India In South Africa

[troll3y]

Did anyone else stay up to watch that Test? My internet is 'average' at the best of times, and was seemingly running on fumes through all of last night -- Cricinfo and Twitter wouldn't even work simultaneously. Those infuriating Match Point embedded videos really drive me up the wall when it slows both browser and internet connection down to a crawl. Unable to stream even radio coverage, I was glued to Cricinfo text commentary.


It's easy to have a go at South Africa and Graeme Smith for not chasing the target in the last four overs, but it would have been a big ask to rely on a one-legged Morne Morkel and a 11.25-averaged Imran Tahir to even survive, let alone hit the winning runs. Sixty percent of Imran Tahir's innings, apparently, lasted less than ten balls. Philander and Steyn were the last line of defence and simply couldn't afford to be dismissed.

That said, there were a few pretty innocuous balls (as described by text) being bowled in those last overs off which easy runs could have been scored. With only 16 off 24 required, you'd take some of those runs, surely? If there were more Tests in the series, wouldn't they have taken the risk? We can ask many 'what ifs'. Many armchair captains were quick to criticise, but I'm not going to attack the strength of the captain who once batted with a broken left hand and dodgy right elbow to save a Test. (I'm blurrily and partially reliving that incredible innings now.)



I hope that drama really advertises the quality and importance of the next and final Test. India unexpectedly won the first four days before being brilliantly outdone by a resurgent South Africa on day five. Both teams have shown their strengths, and the second Test is shaping up to be gladiatorial.

 

[Kram81]

Well it sounds like I should have bothered to watch this..

 

[troll3y]

I could rant about how Australian sports media hardly bothers with advertising cricket outside of Australia, but yeah, I do wish more people were aware of this match. It was at least on Fox Sports, right?


Anyway, it has eventuated that Dale Steyn was really upset in the aftermath, to the point where it took a few teammates to calm him down. AB de Villiers said it was because of the crowd booing the defensive tactics and not taking easy runs, but I recall that Steyn seemed frustrated on those occasions when Vernon Philander refused the single. Steyn may still have been wanting to chase the total at the time, but he said on Twitter afterwards that he backed his decision. It seems like one of those frustrating circumstances where what you know you have to do differs from what you want to do.

 

[Kram81]

I could rant about how Australian sports media hardly bothers with advertising cricket outside of Australia, but yeah, I do wish more people were aware of this match. It was at least on Fox Sports, right?

Yeah it was, I watched a bit of day 4 but just forgot about the game until I seen what happened on the news yesterday. Looking on Bfooty a lot there were watching and posting on the game.

 

[CancelledUser2014]

Am I the only person who saw some incredibly weird high risk-no reward tactics from the Proteas? It seemed to me as though they blocked everything and didn't take easy runs, so that Dhoni would bring in all the outfielders. That way they had 4 balls to score 16 runs with no outfielders in sight. Vernon Philander and Dale Steyn are capable of hitting 4 consecutive boundaries. Unfortunately that tactic didn't work out! Nice six from Dale Steyn though

When Ishant Sharma was bowling our quality batting line up into shreds I had a look at his statistics. He has a bowling average of over 37 in tests, and in the other formats it looks even worse! Is that the same bowler who bowled the best all rounder in world cricket out for a golden duck? The same bowler who destroyed our batsmen and completely obliterated us?

Zaheer Khan did a great job, looks like he really took that training seriously. A few good knuckle balls from him as well

Ravichandran Ashwin was dreadful to watch! He couldn't even trouble our spin dyslexic batsmen, which just shows you that he started out as a mystery bowler (with his carrom balls and sudoku ball double reverse doosras, flippers etc.) And now that his mystery is gone, he needs to rely more on his stock ball which isn't working out for him. (I'm thinking about that wide off the pitch right now)

Imran Tahir. Enough said... Shane Warne once told the media that he thinks Tahir is a far better bowler than he ever was, more variation, control, spin, accuracy, everything. I'm starting to suspect more and more that Warne was just getting our hopes up! Everyone was probably thinking: Yes we've got a leg spinner! And dancing up and down and celebrating. Hopefully they can see now that Warne was just bluffing and being sarcastic

Even though it is India he bowled against (best players of spin alive) his accuracy was despicable! A head high full toss against the best players of spin bowling on earth isn't a wicket taking ball Tahir. Get that out of your arsenal

Finally Vernon Philander is ranked as the number one test bowler in the world. I think he deserves it, not to mention the fact that he could be one of the best all rounders too. Jacques Kallis is only a handful of wickets away from his 300. Let's hope he gets there fast.

This was a very exciting test match, right up there with the best ever played. (Maybe AB and Dhoni contributed to that? They don't bowl too bad for wicket keepers)

 

[ioppolo]

India could've attacked the stumps more and tried to win the game IMO. South Africa could've swung a bit more/taken the runs and tried to win IMO. Philander is very handy with the bat and Steyn is no bunny. They should've at least taken whatever singles they could get and if they needed 10 off the last over with 3 wickets left, go for it! If one of them got out, then shut up shop for the best part of 5 balls, which I'm sure even a one legged Morne Morkel could've dealt with. Whereas I do see where both teams were coming from, I think both teams should've tried to win the game more (mainly South Africa) in the last few overs IMO.