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Fanie De Villiers Hits out on the state of RSA cricket

Slow Love™

International Captain
I heard the other day he was lamenting the fact that nobody asked Pat Symcox, who was commentating during the Asia Cup, about what might be needed to beat the Sri Lankans.

Has anybody ever visited Pat Symcox's website? He's a grade A tosser (and he was an extremely ordinary player). De Villiers has a column there, and as a writer, he makes a great cricketer. What annoys me particularly about De Villiers is that he's been carping the same line since the World Cup, and all it ever seems to be is rehash after rehash of "put us whiteys back in charge" (in coded language, ie "previously advantaged"). As well as blaming the current "crisis" on racial quotas. Is he suggesting that Ntini and Gibbs shouldn't be in the team? It seems like a case of the players in general plummeting out of form (and confidence) to me, and not really a case of black players that wouldn't ordinarily get a game.

His comments about Eric Simons were true enough though. What the hell was Simons thinking???

Oh, as a clue to how hilarious Symcox's site is, I just now had to answer the following quiz question to even get access to his site:

Who is coach of Pakistan?

* Rameez Raja
* Javed Miandad
* Saeed Anwar

How about "none of the above", Pat. Hilariously, if you answer "incorrectly", the page reloads and says "try again!"
 
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_Ed_

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I've always hated Symcox since his unsporting behaviour in deliberately bowling a wide that went for 4 to try and stop Astle from getting his 100 when NZ only needed a few runs to win.
 

Tim

Cricketer Of The Year
One thing for certain is that they made a big mistake in selecting Duminy. I thought Albie Morkel performed well in NZ & his medium pace bowling would have been handy on the Sri Lankan pitches..but not to be.

What does Richard have to say about Duminy after calling him better than Graeme Smith at such a young age?...batting the poor guy at #8 is bizarre.
 

Langeveldt

Soutie
Tim said:
What does Richard have to say about Duminy after calling him better than Graeme Smith at such a young age?...batting the poor guy at #8 is bizarre.

Maybe the reason he has been performing so poorly is due to the fact he is at eight?
 

Langeveldt

Soutie
I am afraid I agree with De Villers' viewpoint, there is a lot of untapped wisdom in South African cricket.. And I am sure quite a few people deep down would rather see a mixed race team that performs poorly than an all white XI at the top of the world...

At the moment, we have a mainly white team who are performing badly, so nobody is a winner...

However, in keeping with the rest of South African society, for all the great things going on, common sense does go out of the window frequently... Unfortunatly the time has not come yet when one is a "cricketer", not a "black cricketer" or "white cricketer"
 

Tim

Cricketer Of The Year
He wasn't batting at eight in every game was he?...thats probably got something to do with it. But coming into a team thats playing poorly must also be affecting him.
 

Arjun

Cricketer Of The Year
Symcox is a joker at times- when he was asked whom he would select for England in the Trent Bridge Test (SA were leadin 1-0 in the 2003 summer), he picked Boycott, Gooch, Gower, Botham and Willis, even went as far as Trueman.

Is JP Duminy a batsman or a spinner? He hardly gets much of either role.

SA are not using Lance Klusener well. He needs to be sent higher up the order, where his big hitting can swing the match their way, as it did in the past. At 9, he can do very little. There is a lot of balance in this side, but is put to little use.
 

marc71178

Eyes not spreadsheets
I think SA could be in danger of sliding backwards very quickly, and I reckon a lot of that is to do with the quota system over the past few years.
 

Langeveldt

Soutie
marc71178 said:
I think SA could be in danger of sliding backwards very quickly, and I reckon a lot of that is to do with the quota system over the past few years.
Well, Kevin Pietersen should be batting at five for starters..
 

DocHead

School Boy/Girl Captain
Who's Kevin Pietersen? The former Natal Dolphins guy? I don't know too much about him, so I can't comment.

Unless you mean Robin Pietersen, at which point I'd guess changing your avatar has had a serious impact on your head somehow. :) He shouldn't even be in the squad. But it's hard to argue that he *isn't* the 3rd best tweaker in SA. Jeez, SA needs to kidnap some 18yr old spinners from India & Pakistan's 1st Class teams. :)

Shwoar to the new look hey.
 

superkingdave

Hall of Fame Member
DocHead said:
Who's Kevin Pietersen? The former Natal Dolphins guy? I don't know too much about him, so I can't comment.

