1st Match - England v South Africa at The Oval

[cricketgateway]

Match started..

 

[Howe_zat]

Chuffed to bits. Well done England

 

[vcs]

Congrats England, big win that.

 

[SeamUp]

Nice one England. Exciting team.

 

[cricketgateway]

Congrats england. Keep going on same.

 

[StephenZA]

Well played England, deserved favourites.

Not great batting from SA, but nothing unexpected or unknown either.

 

[StephenZA]

That Stokes catch was sublime.

 

[PikeyB]

So pleased for them . Now gimmee them points! . I want to feel like a big man at the top of the table for a night .

Still pretty impressed with SA in the field , England have been barging through attacks and SA chilled them right out .

Archer is a crazy bonus . Honestly , I thought he was a risk we didn't have to take in the World Cup . I had him starting in the Ashes all day long but probably would have stuck with the blokes that got us here for this tournament .

 

[Daemon]

Great game with some great moments to kick things off. Normally drubbings are boring but I was thoroughly entertained throughout (maybe barring overs 10-20 for England)

 

[ImpatientLime]

Me too; and this is supposed to be a slowish pitch isn't it? Whilst I totally take Howe's point about 300+ always being more than competitive, it looked far better when we're unable to unleash Archer instead of David Willey. Our two most recent series against Pakistan and WI showed how vulnerable our attack could be.

watching him today I felt like he was holding something back a little v Pakistan.

certainly caught SA by surprise on a multiple occasions.

fella keeps his pace up, even in the longer form when I've seen him down at hove.

 

[chasingthedon]

Markram’s catch pretty impressive, too.

 

[nick-o]

Well, that was a fun day out.

Haven't been to an ODI for decades, but that was a good one to experience.

That Stokes catch was astounding -- I was sitting just a few meters away and it was simply unreal. Archer the real deal too. Getting a real good feeling for this year's team. Bring it on!

 

[thierry henry]

Unbelievably bad analysis throughout this thread, acting like SA were odds on and 300+ was a poor score.

Very kneejerk and a complete lack of perspective, I expect better CW.

 

[Starfighter]

I though England had a good chance, didn't expect that big a margin. Funny how the commentators were going on constantly in about the last 20 overs of England's innings about how good a batting surface it was, despite it not appearing so.

 

[Burgey]

the only way this England team will lose is to have an off day in the knockouts, come up on a slow pitch like champions trophy or something like that

Lol

 

[thierry henry]

I though England had a good chance, didn't expect that big a margin. Funny how the commentators were going on constantly in about the last 20 overs of England's innings about how good a batting surface it was, despite it not appearing so.

I also thought it was funny how coming into the last 10 overs, they were raving about how England average 9.5 RPO at the death. After a wobble from overs 40-45, England scored 46 off the last 5 and all I heard was how they were struggling.

England also scored 100 runs off 15 overs from 25-40 and not once did I hear about how they had done a good job of easily accelerating without losing wickets.

Definitely a bit of perspective missing.

 

[veganbob]

Anyone else feel that stokes catch is very overated?

Its getting so much hype - Im sure ive seen over 300 more impressive catches in cricket before.
It was just a quick jump and a catch from a tall guy. Great catch but there have been 100s that are more impressive than that.

 

[91Jmay]

Anyone else feel that stokes catch is very overated?

Its getting so much hype - Im sure ive seen over 300 more impressive catches in cricket before.
It was just a quick jump and a catch from a tall guy. Great catch but there have been 100s that are more impressive than that.

Bad opinion

 

[mr_mister]

Stokes is a thug who should be in prison but w/e

 

[91Jmay]

Stokes is a thug who should be in prison but w/e

It’s rare you’d get a custodial sentence of any major length even if found guilty for that offence, he’d be out ages ago either way.