DomainK Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 Careful....their credit ratings are poor. Link to comment
putrevus Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 SA are way over rated side who always choke. Link to comment
cowboysfan Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 horrible showing by the proteas-batting was abysmal in both the 1st innings and they paid the price.australia was the better team and they still deserve the no 1 ranking. Link to comment
mhr123 Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 horrible showing by the proteas-batting was abysmal in both the 1st innings and they paid the price.australia was the better team and they still deserve the no 1 ranking. This shows how much they are depended upon Smith... Link to comment
Chorazin Reto Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 I think Aus have definitely come back to the pack, between India, SA, Aus it's anyones game. Lets see how Aus does now in the T20's and ODI's Link to comment
Rajan Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 Mitchell Johnson has stepped up big time. Siddle has done better than what Lee had done in India and Aus recently. Hilfenaus is a surprise in fact.never expected him to trouble any one, but he had done well. Hughes and to some extent Katich/Ponting obviously have shored up the batting. Frankly 2-0 was unexpected. as some one pointed out SA rises and falls with Graeme Smith. Link to comment
coffee_rules Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 Yes..I was expecting SA to steamroll them. Instead they have given in easily. Did they underestimate the new team from Aus? It looks like it...Good for Pinting. He will be around till 2011 WC. Link to comment
Dhondy Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 Wanted to avoid posting on the pest Dandaroy's thread, so thanks, umpire. Yes, aren't they back? Barely two months after being written off by every man and his dog? Thal emailed me, gushing about Hughes, and yes, I acknowledge that he was key, although ugly and ungainly, like a cross between C'paul and Katich. It also ruthlessly exposes how selfish Hayden was in hanging on as he did, and how the likes of Dravid should let go and fade away gently into retirement, to let the youngsters through the maze of old boys networks and jealously guarded hierarchal positions that have become entrenched over the years. What excited me even more though was the bowling. Johnson and Siddle had been part of the side that had fallen to SA in that soul destroying match at Melbourne, where Duminy and Steyn stole it from right under their noses from a position nobody had any right to countenance anything but defeat from. On that occasion, the impotence of the Aussie bowlers was all too obvious. What's changed? It was the marriage of Johnson and Siddle's naked aggression with the control offered by Hilfenhaus and McDonald that made the difference. It's such an underrated combination, yet almost arrived upon by accident, from a side that really should have known better, having seen the destruction the metronomic Stuart Clark wrought on these very opponents. It also illustrates my oft-repeated assertion that you do not need a spinner to win matches. Go with your strengths, even if it means playing four quicks and turfing out ineffectuals like Hauritz (What on earth was he doing in a Test team?) Oh, and goodbye Andrew Symonds. Hope you enjoy your IPL riches. Link to comment
Fontaine Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 ^^ Good post, but it also helped the Aussi bowlers that South Africa capitulated and gave away their wickets time and time again. McDonald's three wickets were basically freebies where a batsmen with any sort of heart and cool under pressure would have stayed at the crease but the Saffies were too busy choking away their wickets. Link to comment
Dhondy Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 Australia have now won the last 5 Tests against SA in SA and in all, 9 of the last 11 played there. Given that SA sides have never been one to lie down easily, it's a truly amazing record. This result has implications for India as well. Assuming the 3rd Test is drawn, SA will lose 3 points to go down to 118, India's current tally. So India have to win just one Test in their 3 Test series against NZ to forge ahead, right? Wrong. Such is the gulf in points between India & NZ, that if India win 1-0, they'll actually drop 1 point and stay 3rd at 117. If they win 2-0, they barely gain 0.04 points on their current tally, and would be placed ahead of SA on decimal points. A 3-0 win...well, let's not discuss that unlikely scenario. Link to comment
The Outsider Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 It's been a superb win by Australia. If there was one person to identify as the difference, it would have to be Hughes. Replace Hughes with Hayden of the last year and the result could still have been different. Just look at the innings he played and the timing of those innings - even though Australia had a good first innings lead at Johannesburg, South Africa might have been well and truly back into the hunt if the Australian collapse was worse and it was averted by his 75. Cue to Durban, and his assault on the first morning completely shook the South Africans who would have believed that they were back in form after the second innings at Johannesburg. And once again in the second innings, just shut South Africa out of the series. Replace him with a fumbling Hayden and you can well imagine the result to have been different. Johnson and Siddle are probably the fastest bowling pair in the world - Siddle's improvement since the India tour has been amazing. The manner in which Johnson and Siddle are able to sustain 140-145+ speeds over long spells is a testament to their fitness and desire. Siddle, in particular, has been a surprise. He is more than a handful on these hard pitches with tend to start cracking. Good to see Symonds career come to an end, even better to see South Africa being on the verge of being whitewashed - just goes to show how difficult it must have been for Australia to sustain the number 1 ranking for so long. It's one thing to get there but quite another to maintain excellence. Link to comment
suraj Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 Australia have now won the last 5 Tests against SA in SA and in all, 9 of the last 11 played there. Given that SA sides have never been one to lie down easily, it's a truly amazing record. This result has implications for India as well. Assuming the 3rd Test is drawn, SA will lose 3 points to go down to 118, India's current tally. So India have to win just one Test in their 3 Test series against NZ to forge ahead, right? Wrong. Such is the gulf in points between India & NZ, that if India win 1-0, they'll actually drop 1 point and stay 3rd at 117. If they win 2-0, they barely gain 0.04 points on their current tally, and would be placed ahead of SA on decimal points. A 3-0 win...well, let's not discuss that unlikely scenario. That does not make sense- how does a team go back in points after winning a match?? Link to comment
mhr123 Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 That does not make sense- how does a team go back in points after winning a match?? That ICC for you... may be they r using D L method.... Link to comment
Dhondy Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 And the cull has begun. McKenzie & Morkel axed from the side. Morkel? Scarcely believable. He and Ishant were inked in as the two most promising quicks not a year ago. How fickle the fortunes of sportsmen! Link to comment
Deleted_User_1 Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 Wanted to avoid posting on the pest Dandaroy's thread, so thanks, umpire. :finger::finger::finger: Link to comment
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