"You can quote me on this........"

[Richard]

Well I was talking about the series in Australia. Australia only have to raise their game a touch and SA to play at the usual level of mediocrity they play at and a 3-0 whitewash is well on the cards...whether Australia do raise their game is going to be the interesting aspect over the coming months.

Well, sorry but I think at the moment the Aussies are still a long way ahead of South Africa in tests. South Africa are merely average to good. Australia are very good still and probably on any given day have the ability to destroy any team.

If Gillespie returns... yes.
If not, then they'll just be within the pack and probably inferior to England.
Without Gillespie in top nick, Australia are an attack of two and a batting-line-up not as good as thought.
Albeit England's attack this summer was far better than what SA's is likely to be this winter.

Did Australia really regress that much??? What i saw wasa very fine England team generally playing better than Australia, who, as most people could see, werent playing as well as they could (whether that be due to form, or in the case of the batsmen, because they simply werent able to get into stride vs a very very good England pace attack).

Only one Australian wasn't performing as well as he could - Gillespie.
So far we've, sadly, seen no sign that this will change.
Some, such as Lee, Tait, Clarke and Hayden were exposed as not as good as people wanted to believe they were.
Others, such as Ponting, Katich and Martyn, suffered a little from ill-luck and good deliveries.
Gilchrist was just worked-out, though it is reasonable to guess that SA probably won't be able to do quite such a good job on him.

SA have done very little in recent months/or last couple of years to suggest they are on the climb back to where they were a few years ago, and if England can outplay SA in SA, then Australia can quite easily outplay SA for massive chunks of play in Australia

So the presence of Nel and de Villiers is not a massive improvement from where they were a year ago?
Not to mention the promise of Smith actually playing well against some good bowling.

 

[Swervy]

No, have a look at the actual cricket that's been played.
Believe it or not, that's rather more important than just looking at one single set of numbers.

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Which ever way you flower it up, Trescothick score over 50 3 times vs Australia this summer, not the rather made up figure of getting dismissed every innings under 50.

I suggest you go and re-read the laws of the game, and figure out what a dismissal in cricket actually means.

C_C..come back..all is forgiven

 

[Richard]

have a look at the results Richard...they are almost the definition of average over the last few years...one of those good teams on paper that you love, but as a team dont quite cut it.

No, their results aren't too bad over the last 2 years. They were much the better team in England, managed to lose a brutally fought series in Pakistan that they probably should have drawn, hammered West Indies as you'd expect anyone to, failed to beat New Zealand as they should have done, lost twice in Sri Lanka and India like most people do, just managed to lose at home to England in a somewhat untidy series (even though their catching was superb) and won in West Indies as you'd expect them to.
South Africa are a team lots of people love to dismiss as "not a good enough 'team' " but the reality is they're perfectly good at the small amounts of teamwork that come into cricket.

 

[Richard]

Which ever way you flower it up, Trescothick score over 50 3 times vs Australia this summer, not the rather made up figure of getting dismissed every innings under 50.

I suggest you go and re-read the laws of the game, and figure out what a dismissal in cricket actually means.

I suggest you realise that a number in the scorebook is not the only thing that matters - otherwise no-one but the scorers would need to watch cricket and no-one would be paid for playing it.
You can try and suggest that it's "made-up" or "flowered-up" all you want - fact is you can't change the fact that there's no difference between a let-off and a dismissal as far as the batsman's ability is concerned.

 

[Swervy]

So the presence of Nel and de Villiers is not a massive improvement from where they were a year ago?
Not to mention the promise of Smith actually playing well against some good bowling.

Nel= Australian batsmen should be able to work on his aggression and mash him around the field.
de Villiers= and undoubted talent..and yet still very young unproven. So no, not a massive improvement

The promise???? Despit the fact he has done jack in tests vs any half decent bowling attacks apart from a golden spell of three innings vs only a half decent bowling attack in England.
It will be interesting to see if Smith will have a clue vs McGrath to be honest.

 

[Richard]

erm...are we talking about the same last summer..for me last summer is the one just gone..ie the last summer.

I seem to think with even the B'desh games included he only averaged 40...mainly due to his 160 odd vs Australia (and I wont mention the dropped catch and bowled off a no-ball thing, because I recognise thats part of the game and Vaughan did brilliantly to take advantage of those chances given to him in that innings)....but he was far from consistant

Sorry - last summer meaning 2004.
Vaughan was perfectly good in summer 2004 - he was extremely poor in summer 2005, given that his only innings' of substance against the only relevant opposition of the summer (ie not Bangladesh) needed let-offs.
Which was very disappointing for mine. But one poor summer doesn't make him a poor batsman.

 

[Richard]

Nel= Australian batsmen should be able to work on his aggression and mash him around the field.

Maybe - if aggression and histrionics was all he had going for him.
However, it's not - he's a very skillful and controlled bowler (to use Andrew Miller's expression) and he's got as good a chance as anyone since Allan Donald of knocking-over a decent amount of scalps at a decent average.

de Villiers= and undoubted talent..and yet still very young unproven. So no, not a massive improvement

Anyone with two eyes can see that while de Villiers has only played 2 Test-match attacks he's far from unproven. It'd be a big disappointment if he didn't continue to do well against all attacks he faces.

