• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

How do you rate SA selectors?

jboss

Banned
I for one don't rate them a bit. Kallis looks unlikely for the 1st test and the selectors have brought in Peterson as an extra batsman. This move is hardly logical when a youngster like Elgar is showning amazing form who can open the batting and bring an extra bowling option. In turn Peterson can take the place of Dumminy who will no doubt fail at least half of the test matches due to his technical issue. Surely Prince should not open in the absence of Kallis and move down the order to strengthen it? Whats more is a guy like Mclaren makes the squad ahead of Philander who i back to score more runs, bowl faster and is third highest wicket taker in the domestic four dayers. Ntini is also aging and in horrible form and keeps Tsotsobe out of the squad, who must be feeling that he has better chance going kolpak :P

A string of recent selection scandals needs to be answered: Kuhn in better form than Boucher for a couple of seasons. Tsotsobe never making the squad again after a four wicket haul on ODI debut. Albie on the other hand had almost 6 games in a row of sub par performances before being dropped.

Yes I am ranting but why are SA selectors so hot and cold?
 
Last edited:

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
I've honestly yet to come accross a set of selectors and think "they've done a really good job for a good long while". I'm sure there must be examples of selectors who have and did, but I've only been following selection since the mid-1990s, and it's not remotely easy to assess selection by looking back.
 

Furball

Evil Scotsman
I'm starting a petition for jboss to have his own sub forum where he can post away to his heart's content and I don't have to see it.
 

aussie

Hall of Fame Member
I've honestly yet to come accross a set of selectors and think "they've done a really good job for a good long while". I'm sure there must be examples of selectors who have and did, but I've only been following selection since the mid-1990s, and it's not remotely easy to assess selection by looking back.
Yea other than Kolpak selection & via the quota system, i cant remember SA in my lifetime or reading up, picking any real shockers tbf.

Maybe you could claim Dale Steyn wasn't ready for test or itnernational ccricket when ENG toured in 04/05. He was just wild, although you could see the talent.
 
Last edited:

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
I'm starting a petition for jboss to have his own sub forum where he can post away to his heart's content and I don't have to see it.
And constantly create needless threads that could've and should've been posted in tour threads.

(This one isn't such a thing BTW, but most of his others have been.)
 

TT Boy

Hall of Fame Member
Yea other than Kolpak selection, i cant remember SA in my lifetime or reading up, picking any real shockers tbf.

Maybe you could claim Dale Steyn wasn't ready for test or itnernational ccricket when ENG toured in 04/05. He was just wild, although you could see the talent.
Ontong vs. Australia? Justin Kemp, test cricketer. Been so many.
 

wpdavid

Hall of Fame Member
Maybe you could claim Dale Steyn wasn't ready for test or itnernational ccricket when ENG toured in 04/05. He was just wild, although you could see the talent.
Arguably cost them the series picking Steyn ahead of Langeveldt, who had skittled the tourists in the warm-up game.
 

TT Boy

Hall of Fame Member
Arguably cost them the series picking Steyn ahead of Langeveldt, who had skittled the tourists in the warm-up game.
Didn't Langeveldt have a broken hand and thus wasn't available selection for all the test matches?
 

wpdavid

Hall of Fame Member
Didn't Langeveldt have a broken hand and thus wasn't available selection for all the test matches?
I thought he (Langeveldt) did that after appearing in the one they won. Might be very wrong though.

EDIT
Yup, he did break his hand in the 3rd test, causing him to miss the last two. His initial non-selection was another matter entirely.
 
Last edited:

Matt79

Global Moderator
Well, they've managed the talent well enough to allow the players to bring their team to the top of the world, so they aren't doing too bad a job.

There are always hard luck stories. I understand that Ntini might be getting a spot to get him to 100 tests for optic issues rather than merit - that's a bit poor but shouldn't persist much longer.

One thing I think us armchair experts give less weight to than almost all real life selectors is actual international experience as compared to perceived potential. We're always calling for changes to be made before selectors make them. I think the experience around the world, however, has been that players perform better in settled teams where they don't feel they're one off day from being dropped. It can go too far the other way, but good teams don't as casually throw aside proven performers as often as we call for to occur.
 

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
One thing I think us armchair experts give less weight to than almost all real life selectors is actual international experience as compared to perceived potential. We're always calling for changes to be made before selectors make them. I think the experience around the world, however, has been that players perform better in settled teams where they don't feel they're one off day from being dropped. It can go too far the other way, but good teams don't as casually throw aside proven performers as often as we call for to occur.
Yeah apart from talent, 2 things that successful teams have are players that are not afraid of failure and of being dropped after a couple of bad performances and defined roles.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Arguably cost them the series picking Steyn ahead of Langeveldt, who had skittled the tourists in the warm-up game.
And as I said at the time, Langeveldt being next in line at that point ahead of several better-qualified candidates (David Terbrugge for instance) was also poor. Though Langers was clearly at that point a fair bit better bowler than Steyn (who was then pretty awful, even though the potential was obvious) there were better bowlers than both up and down the country.

Obviously neither of them would've played at all had Nel been fit.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Well, they've managed the talent well enough to allow the players to bring their team to the top of the world, so they aren't doing too bad a job.
Or, equally possibly, the talent is superior enough that in spite of far-from-outstanding selection the team has still risen to the top of the World.

Aside from the fact that I really don't think any one team has been the best around for the last 2-and-a-half years now, and may not be so for another little while yet.
One thing I think us armchair experts give less weight to than almost all real life selectors is actual international experience as compared to perceived potential. We're always calling for changes to be made before selectors make them. I think the experience around the world, however, has been that players perform better in settled teams where they don't feel they're one off day from being dropped. It can go too far the other way, but good teams don't as casually throw aside proven performers as often as we call for to occur.
Speak for oneself. Personally I'm always loath to make changes without a firm batch of poor\good performance to back it up. Obviously there are occasional exceptions (sometimes it's obvious that a change needs to be made instantly in exceptional circumstances) but that's rare.

Some people may call for change far too readily but I'd say it's largely accepted among core fans who truly know the game that consistency of selection, giving each player a fair chance, is important. Every bit as important as picking the best players.
 

shivfan

Banned
I think the SA selectors are doing a pretty good job....

Here's an interesting article on KP and the Saffer quota system....

Kevin Pietersen: the prodigal’s return - Times Online

"When he threw in his lot with England — courtesy of his mother being British — in 2000, it was only a year since South African cricket had made a decisive switch in policy. There were to be no more all-white Test teams and a quota of three non-white players per team was to be imposed on domestic cricket. Pietersen himself enjoyed a privileged white-dominated education. Pietersen’s departure was a direct denunciation of the affirmative action and by implication of the “new” South Africa. The quota system was clearly not ideal when selection in sport is normally based solely on merit, but as Jonty Rhodes once asked: “How do you balance 30 to 40 years of inequality?” It was this that South Africans objected to so vehemently at the time and many still cannot forgive Pietersen."

That said, the animosity towards KP is nowhere near it was during that last tour....

"Now, though, South Africans are more comfortable with the decisions they made in 1999 — and perhaps therefore less hostile to Pietersen. At the time he left, Pietersen’s decision may have raised doubts in their own minds about whether they were doing the right thing. But the fruits of their policies are now regularly being felt. Two non-white players, Loots Bosman and Alviro Petersen, starred in the one-day matches against England, while Makhaya Ntini, the first black African cricketer to play for South Africa, is on the verge of having his status as an all-time legend of South African sport sanctified with a 100th Test cap in Centurion."
 

Top