Unless you mean Robin Pietersen, at which point I'd guess changing your avatar has had a serious impact on your head somehow. :) He shouldn't even be in the squad. But it's hard to argue that he *isn't* the 3rd best tweaker in SA. Jeez, SA needs to kidnap some 18yr old spinners from India & Pakistan's 1st Class teams. :)

Shwoar to the new look hey.
I think he means Kevin Pietersen who came to England saying he couldn't get a fair run because of the quota system and averages 50 in first class cricket - probably will make his ODI debut against South Africa

http://www.cricinfo.com/db/PLAYERS/RSA/P/PIETERSEN_KP_03008107/
 

Langeveldt

Soutie
DocHead said:
Who's Kevin Pietersen? The former Natal Dolphins guy? I don't know too much about him, so I can't comment.

Unless you mean Robin Pietersen, at which point I'd guess changing your avatar has had a serious impact on your head somehow. :) He shouldn't even be in the squad. But it's hard to argue that he *isn't* the 3rd best tweaker in SA. Jeez, SA needs to kidnap some 18yr old spinners from India & Pakistan's 1st Class teams. :)

Shwoar to the new look hey.
Yeah, Kevin Pietersen, think he was in the Standard Bank cup winning Dolphins team, might not have been though..

As much as I hate to say it, he is really a class act, and should be propping up the SA middle order...

No I havent gone insane, Robbie Peterson really is the lowest quality I have seen come out of SA..

As for Kristin Davis.. She's not low quality, but a bit rare :pimp:
 

DocHead

School Boy/Girl Captain
He was in the squad, hardly in the team though. He couldn't nudge Goolam Bodi out of the side. As for his quota whine, I don't agree with him. He was the 2nd spinner, and Bodi was the established #1, no way Natal are going to play 2 spinners at Kingsmead.

Looks like he's done well, and good on him, but I don't think quotas had anything to do with it.

I'd like Jon Kent to be given a run at some time, although last season's form wouldn't have done his chances much good. Looks class when he's in touch though. Hashim Amla is also someone they've harped on about for a while without actually calling him up.

She's the only reason I can think of to watch *** in the City. :)
 

Langeveldt

Soutie
DocHead said:
She's the only reason I can think of to watch *** in the City. :)

Heheh, Damn right.. Ideal situation is her on *** in the city with the sound down, so you don't have to listen to the other irrelevant ones harp on...

Looks like we now have enough fans to start the first ever KDAS!!
 

marc71178

Eyes not spreadsheets
DocHead said:
As for his quota whine, I don't agree with him. He was the 2nd spinner, and Bodi was the established #1, no way Natal are going to play 2 spinners at Kingsmead.

But what about his batting?!
 

DocHead

School Boy/Girl Captain
At the time, Bodi was a decent enough batsmen. The Dolphins had enough of them, when Kluesener & Polly were away, we were struggling to get pacemen who hit 130.

I know little about him, so I can't comment, all I can say is there wasn't too much fuss when he left. There was just a little article on the 3rd Sports page saying he'd left. He's doing well now, so well done to him.

Maybe we should've looked after him better, our selectors are far too conservative, from top to bottom. Anyone in Natal could've told you what a class act Neil Johnson was, but he never even got a look into the SA side. Looks like Natal's loss will be England's gain. Se la vie.
 

BoyBrumby

Englishman
Is losing quality South African-born sportsman to other countries endemic in SA?

Notwithstanding the recent tri-nations win (& fair play to you for that) we've recently had Abbott & Stevens elect to play for us and Vickerman & Rathbone (who is kwality ) turn out for the Aussies.

Is this all the fault of quota lists? I'd be interested to hear a South African perspective on this.
 

DocHead

School Boy/Girl Captain
Until Rathebone it was all low profile guys like Nic Pothas, de Villiers for France or guys who had been born in SA but grew up abroad, eg. Mehrtens. Nobody knew about them until they were picked for France or England.

I'd never heard of Kevin Pietersen until I read in the paper he was leaving.

Rathebone has come in for a *lot* of stick, because he was being groomed. We knew he was something special. I really didn't like him up to a few weeks ago, he's still a bit annoying. But after hearing his side, he wasn't treated very well by SARFU, and the Brumbies really put in a huge effort.

We have had some crap administrators recently, especially on the Rugby side. People who just think that they can walk on water. It's starting to creep into Cricket as well now. Some players have been treated very badly by administrators who think they're the real stars.

It seems other countries are more adept at identifying gems in the rough than we are. Unless there's something really special about a young player, they tend not to get much attention from the national selectors or the academies.
 

BoyBrumby

Englishman
That's interesting. Pietersen's a player of definite test potential who seems to have slipped through the SA net. I think he himself has had a moan about not being given a proper go because of the quota system.

I am surprised that De Villiers wasn't a high profile defection. In the northern hemisphere at least the pundits are always in raptures over the quality of his scrummaging. Matt Stevens looks pretty useful too, more of a mobile running prop than a scrum monster tho. Perhaps you just have loads of top-notch players?! :D
 

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