The promise???? Despit the fact he has done jack in tests vs any half decent bowling attacks apart from a golden spell of three innings vs only a half decent bowling attack in England.
It will be interesting to see if Smith will have a clue vs McGrath to be honest.

If McGrath causes him undue problems it will be very surprising.
The only way to cause Smith problems is inswing, and while McGrath can bowl that he doesn't do so that often.
And Smith should batter Lee and Tait to a pulp, and MacGill if he plays.

 

[Swervy]

No, their results aren't too bad over the last 2 years. They were much the better team in England, managed to lose a brutally fought series in Pakistan that they probably should have drawn, hammered West Indies as you'd expect anyone to, failed to beat New Zealand as they should have done, lost twice in Sri Lanka and India like most people do, just managed to lose at home to England in a somewhat untidy series (even though their catching was superb) and won in West Indies as you'd expect them to.
South Africa are a team lots of people love to dismiss as "not a good enough 'team' " but the reality is they're perfectly good at the small amounts of teamwork that come into cricket.

Yes overall SA did play better than England in England..but couldnt finish the job, they simply werent good enough vs an England team that probably could have play better as well.

vs Pakistan..probably should have drawn???no shouldas, no couldas, its results that matter.

managed to lose to England in SA??? They still lost and a 2-1 to England scoreline flatters SA.

With me, its not a case of loving to dismiss SA as a not a good enough team, I will give credit where credit is due..the simple fact is, they havent performed well enough to be considered much more than a decent team

 

[Richard]

Yes overall SA did play better than England in England..but couldnt finish the job, they simply werent good enough vs an England team that probably could have play better as well.

No, England were packed with rubbish players that summer, were probably saved by the weather at Edgbaston, benefited from the toss at Trent Bridge (as SA did to a lesser extent the next game) and managed to escape from a near-doomed position at The Oval.
As happens sometimes the series scoreline was not a good reflection of the cricket played.

vs Pakistan..probably should have drawn???no shouldas, no couldas, its results that matter.

No, it's not - otherwise people wouldn't watch.
Sometimes series scorelines are not a good indication of the quality of cricket played in a series and this was one such instance - as was the 2003 series in England.

managed to lose to England in SA??? They still lost and a 2-1 to England scoreline flatters SA.

No, it flatters England. Most England players were overrated going into that series. SA managed to expose some of them but not the lot.

With me, its not a case of loving to dismiss SA as a not a good enough team, I will give credit where credit is due..the simple fact is, they havent performed well enough to be considered much more than a decent team

Really? You love to do everything the way others do and deriding SA is (and quite conceivably always has been) the thing done in England. I know you're not from England but you do make an awful song-and-dance about being English and giving credit where it's due to England etc.

 

[Swervy]

Sorry - last summer meaning 2004.
Vaughan was perfectly good in summer 2004 - he was extremely poor in summer 2005, given that his only innings' of substance against the only relevant opposition of the summer (ie not Bangladesh) needed let-offs.
Which was very disappointing for mine. But one poor summer doesn't make him a poor batsman.

never said he was a poor batsman..he is a fine batsman who appears to have developed a few flaws in technique.

But he wasnt 'perfectly good' in 2004, he was pretty damned inconsistant even then...take away the twin hundreds he scored in one test vs WI and he actually did very little in the remaining 6 tests.

In fact, he has pretty much gone half his test career (the last 30 tests give or take one or two) being far from the reliable batsman that many thought he would be, and for me, I hoped he would be..

 

[Swervy]

No, England were packed with rubbish players that summer, were probably saved by the weather at Edgbaston, benefited from the toss at Trent Bridge (as SA did to a lesser extent the next game) and managed to escape from a near-doomed position at The Oval.
As happens sometimes the series scoreline was not a good reflection of the cricket played.

you are right about that..but ask a captain whether he would take a 2-1 series win whilst not playing brilliantly or lose a series 2-1 whilst outplaying the opposition most of the time..and I think you will find that any captain worth his salt will take the win.

No, it flatters England. Most England players were overrated going into that series. SA managed to expose some of them but not the lot.

.

despite most people thinking the most likely result would be an SA series win. Fact is England won twice as many games as SA and were unlucky to not win a third

Really? You love to do everything the way others do and deriding SA is (and quite conceivably always has been) the thing done in England. I know you're not from England but you do make an awful song-and-dance about being English and giving credit where it's due to England etc.

I will only make a song and dance about giving credit to England when people refuse to see how good a team they are, which is what you have done for the past 18 months.

Anyone with half a brain who has watched all of those tests in the last 18 months could recognise how good a team this England team could be/are

 

[Richard]

never said he was a poor batsman..he is a fine batsman who appears to have developed a few flaws in technique.

But he wasnt 'perfectly good' in 2004, he was pretty damned inconsistant even then...take away the twin hundreds he scored in one test vs WI and he actually did very little in the remaining 6 tests.

In fact, he has pretty much gone half his test career (the last 30 tests give or take one or two) being far from the reliable batsman that many thought he would be, and for me, I hoped he would be..

