South Africa the only unconquered fortress

[Aiden]

When is India touring SA again?

[Number]

5 hours ago, G_B_ said:

The problem I see for South africa is there are not many good young batsman coming through. The bowling is really good. Especially at home. Even Maharaj is a decent spinner.

 

Going forward its the middle order where SA need to bolster themselves. In series v India AB managed to paper over a lot of cracks. He is gone now. Faf and Amla will be around for 3-4 more years I suspect.

South African batting was really good in 2009-13 with Smith ABDV Amla Kallis but other than that they have never been a batting powerhouse in my memory.

Even in 90s and early 2000s they used to have Rhodes Hudson Ackerman type players filled in their M.O.

 

[MechEng]

11 hours ago, Gollum said:

Neither of the extremes. We should feel good about our achievements, no matter how small or comfortable the task. I didn't follow the Australia tour but  I am sure it must have been impressive, no Australian side not even the Packer depleted ones surrendered easily at home. Australia is like Germany (football, hockey) of the cricket world, especially at home. 

 

But we can't hold on to them forever. Look at Australia in cricket or NZ in Rugby, they have won so much that their past victories are just expected logical outcomes for them. Nobody loses their mind latching on to past successes all the time, that is minnow mentality. The impetus should always be on the present and future, never the past. When Chris Evert won every single tennis tournament in the calendar (rare feat) she was asked by the press what next?  She replied 'to win everything once again, and then again and again'. And she did precisely that, that is what great champions do. 

 

We have historically been a poor cricket nation and inspite of an early initiation we started getting success very late. We still are nowhere near fulfilling our potential, with our human resources and status of the sport in India we should dominate ruthlessly. After so many years we still have so many gaping holes in our system and there is no push to improve it. If everything is done perfectly we should be able to field 4 Indian teams and they should be the top 4 teams in the world. At some point WI and Australia were good enough to field 2 world beater teams and we have numerous advantages over them. Cricket is a dying sport outside Asia and is going the kabaddi route, it isn't inconceivable that in 20 years time all SENAW teams will field brown majority teams, locals there have lost interests and participation in grass roots level is at an all time low. We will beat SA in the future I am sure, mainly because of their quota system and loss of interest among white population.

 

But the hard facts remain valid today, we lose a lot more in SENA than we win, we haven't won an ICC tournament in a very long time and we are yet to become a professional outfit. There is a lot more to achieve, we must set the highest standards possible and aim to be a team that transcends the sport (like All Blacks) and once we can do that there will be real reason to take pride unabashedly. And it isn't an impossible task in a sport like cricket with minuscule global competition. 

Gollum you sound like an irritated dad who's son did very well in exams but he is still pissed off because his son could not top the country.

[prinzo]

I'm reading the comments here where you guys say".   Next abdv won't save them" or "we would have won if we won the toss". Everything is good in high in sight. At the end of the day it's still 11 Indians and 11 South Africans that get selected on match day to play for their country. Game on. 

Edited January 6, 2019 by prinzo