Smith: 1-1 at home would have disappointed us.

[chamatkar]

Eddie, for the argument against Prince.. he might be suffering a loss of form, but before this series, he was the second best performer on India's soil from the SA team, right next to Kallis. Now that to me, would be enough to get him into the team. As for Zondeki, I don't think he could be as effective as Ntini. Zondeki doesn't offer the bounce and the sheer pace which Ntini brings to the table. From the past times I've seen Zondeki, he's been effective partially on SA grounds, but hasn't done much of note internationally. Ntini gets the benefit of experience in my book .. and I like the lad for his no-nonsense approach to cricket. I'd agree with Mandrake's comment above though, where SA won the second test purely on the basis of the uncharacteristic greentop, so that evens out the dust bowls of Kanpur. Good series though ... On a side note, are you visiting just for this series .. or do you plan to stick around longer ? We do get a lot of seasonal visitors, but would love to have a serious international (discounting us impure indians) contributor.

[SA-Eddie]

Eddie, for the argument against Prince.. he might be suffering a loss of form, but before this series, he was the second best performer on India's soil from the SA team, right next to Kallis. Now that to me, would be enough to get him into the team. As for Zondeki, I don't think he could be as effective as Ntini. Zondeki doesn't offer the bounce and the sheer pace which Ntini brings to the table. From the past times I've seen Zondeki, he's been effective partially on SA grounds, but hasn't done much of note internationally. Ntini gets the benefit of experience in my book .. and I like the lad for his no-nonsense approach to cricket. I'd agree with Mandrake's comment above though, where SA won the second test purely on the basis of the uncharacteristic greentop, so that evens out the dust bowls of Kanpur. Good series though ... On a side note, are you visiting just for this series .. or do you plan to stick around longer ? We do get a lot of seasonal visitors, but would love to have a serious international (discounting us impure indians) contributor.

No ill be around , I normally check out 5-6 cricket forums around the globe weekly and added this one to the list as well ....Prince I know had a decent record against India ...but I noticed in the Bang tour he was struggling ..pitches , form , heat etc ....I know the theory that sometimes you let the cricketer play through his out of form period to gain form again...Just frustrating to watch:nervous: Nitini is better than Zondeki with experience etc...aye probably . But Zondeki has had a gem of a domestic season and I think is one of the future bowlers for SA ,depending on form ,health etc .

[SA-Eddie]

come on mate... so the supposed quote system's ugly head is keeping out only one player: Duminy. and yes, he has been in quite good form but Prince is no imbecile with the bat. look at the other side: Gautam Gambhir has been in the form of his life against the second finest attack in the world on their home turf and has been left out of the team. Eddie, every team has these woes: nepotism, incorrect selection and downright turd brain logic. but in the words of uber idiot donald rumsfeld: you dont fight with the army you want, you fight with the army you have... hence, each team must play with the team it has available. Gibbs, well he cant come to india for the obvious reasons that are not worth mentioning. Boucher has been a brilliant keeper, and one of the best south african batsmen against spin. Aside for Kallis, there has not be a better executor of the sweep since Rhodes and Cullinan. but true, Abe would make a good addition. Similarly for india, Kaif would be more deserving of a spot than Rahul Dravid... so lets chin up... you guys have the moral high ground, most teams come to india for a doze of humility; be they Steve Waugh's invinsibles or Flintoff's warriors or Inzimam's jihadis (snick). However, if there has been one team that has met India blow for blow and at times gone one up, its the South Africans. I will conceed that over the past 17 years since the end of the cricket exile, South Africa have not once let India gain the upper hand over them... but in this series, they have ended up 1-1 in rather favorable circumstances: a placcid pitch for a warmup, a self destructive batting for a quick victory, depleted bowling attacks of the opposition, and finally a toss in the final game that was worth its weight in platinum.

The quota system is keeping alot of new talent from moving up from the domestic arena , cause they are white....this is the bs . Look us saffies dont care what race is playing in the National side as long as they are the best , cause we want to win . We dont care if the whole team is black as long as they are the best and win . This quota system of 6 in the squad have to be non white even if they not the best is just wrong .We are losing alot of players not just in cricket , rugby and other sports as well to other countries now and we are talking young future talent as they dont see much hope of ever getting into the national side , so they immigrate to England , Australia etc and eventually play for those countries. You would have to live here to see the negative affect quota's , BEE etc is causing . There is so much to try explain , but would take to long .

[Desi Cartman]

The quota system is keeping alot of new talent from moving up from the domestic arena , cause they are white....this is the bs . Look us saffies dont care what race is playing in the National side as long as they are the best , cause we want to win . We dont care if the whole team is black as long as they are the best and win . This quota system of 6 in the squad have to be non white even if they not the best is just wrong .We are losing alot of players not just in cricket , rugby and other sports as well to other countries now and we are talking young future talent as they dont see much hope of ever getting into the national side , so they immigrate to England , Australia etc and eventually play for those countries. You would have to live here to see the negative affect quota's , BEE etc is causing . There is so much to try explain , but would take to long .

Do you think the country itself is moving in the same direction as Zimbabwe ?

