Cricket season

Karma wrote: My 2c re the withering Protea's.....

Every single world cup year we find ourselves in the same position... For 3 years prior to WC year, we seem to have and idea of our "best" team and generally have a very "settled" team barring the odd change for Injuries and rest periods... Yet 6-12 months before the WC we seem to get our heads so far into the ground and the light seems to disappear altogether....

I would love to know, with the starting line ups for our first 2 games, how many ODI's have these teams started together in the last year??? Honestly not knowing the answer, i am willing to go out on a limb and say 0... Max 1.....

Lets not forget that this is professional sport, not club cricket. The small margins is what makes the difference.... On their day the 8 ranked team can beat the 3rd ranked team if those small differences fall in their favour. This brings me to 3 specific players - Amla, Steyn and Ngidi.....

Amla, no need to bring up his form over the last couple years. However, barring the unfortunate family crisis with his dads health, guess what he decided to do just before the WC started.... Yip you guessed it, pull out of franchise cricket to do work in the nets... Sorry, but if you cannot cut it at provincial level out on the park, what do you expect to do on the biggest stage...

Steyn - Imvho, even without injury, he would not be in my squad. Steyn has lost his intimidation factor aswell as a few clicks on the speedometer. He is not the force of old. He is riddled with injury and i just cannot see him blowing teams away. Lets also not forget that Steyn is one of those bowlers who needs alot of bowling to start reaching his peak... Which means that should he play every match from now until the end of the WC, he might get max 100 overs under the belt.... So he should start hitting close to peak levels just after the WC is over....

Ngidi - No doubt a talent and at his age, i too would have tried to rush him into the squad after injury..... If he did not have a injury record like he does.... I liken him to an Australian, whom IMVHO, is one of the best quickies in world cricket, Pat Cummins... As a youngster he burst onto the scene, but like Ngidi plagued with injuries.Cricket Australia went back to their franchise level and told them he would not bowl more than X amount of balls at practice and in matched. He was basically in the wilderness for close on 2 years. This allowed his body time to adjust to the demands required playing international cricket. He has come back better than ever, and barring me putting the mockers on him, he has stayed relatively injury free.... Instead of running Ngidi into the ground, we should surely be looking into this direction.. After all, we did have a young bowler hitting speeds of 150+, yet after a year or so, he saw his whole career done by injuries after being pushed to hard... Remember a chap named Ngam..... I would hate to see this happen to Ngidi.

So while other teams are fine tuning their squads for the WC, SA are trying to find out who their squad is, and on top of it, instead of taking 15 fully fit match ready players, we take 12 or 13 fit players, and probably 5 extra physios and doctors... No wonder we cannot compete when its WC time.... Hell, 2 games into the WC and the coaches are still scratching their heads wondering what our line up should be.........

Karma wrote: IMVHO, this is CSA trying to find excuses so there is no massive sweep out of old wood... If we had won 3 / 3 or even 2/3, i honestly believe we would never have heard a whisper about this.....

chicken n chips wrote: Looking forward to the Ashes starting Thursday at Edgebaston. Should be a hard fought close series. Australias hope is to see off the new ball and hope that Warner is fit. Starc should get around 25 wickets and Lyon will have to bowl well in all 5 tests. England have the momentum and the only worry that they have is that the opener Burns is off form. Anderson should pick up plenty of wickets and i think the key for England will be Buttlers batting especially if he comes in at 6.

Sitting on the fence here 2-2 with the Oval test a draw.

chicken n chips wrote: A broken man 18 months ago to one who has taken his punishment and now scores a century in both inning of an Ashes test. Smith is one heck of a player.

chicken n chips wrote: 122/8 on the first day to come back and win by 251 runs must rank as one of the great comebacks in test cricket. Think England will have to drop at least 4 players for the 2nd test. Australia will play Starc and Hazelwood in place of Pattinson and Siddle. Archer will come in for Anderson and I think that they will drop Ali and maybe Denley and Bairstow.