Does South Africa have the best bowling attack in the world?

[bajrang]

this thread now has AIDS...thanks to OP.

[Malcolm Merlyn]

What was teh quickest he hit today?He has been out of action for 6 weeks so may be rusty.

[Crookbond]

^ Also may have some injury issues with his ankle strapped. :idunno:

[Dravid_TheWall]

Agreed his main strength is swing' date=' but he always unleashed that surprising skiddy bouncer at 150 - 152 kph speed which scares a batter and disturbs his concentration. His bowling today was pretty one dimensional like Sreesanth. Maybe very undercooked, since SA rarely plays Tests.[/quote'] Only good thing here is you mention the 2 greats together. Santh and Steyn. Bad thing here is you don't understand cricket or these bowlers. But the fact you mention both names together shows even you can see the similarity in them. This is why Donald and co consider Santh to be one of the best bowlers around. I seriously hope we utilise his talent. We will never have a bowler of his calibre again in India of all places. It will be difficult.

[goggi]

Steyn doesn't continuously bowl 150khp plus, no bowler can bowl continuously at 150kph plus. Steyn's greatest strength is to have the capability to bowl at 150kph and has impeccable control when up-stepping or down-stepping his speed. Besides still I think South African first team are still warming up, with Morkel hardly touched 145kph and Philander similarly hardly ever went past 135kph. And with showers predicted all five days then this game may well not worth be going out 100% for a win.

[msb1991]

This thread was always going to be a joke. Steyn was never one who bowled consistently at 150kph. The fact he is slightly below usual speed can have a number of explanations and does not necessarily mean something is 'wrong'. Speed guns tend to record on the whole lower and higher readings in some games for reasons people can only speculate upon. Speed guns are only useful for seeing the relative speed of a bowler against earlier/later deliveries and the other bowlers in the game. So, according to Cricinfo (which records different speeds to TV sometimes due to reasons one can only blindly speculate upon)...Dale Steyn: - Had an average speed of 83.7mph - Slower on average than Morkel - Average speed approximately same as all England bowlers (bit slower than Broad and Bresnan but then he bowled for much longer) None of these are crazy or wildly inconsistent with what has been seen before.

[Vilander]

at times steyn bowls one complete spell with an average of around 140 with plenty of 145+ and few 150+ balls. he did not do it yet in this match. usually he is faster than English bowlers. He will bowl at that speed in this series soon.

[Trichromatic]

SA bowlers received lot of criticism for lack of innovation and looking rusty on first day. England got best batting condition, took the full advantage of it and played like classic test batsmen - boring everyone to sleep. Kudos to Steyn and co for not letting their heads down on second day. The current England bowling line-up hasn't faced much problems in recent past. Even when they had to face little bit of resistance they easily lost their plot. Today was probably one of worst day for their bowlers in recent past and once batsmen settled it they were able to score at 4 runs an over against bowling line-up. This is one difference between 2 sides. SA can keep it tight throughout the game even when there isn't much help from pitch. Swann is an advantage, but he hasn't done much yet. It would be interesting to see how he performs in second inning. Btw, what will be written for English bowlers today? Lack of.....?

[Crookbond]

Legendary ViBUMP once again. I still think England have some advantage. Not so easy to kill confidence. I wish we showed such a fight.

[SLICKR392]

I would go with England, just. They have the advantage of Swann. They have still got Tremlett and Finn in the bench or injured. If you look at the Pace attack, both attack are pretty much balanced because Philander is at good touch and I would rate Broad and Morkel equally but when Steyn is on song he is much superior than the whole English attack put together.

[Old guy]

SA bowlers received lot of criticism for lack of innovation and looking rusty on first day. England got best batting condition, took the full advantage of it and played like classic test batsmen - boring everyone to sleep. Kudos to Steyn and co for not letting their heads down on second day. The current England bowling line-up hasn't faced much problems in recent past. Even when they had to face little bit of resistance they easily lost their plot. Today was probably one of worst day for their bowlers in recent past and once batsmen settled it they were able to score at 4 runs an over against bowling line-up. This is one difference between 2 sides. SA can keep it tight throughout the game even when there isn't much help from pitch. Swann is an advantage, but he hasn't done much yet. It would be interesting to see how he performs in second inning. Btw, what will be written for English bowlers today? Lack of.....?

lack of nothing jsut gr8 batting on good pitch its not a road but not bowling friendly conditions and south africa bowling line is better cos they can create those magical performances out of nothing even on flat tracks philander bowled much better then broad and bresnan figures wont show it also south africa have de lange who is injured he wicket up 7 wicket haul in his first tests counts for something ?

[Trichromatic]

^ add Kallis to the list. He consistently takes 1 or 2 wickets and it's not that he looks for free wickets like part timers. Bell's dismissal was one such example. He had a plan in mind and executed it very well. Because of him main bowlers have to pick 8 or 9 wickets and captain can always give them some rest.

[goggi]

I would go with England, just. They have the advantage of Swann. They have still got Tremlett and Finn in the bench or injured. If you look at the Pace attack, both attack are pretty much balanced because Philander is at good touch and I would rate Broad and Morkel equally but when Steyn is on song he is much superior than the whole English attack put together.

:two_thumbs_up::two_thumbs_up::two_thumbs_up: People just tend to under-estimate how good of a bowler Steyn is. Even without Morkel or Philander, SA would have been a threat with Steyn and his legendary strike rate of 40! Incredible :hatsoff: A bowler with such a strike rate is worth more than a hundred 100s.

[panther]

still think england are better because of swann, but he has been poor this year save sl series.

[adi B]

pakistan have the best bowling attack

[jj_28]

SA definitely have the best pace attack but are let down with his spin

[vayuu1]

The biggest difference between both teams is that s.a has quality all rounder in kallis who can chip in with 2-3 wickets plus he is one heck of a batsman take this match for eg. Knocked k.p and ghanta and is on verge of hundred,super shot for four takes him to 94.the problem with England is it's a four man attack ,if swann is negotiated easily ,then you can tire out the England pacers,where as s.a has luxury of all rounder.That's why loss of flintoff will hurt England in longer time if they don't find a decent all rounder .

[SLICKR392]

The biggest difference between both teams is that s.a has quality all rounder in kallis who can chip in with 2-3 wickets plus he is one heck of a batsman take this match for eg. Knocked k.p and ghanta and is on verge of hundred' date=super shot for four takes him to 94.the problem with England is it's a four man attack ,if swann is negotiated easily ,then you can tire out the England pacers,where as s.a has luxury of all rounder.That's why loss of flintoff will hurt England in longer time if they don't find a decent all rounder .

++ Kallis is a really huge advantage for Saffers, big time. 250+ wkts and averages 57+ . I don't want to get into any argument out here...but he the BEST all rounder to play the game IMO!

[Dravid_TheWall]

Yes, it's an attack for all conditions. Particularly with Philander now complementing them well. And Tahir is better than any of their previous spinners so there is improvement in this area too.

[rkt.india]

Swann is an advantage, but he hasn't done much yet. It would be interesting to see how he performs in second inning. Btw, what will be written for English bowlers today? Lack of.....?

Swann is actually is good only against left handers. If a team does not have too many left handers, they can do well against him even in spinning conditions. His average against left handers is 20 while to right handers that is 35 plus.