For some of those last 30 Tests he was opening, and he was never cut-out to be an opener at the Test level.
In summer of 2004 he was inconsistent indeed, but he still did well once you factor in those centuries.
In SA he got lots of good balls and overall didn't bat too badly.
This summer, though, his form was genuinely worrying.

 

[Richard]

you are right about that..but ask a captain whether he would take a 2-1 series win whilst not playing brilliantly or lose a series 2-1 whilst outplaying the opposition most of the time..and I think you will find that any captain worth his salt will take the win.

Of course they will - but as I've said several times what "so-and-so would take" isn't really what matters.
It's like bowlers "would take" wickets with rubbish deliveries if it means they take good figures.

despite most people thinking the most likely result would be an SA series win. Fact is England won twice as many games as SA and were unlucky to not win a third

Whaaat? Most people thought a SA win would be most likely? In SA they were natural pessimists - as usual - and in England they were falling over backwards to deride SA, just as they were in 2003.
How SA failed to win both at Kingsmead and The Wanderers is beyond me, and obviously they shot themselves in the foot by hitting the ground stumbling in several ways at PE. And, of course, they lost-out to the weather at Centurion.

I will only make a song and dance about giving credit to England when people refuse to see how good a team they are, which is what you have done for the past 18 months.

Anyone with half a brain who has watched all of those tests in the last 18 months could recognise how good a team this England team could be/are

Nope, beating West Indies and New Zealand wasn't an especially amazing achievement, beating SA and Aus wasn't as much of an achievement as it would have been a year before both teams were defeated. Both were, of course, notable achievements and being the best Test team in The World (as England pretty much are at the moment) isn't a feat to be sniffed at.
But we must take it in the context, as I've said for the last 2 years or so, that World cricket isn't of the highest standard at present.

 

[Maison]

Not just 3 Tests, though, is it? It's 6.
IF Gillespie returns they might. If he doesn't (and, sadly, that looks a possibility), obviously Australia's attack is no stronger than it was this summer. I'd say it's probably realistic to suggest that Warne can't possibly have such a good series again for a little while, and while McGrath is likely to be injured less, if Lee and Tait play (which ATM looks pretty on-the-cards) Australia will have to perform miracles to win even the home series, never mind the away one, 3-0.
Australia are not light-years ahead of SA because they've regressed seriously last summer.

And he succeeded vs India in India...? Guess why? Exactly the same reason he succeeded this summer. LUCK. 2 shocking lbw decisions in his favour in India, and any number of drops and no-balls in England this summer.
Whether or not Australia are The World's top team, their bowling wasn't especially magnificent this summer (and when McGrath was missing it was downright poor) and any team that catches better and bowls less no-balls will get Trescothick for not many if he plays as poorly as he played this summer.

As for the first part of the post, oh my god. nah the australian bowling lineup isn't strong at all (pleeeeease!)

Either you are completely stupid or either you have a short memory, which works at the same rate of a (friggin) gold-fish (i'd say the first one though )

So Warne wont do well again? Why not? "oh you dont know" ? stuff'ya. Who the hell in their right mind would expect McGrath to 'bowl well' and make an impact after his injuries in the Ashes? Obviously Richard did, although last time I checked, if one comes into a match after injury woes its highly unlikely theyll bowl like they would normally ('ala Lords..... oh that.... McGrath sure is poor, he'll be 'downright poor' all year I reckon, even in australia! watch it West Indies, McGrath has gone hero to zero in 1 month!!!)

and on the subject of no-balls? I don't see us bowling 'too many' in the super series? maybe i'm blind.



Perform miracles to win the home series? I think not sir.


Warne looked pretty bald and senile in the Ashes, maybe he should retire, he's not good anymore, he dropped one catch too many *tsk tsk*. Whoopsie he got 40 wickets.....

 

[marc71178]

No, it's pretty likely they'll beat them, it's pretty unlikely that they'll whitewash them.

Have SA brought in a completely new team then?

 

[marc71178]

If he really impressed you by getting out for less than 50 EVERY SINGLE INNINGS

No, he didn't, he got 3 half centuries in his 431 runs @ 43.10.

 

[marc71178]

No, they're actually nowhere near as poor as you and plenty of other Englishmen like to think they are.

Even though 2-1 greatly flattered them against an England side only playing at about 75%

 

[marc71178]

South Africa are a team lots of people love to dismiss as "not a good enough 'team' " but the reality is they're perfectly good at the small amounts of teamwork that come into cricket.

If they're "perfectly good" at teamwork, what does that make this current England side?

 

[marc71178]

I suggest you realise that a number in the scorebook is not the only thing that matters

Sorry, so what is the result dependant on then?

 

[marc71178]

No, it flatters England. Most England players were overrated going into that series. SA managed to expose some of them but not the lot.

You are the most blind person on this forum.

SA were lucky to get away with 2-1 against an England side that was nowhere near its best.

They played something like that in the Ashes and beat Australia 2-1 (again a scoreline that in all honesty didn't reflect the performances) - yet it's England who are over-rated, and SA the decent side