson is a token pick, but thats about it.. In the test game, Tsolekile and Peterson are the only players I can think of who were picked because of the colour of their skin.

[Goughy]

Originally Posted by Langeveldt

Name them then?! Gibbs? Ntini? Prince? All in on merit in my book..

In ODI's Peterson is a token pick, but thats about it.. In the test game, Tsolekile and Peterson are the only players I can think of who were picked because of the colour of their skin.

2 quick points

- Its not a question of whether you think they exist, its a matter of it being a fact. It has been mandated that the ODI squad for the WC must have 6-7 players of colour.

- Since Cronje retired 8 non-white players have debuted. With Gibbs and Ntini usually taking 2 of the min 3 pref 4 places.

Prince- Debuted far too early and was not ready. Was given every oppotunity and groomed to be an important player. Given special treatment within SA cricket to be groomed to fill one of the quota places. Still not in the top 8-10 batsmen in SA
Amla- Debuted far too early and was not ready. I actually rate him but I know your opinion
Tsolekile- Not good enough and not in the top 5 keepers in SA IMO
Ngam- Debuted far to early and not good enough.
Ontong- Not a good enough batsman and bowler and debuted before he was close to deserving it.
Langeveldt- Decent player, not top class or real test quality
Peterson- Not quite sure what he does. Equally bad with bat and ball.
Zondeki- Debuted before he was ready and not skilled enough

Now don't get me wrong. Few of these are terrible cricketers, they are just not the best in SA. An all non-white SA team would be far too strong for Zim and Bang.

Its just silly to think that there are not targets at the International level. The reason a lot of these guys were thrown in too early is because of political pressure and to fill a gap in the quota.

[Johnners]

Whatever Happened to Neil McKenzie?? From what i recall he was a classy batsmen, and made a brilliant 4th innings knock to win SA's only test match against Australia in the 01-02 series. Of late, from what i've seen, his first class form has been strong, and imo he's a better bat than Amla, and several other players who's names were mentioned as candidates for a middle order spot. Surely this was due to coloured player selection quota than anything else?

[tooextracool]

Originally Posted by Goughy

Firstly it should be pointed out that they are not that bad in Tests and if anything has let them down recently it has been their catching.

Also they are favourites to beat India and Pakistan in this SA summer.

However, addressing your point. The players you mention are not as good as you state.

Smith- Technical issue that has been exploited, problems handling the pressures of captaincy have put an additional burden on his batting
Gibbs- A touch player that can never be relied upon. Best suited to going in with smith at the top of the order, but often fails to get his feet moving and scores runs by throwing his hands at the ball rather than transfering weight i.e. plays away from his body
Kallis- No arguments, World Class
Pollock- On the down side of his career. No longer the player he was 5 years ago. Bowls medium pace and is no longer penetrative.
Ntini- In a golden run of form. Still has a terrible record outside SA. I have issues with his variation and how he takes wickets but he theoretically could continue to be this successful
Boucher- Wicketkeeper and lower end batsman. Limited in what he can do to win games. A very average batsman at Test level
Prince- Not a young man anymore and not a Test quality player. His future is limited by new players coming through and his own lack of ability. He is only just an above average player on the SA domestic scene
Nel- Is it too early to call him finished? Maybe but he is nowhere near the player he was in the West Indies a few years ago. From 150 kpm to 125-130 kpm in a couple of years. A shadow of his former self and his test spot is under threat.

Agree with everything you said. Top post.

[Goughy]

Originally Posted by Pratyush

Secondly, Prince deserved his chance after FC run beginning from 2003/04 and hasn't exactly done much wrong after being given a chance. So please cut the slack.

Cant believe I missed this 1st time round. Prince has not done anything Domestically in FC since 2003/04.

2003/04 ranked 46th in batting average
2004/05 ranked 41st in batting average
2005/06- Did not play SA domestic FC

The following batsmen scored more runs AND at a better average in BOTH 03/04 AND 05/06

Puttick
Z de Bruyn
JP Duminy
H Amla
DJ Cullinan
JL Ontong
D Jacobs
M van Wyk

and that obviously does not include International players as they are on duty.

Ranking over 40th for 2 years in a row does not qualify as a good run.

[tooextracool]

Originally Posted by Clapo

Whatever Happened to Neil McKenzie?? From what i recall he was a classy batsmen, and made a brilliant 4th innings knock to win SA's only test match against Australia in the 01-02 series. Of late, from what i've seen, his first class form has been strong, and imo he's a better bat than Amla, and several other players who's names were mentioned as candidates for a middle order spot. Surely this was due to coloured player selection quota than anything else?

Was an appalling player of spin. Dont know if hes improved since then, perhaps he deserves more chances over Rudolph and co.

