Interesting scorecard from Newlands -
1st Innings - Australia 284 (of which Clarke got 151 - from 176 balls too, must have been an incredible innings). South Africa 96.
2nd Innings - Australia are currently 21-8.
― Fizzles the Chimp (GamalielRatsey), Thursday, 10 November 2011 14:04 (twelve years ago) link
21-9 now.
― Fizzles the Chimp (GamalielRatsey), Thursday, 10 November 2011 14:05 (twelve years ago) link
Something quite Victorian about that Australian 2nd innings score.
We are amused
― R. Stornoway (Tom D.), Thursday, 10 November 2011 14:08 (twelve years ago) link
Genuinely amusing that Australia should still win the Test! Cricket, eh?
― R. Stornoway (Tom D.), Thursday, 10 November 2011 14:15 (twelve years ago) link
I know, especially now they're 41 for 9. Not entirely sure what's going on there. Apparently it's a seaming pitch. Well yes and.
― Fizzles the Chimp (GamalielRatsey), Thursday, 10 November 2011 14:30 (twelve years ago) link
They've managed to avoid their lowest ever Test score
― R. Stornoway (Tom D.), Thursday, 10 November 2011 14:32 (twelve years ago) link
Smith and Rudolph going great guns on 5 and 1 respectively.
― Fizzles the Chimp (GamalielRatsey), Thursday, 10 November 2011 14:56 (twelve years ago) link
SA FTW I reckon.
― good luck in your pyramid (Neil S), Thursday, 10 November 2011 15:25 (twelve years ago) link
Certainly looking that way at the moment. What a strange test.
― Fizzles the Chimp (GamalielRatsey), Thursday, 10 November 2011 16:13 (twelve years ago) link
yeah 23 wickets in the day, I make that. SA need another 150ish to win, it looked like when the sun came out it was much easier.
― good luck in your pyramid (Neil S), Thursday, 10 November 2011 16:26 (twelve years ago) link
?!
What is it about cricket that produces these crazy passages, more than any other sport? I do wish my watching days weren't mostly over.
― Ismael Klata, Thursday, 10 November 2011 19:10 (twelve years ago) link
I love the collective psychosis that can seem to affect both sides sometimes, seeing demons in the pitch when there are none, or at least few.
― good luck in your pyramid (Neil S), Thursday, 10 November 2011 20:47 (twelve years ago) link
All four innings in a day.
― Fizzles the Chimp (GamalielRatsey), Friday, 11 November 2011 09:56 (twelve years ago) link
Didn't Crowded House wrote a song about that? Andy Partridge should certainly consider doing so.
― R. Stornoway (Tom D.), Friday, 11 November 2011 09:59 (twelve years ago) link
8wk win for SA, despite conceding a 188 first innings lead and being bowled out for 97 in that first innings. Astonishing!
― good luck in your pyramid (Neil S), Friday, 11 November 2011 10:39 (twelve years ago) link
the air of a private school headmaster that gets a bit too close to his favourite sporting ladsah peter roebuckgotta say though, I do like Roebuck's writing― acoleuthic, Saturday, November 20, 2010 7:31 AM (11 months ago) [IP: 109.157.43.101] Bookmark
ah peter roebuck
gotta say though, I do like Roebuck's writing
― acoleuthic, Saturday, November 20, 2010 7:31 AM (11 months ago) [IP: 109.157.43.101] Bookmark
― The Lamb Lies Down On Cavill Avenue (King Boy Pato), Friday, 18 November 2011 10:03 (twelve years ago) link
Never liked his writing, too much provocation for the sake of it. Word from Australian friends was that he was thought of as a bit of a joke, but is now being hailed as the CLR James of his day. Weird.
― good luck in your pyramid (Neil S), Friday, 18 November 2011 10:12 (twelve years ago) link
"Weird" sums him up
― R. Stornoway (Tom D.), Friday, 18 November 2011 10:13 (twelve years ago) link
LJ gets it right with his first line.
― good luck in your pyramid (Neil S), Friday, 18 November 2011 10:14 (twelve years ago) link
Hope he's not talking from experience there
― R. Stornoway (Tom D.), Friday, 18 November 2011 10:15 (twelve years ago) link
No. 1 in the world my hat!
― good luck in your pyramid (Neil S), Thursday, 19 January 2012 09:45 (twelve years ago) link
Flower & Strauss out!
LOL times like these you hope they go for some sort of record defeat stat. I note another great performance from England's Best Batsman, Kevin Pietersen.
― Charles Kennedy Jumped Up, He Called 'Oh No'. (Tom D.), Thursday, 19 January 2012 09:49 (twelve years ago) link
some stat about "when England lose, they lose big" has been bandied around- I think last 3 defeats were innings defeats. I think they'll bounce back, but a lot depends on whether they can get their heads round playing Ajmal.
― good luck in your pyramid (Neil S), Thursday, 19 January 2012 09:54 (twelve years ago) link
87-7
― Charles Kennedy Jumped Up, He Called 'Oh No'. (Tom D.), Thursday, 19 January 2012 11:43 (twelve years ago) link
Swann double century. Come on Swanny!
― good luck in your pyramid (Neil S), Thursday, 19 January 2012 11:50 (twelve years ago) link
... came up 161 runs short :(
Pakistan need 15 to win.
