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Best & Worst Declarations

GIMH

Norwood's on Fire
Seem to remember Strauss pulling a similar declaration in the first test against India last year. A bit closer to 500 towards the end of day two, after half of day one had been lost. Reactions from certain posters were similar iirc
 

Top_Cat

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Indeed, he's wrong because of the manner in which the game played out, not the result.
Yeah. I mean imagine if there was another hour's worth of rain and the match was drawn (and there could very well have been), would that have changed whether the declaration was a good one or not?
 

Son Of Coco

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
The problem as I see it Scaly is that you apply the same formula for declarations to every single match, i.e you should never declare under 500, and you ignore all the other variables that go into the game - like where it's being played, the weather forecast for the whole 5 days, the fact that a bowler got injured and couldn't bowl, how the wicket's going to play out over the 5 days etc etc

In short, basically what Benchmark said.
 

Son Of Coco

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Think he backed his team to again outperform Srilanka in the second innings, so fair enough but would have been interesting if he had declared if it was some other team.

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But that's just it isn't it? You take into account who you are playing and what you think you need to score (amongst other things), you don't just say "We'll try to get 550 plus every game and see what happens from there".

I think it's also possible Clark thought they'd have a crack at getting into the top order while the wicket was doing a bit early on.
 

BoyBrumby

Englishman
Seem to remember Strauss pulling a similar declaration in the first test against India last year. A bit closer to 500 towards the end of day two, after half of day one had been lost. Reactions from certain posters were similar iirc
Howe, Scaly, PEWS & Bun anti; Brumby pro.

QED I reckon. :cool:
 

BeeGee

International Captain
This thread is a thoroughly good read. Kudos all round.

And I agree with Benchy.

And, fyi, I also nailed Jono's sister.
 
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BoyBrumby

Englishman
Smith's closure today then...?

I mean, SA probably have enough and all but I thought it mildly disrespectful to NZ, who aren't quite Bangladesh or Zimbabwe yet.

Not like time was a real factor; nothing to have been lost by Steyn and Vern having a jolly slog for a bit.
 

wellAlbidarned

International Coach
It's kept the game ever so slightly alive but that's not the captains job. He should've let the tail have a swing to frustrate us. Trailing by only 300 means we've still got a realistic goal to shoot for - making SA bat again. Another 100 runs and I don't think we'd have seen the same resistance.
 

Howe_zat

Audio File
No side in Test history has ever overturned a 300+ lead. How many more do you need to make a significant difference to that? 100 maybe? 50 would be minimum. And they were 8 down, including all the batsmen, so it's not like putting on more than another 50 was really on the cards. Their fast bowlers getting injured or at least knackered seems a lot more likely than getting them enough runs to make a difference.

Weighing up what they could've lost with what they could have gained, it was a sound declaration. Not entirely necessary, but completely justifiable.
 
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