[tooextracool]

What about the lack of emergence of any quality all rounder? Kallis and Pollock dont merit being called all rounders these days, and back in the 90s when they were actually competitive they had players like Klusener(for a while), a young Pollock and Brian Mcmillan who were more than useful with both ball and bat.

[Nnanden]

Originally Posted by Jono

- Ordinary at playing spin
- Have no attacking spinner
- Captain lacks tactically
- Inconsistent batting line-up based solely on batting depth rather than batting stars (Take Kallis out and it hurts more than Ponting from Aus, Dravid from India (only just mind you), Inzy from Pak etc.)
- Drops catches

Good call, didn`t pause to think about the captaincy or fielding.

[Pratters]

Originally Posted by Goughy

Cant believe I missed this 1st time round. Prince has not done anything Domestically in FC since 2003/04.

In FC cricket:

Excellent home series versus Sri Lanka A including this match where he scored 182* and 56*. Season's home FC matches including SA A and Western Province has Prince at a solid 64.5. Above him are these specific players who are not internationals and played at least 4 FC matches:

De Bruyn, Jaarsveld, Duminy. Jaarsveld got his chances. Not sure why Bruyn was dropped but he did get some chances. Duminy is young and would have to perform more to get into the team.

Prince didn't get his chance just after that. He played more FC matches in 2004 and 2004-05 seasons before he got his chance in that season.

This included a tour to Zimbabwe with RSA A in 2004 (2 matches), 3 matches versus New Zealand A in 2004-5, a match versus England A and Domestic FC matches.

The three innings he played versus NZ A containted 43, 103 and 16. 2004/05 domestically he was very poor though. Got confused regarding it some how. My bad. Definitely not a run in 04-05.

He did have two impressive matches in his last few matches leading up to his national selection though - 184 and a 50 in a match which included major South Africa players including captain Smith. May that got him the selection. I don't feel it is colour specifically.

[wpdavid]

Well that's a relief then - we can ignore the decline in the quality of white players produced by SA and blame it on those dasterdly non-whites. The fact that they haven't come close to replacing Donald, Kirsten, Cullinan &, in effect, Pollock who's only a shadow of his former self? Apparently irrelevant. Likewise the fact that fixtures like Gibbs & Ntini are worth their place whatever their skin colour. Likewise the fact that there' s been plenty of moderate whites over the last few years as well as the non-whites of a similar standard.

Even to an outside like me, it's obvious that the summary dismissal of most of the non-whites earlier in this thread was simplistic. Personally, I was delighted that Langveldt was ignored for Dale Steyn at the start of England's last tour, especially after CL had skittled us in the previous week's warm-up. Sure enough, the SA attack couldn't hit a barn door and we won the 1st test at a canter. AFAICS Prince & Amla are not obviously lesser players than Dippenaar, Rudolph, Van Jaarsfeld or McKenzie. Take away their boot-filling exercises against Bang and/or Zim, they're all moderate. Ngam actually did really well in is handful of games until injuries kicked in. Zondeki was probably a bit lucky to be picked in 2003, but he gutsed it out with the bat to set up a famous win at Headingly, so he didn't exactly let anybody down. I'll grant you Tsolekile and Ontong, but how many games did they play anyway?

Pratyush was spot on. They haven't found adequate replacements for their best players in the 1990's / early 2000's. Even more importantly, whereas Cronje's side dug in and exceeded the sum of their parts, this lot tend to do slightly the opposite (although they're not too special anyway). And from where I'm sat, the captain doesn't help a lot either.

There's maybe an interesting discussion to be had about why they overachieved in the 1990's. I reckon that starting with a generation who spent much of their careers missing out through SA's isolation probably did alot for team spirit ("NOW we'll show them ..."), and obviously that can't be replicated. But the fact that Cronje was a smarter captain probably had more to do with it.

[silentstriker]

SPIN BOWLING

It's really pretty simple. They aren't really any other glaring needs.

People are listing weaknesses, and no, they aren't Australia, but they are solid in batting, fielding and pace bowling.

They need a spinner who can take over in the 4th innings.

You guys have to stop overanalyzing .

[Goughy]

Originally Posted by wpdavid

Well that's a relief then - we can ignore the decline in the quality of white players produced by SA and blame it on those dasterdly non-whites.

Clueless, offensive and naive.

People should be quiet when they have little understanding of internal works of a situation.

Quotas have weakened SA cricket. Fact. Where are the new Donalds etc, well the current format makes it more difficult for white cricketers to make it.

If you know anything about Donalds early career and anything about the current situation, it would be likely he would not have made it in the present day or would have ended up playing for England.

I love it when people voice pseudo-authorative opinions on subjects they know so very little about.