[SA-Eddie]

At the moment ...slowly but surely yes. All the public services , water ,electricity , roads etc are breaking down and they dont have decent engineers to repair it etc . ex-Zimbabweans say that was the first signs.....or maybe should say we moving towards the rest of the other African countries....which isnt saying much Fuel going through the roof , interest rates on record high etc etc Hopefully things get better , but at the moment its just looking bleak.....

[f.b.m]

Thats sad to hear. Cheers for sticking around on this forum, btw. One thing I wanted to know is about Zondeki. Isnt he a slower version of Dale Steyn? Do you have any clips of him bowling? The only ones that I've seen are from highlights of Brian Lara's imperious 196 that he scored against you guys and a few bits from the WC 2003. And also, what happened to Mfuneko Ngam? He was apparently one of the most exciting fast bowling talents a few years ago.

[SA-Eddie]

Still around . Ngam was deadly fast , but he had some problems with his bone density and sadly has always been injured and never able to bowl flat out again . Zondeki bowls at 140+, seams the ball both ways and has much improved accuracy this season (prior to injury). An adjustment to his bowling action is the main reason for his success this season . his quote ..."The major adjustment was to get my bowling hand and my right arm more out in front of me and therefore to be more open when releasing the ball."My bowling is a lot more fluent now and I don't turn to the side so much anymore at the moment I release the ball." "It just took a little while for me to get enough self-confidence to do it out on the pitch. " Another bowler of interest is Lonwabe Tsotsobe.A left armer, who already has the classic inducker of the best leftarm quicks. The ball that gets lbw's against RH batsmen, when bowled over the wicket. If he carries on in this vein, in a year or two he'll be ready for bigger games. No guarantee he'll make it to the highest level, there's a long way to go yet. And temperament and a high work ethic are also important facets, where many falter. He finished 4th in the SS aggregates, with 39 wickets at 24.28. He bowls at about 130+ so needs to get some more pace but will be watching him. Name Matches Wickets Avg ER SR Du Preez 10 55 16.9 2.51 40.3 Zondeki 10 54 20.16 2.93 41.2 the above is the top 2 in the first class season here. Du preez is a white guy and Du Preez operates in the low-mid 130's, has good accuracy and hits the deck hard (has an almost identical action to Telemachus) but dont think he would get into the squad..also bit older than Zondeki. Haven't found any vids of him recently but will check around .

[Cricketics]

^what about that under 19 bloke.. the tall guy. he bowled well in recent u19 wc. offcourse thats u19.. but how is he going in south african domestic crkt???

[SA-Eddie]

not sure tbh wasnt following u19wc ,if had his name could check .

[Ram]

Smith is trying his best to score some brownie points here, desperately wanting to make his team's performance in Ind look as good as it can possibly be. And I dont blame him for that. Not many teams come to Ind and leave with a drawn series, but the truth is, inside of him, he would be desperately disappointed. Going 1-0 into the final match, he would have known all the pressure was on India and even better, winning the toss on a bowler-friendly pitch and being 152-1 halfway into the first day, he would have thought 'Here we go....'. Another 2 hours of South African dominance and the match would have been over for us, but thankfully, they collapsed and we made full use of it. Still, the Saffies can go with their heads held high. Its a pity there wasnt a one-day series. I would have loved to see these two evenly match teams go head to head in the limited overs format.

[The Outsider]

Still, the Saffies can go with their heads held high. Its a pity there wasnt a one-day series. I would have loved to see these two evenly match teams go head to head in the limited overs format.

I'm actually quite glad that there is no ODI tamasha. We don't need our already collapsing team to grind into complete dust before the SL and Aus series, specially guys like Tendulkar and Dhoni who play almost every possible match.

[Ram]

I'm actually quite glad that there is no ODI tamasha. We don't need our already collapsing team to grind into complete dust before the SL and Aus series' date=' specially guys like Tendulkar and Dhoni who play almost every possible match.[/quote'] The last one-day series between Ind and South Africa at home was one of the competitive bilateral series that I have seen in the recent past, which I why I would have liked another one between the two teams. http://usa.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/2005-06/RSA_IN_IND/ T'was a pity the third match got rained off. And btw, no prizes for guessing who the MoS was. :two_thumbs_up:

[f.b.m]

@SA-Eddie: Aha, thanks for giving the info. So it seems that most SA bowlers are hit the deck hard type bowlers. I'll look out for Tsotsobe though, sounds good from what I'm hearing. Tics: Is it Wayne Parnell that you're talking about?

[Cricketics]

Tics: Is it Wayne Parnell that you're talking about?

yes.. classic bowler... i think he is the future bowler of saf..

[f.b.m]

Yeah, he looked very impressive. Batted a bit too.

[SA-Eddie]

aahh k heard about him a little l. Seems he has caught the eye ,and is being watched , he got a contract to play in 20/20 domestic side Warriors . Hopefully he moves onto bigger things in the future... http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/u19wc2008/content/story/343067.html

[Cricketics]

aahh k heard about him a little l. Seems he has caught the eye ,and is being watched , he got a contract to play in 20/20 domestic side Warriors . Hopefully he moves onto bigger things in the future... http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/u19wc2008/content/story/343067.html

the INdia-South Africa final game of u19 wc was very tight.. he bowled well in that too..