― Charles Kennedy Jumped Up, He Called 'Oh No'. (Tom D.), Thursday, 19 January 2012 13:10 (twelve years ago) link
Sterling stuff.
― Fizzles, Thursday, 19 January 2012 13:12 (twelve years ago) link
This is going... well, it's going really.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 28 January 2012 10:36 (twelve years ago) link
56-5.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 28 January 2012 11:22 (twelve years ago) link
lol so they let Zimbabwe play test cricket again
with unsurprising results
― Born To Meat Pie (King Boy Pato), Saturday, 28 January 2012 11:44 (twelve years ago) link
yes i saw that. only the fourth time a side has been bowled out twice in one day.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 28 January 2012 11:48 (twelve years ago) link
68-7. So, only 80 runs needed from the bowlers then.
― Aunt Acid and the Gaviscons (aldo), Saturday, 28 January 2012 11:54 (twelve years ago) link
What a shambles.
― oppet, Saturday, 28 January 2012 12:08 (twelve years ago) link
bodged it.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 28 January 2012 12:09 (twelve years ago) link
omg!
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 28 January 2012 12:10 (twelve years ago) link
what is this, 1995?!
brilliant result for Pakistan, who were probably behind all Test. But yes, it's hard not to look at the batting line-up - Pietersen! Morgan! - and just shake your head in embarrassment.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 28 January 2012 12:13 (twelve years ago) link
Yes, great result, and they must be delighted given the various er...brushes with the English media and law, but back in the mid-90s the middle order was made of paper (Graham Thorpe aside really). You'd expect better this time...
The whole technocratic flower set-up is now to be questioned.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 28 January 2012 12:18 (twelve years ago) link
yeah, i'm not sure about that. is the 'technocratic' problem that they rely less on experience and on-pitch nous and more on pre-arranged strategies built on stats for each opponent/bowling machine types etc? Is that even a thing? Flower himself I've got quite a lot of time for - he seems resilient, sensible. I think Pietersen and Morgan need to be dropped, although I do realise that means you haven't really got a player who can just take the game away from teams (although Broad did do something usefully similar two days ago).
― Fizzles, Saturday, 28 January 2012 12:29 (twelve years ago) link
Well following the ENGLAND NO 1 a lot seemed to be made about how not only we have v good players but that flower has built a bunch of pre-strategies based on computer modelling/statical analysis and that mumbo jumbo.
I agree that Pietersen hasn't cut it for a while is a bigger problem, but (again from what I read) Eng did seem to arrive under-prepared, and Pakistan are no mugs.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 28 January 2012 12:37 (twelve years ago) link
Yes that's true I think. I know teams are well prepared nowadays, but you I did get a slight sense of complacency coming into this (and a lack of match fitness). Right I'm off down the pub to watch the football.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 28 January 2012 12:41 (twelve years ago) link
Indeed! There is more to cricket :-)
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 28 January 2012 12:46 (twelve years ago) link
Well, the KARACHI GLOBETROTTERS have played true to form by producing a wonderfully wtf result. Hurrah!
And now the 2013 Ashes is looking even better.
― Born To Meat Pie (King Boy Pato), Sunday, 29 January 2012 04:41 (twelve years ago) link
Is that "there is more to cricket than life" xyzzzz__?!
I was thinking more about the technocratic thing. One thing you hear players say now, for instance, that you probably wouldn't have heard 20 years ago (when England were in their pomp of course) is talk about 'executing plans'. 'We'll be ok if we execute our plans'. It always strikes me as sensible, but also inflexible. Monty Panesar is the classic plan bowler, he doesn't even like setting his own fields, and doesn't show a lot of on-pitch flexibility. But really I've tended to find that's most used wrt bowlers and not batsmen, and clearly it's the batsmen that are the problem. I'm sure they also have their plans, but it's always going to be more reactive to bowlers, the situation, the pitch, the psychological need to get through the initial stages and 'get in'.
I hadn't realised that in fact Graham Gooch is at home, not in Dubai, because he's only retained on a consultancy basis by the ECB. That strikes me as a good detail to fill out that vague feeling of complacency.
KBP - yes, excited by Australia's bowling (always enjoy watching Clarke bat) - Hilfenhaus and Siddle looking dangerous and what's your opinion on Starc?
― Fizzles, Sunday, 29 January 2012 06:09 (twelve years ago) link
despite this: http://i44.tinypic.com/1581s8w.jpg
and this http://i44.tinypic.com/vy19oy.jpg
Siddle's still a (tentative) bro.
― yuoowemeone, Sunday, 29 January 2012 07:42 (twelve years ago) link
You won't see Starc around if Pattinson and Cummins are fit.
― Born To Meat Pie (King Boy Pato), Sunday, 29 January 2012 09:33 (twelve years ago) link
Siddle is a bloke that you want on your construction site.
― Born To Meat Pie (King Boy Pato), Sunday, 29 January 2012 09:34 (twelve years ago) link
sorry strauss but i dont think you should be going to india. You cant play stupid shots like that. you're a great captain but your forms not good enough and you and a few others shouldn't be going to India. KP youre in last chance saloon as far as im concerned.
― Algerian Goalkeeper, Wednesday, 28 March 2012 10:26 (twelve years ago) link