Cricket: More Than a Game

[Benaud] What a catch! What. A. Catch! [/Benaud]

Stunner.

Where's that from, a NZ domestic competition ?

Yeah- HRV cup or something like that.

Interesting game yesterday. We totally brutalised Sri Lanka. It was actually nasty to watch, I'm fond of the Shrees so seeing them go down so badly was sad.

India fail again on tour. They have been broken again and will unlikely give a whimper for the rest of the series.

Liking the way our quicks are taking on the job lately. Seems McDermott was just the man for the coaching job - as long as he doesn't try to give them financial advice.

10 sessions and beaten by an innings by a team that didn't even make 400.

Who are next in line for India? Dravid and Laxman are having a horrible time of it.

Also of note, This is the 5th time out of 6 innings that Peter Siddle has outscored Michael Clarke.

India look like they've completely run out of steam, the players who took them to number one have all gotten old at the same time and none of the younger generation bar one or two look to be stepping up. They've always been much better at home, so the upcoming England tour will be interesting.

davet010 wrote:

India look like they've completely run out of steam, the players who took them to number one have all gotten old at the same time and none of the younger generation bar one or two look to be stepping up.

Sounds depressingly familiar.

Holy crap! England got smashed!

Some mystifying moments there with shot selection by English batsmen and eyebrow raising DRS decisions.

A day of slaughter in test cricket. Aussies complete 4-0 and the Kiwis take 20 wickets in less than a day to crush Zimbabwe. I reckon the Newport 2nd XI would have put up a better fight than was shown in the first innings. 26 was looking at risk there for a while.

Still it was better than forty-fricken-seven.

England's struggling against the spinning ball. And Trott's got the trots. Things are tense.

Ajmal is a chucker and that was quite the choke by a England.

What a win for South Africa against the Black Caps, a real gritty game won through stubbornness and BMT.

The influx of talented youngsters continues.

Holy cow what a chase by India. Just when it looked like they were already on the plane home they pull that out.

Kohli looks like the next big thing for India.

2012 seems to be the year of bowlers so far.

Philander already has more than 50 wickets in only 7 matches including 6 5-fers. Incredible.

A lot of sides getting knocked over for less than 200.

Joost Van der Trott has been taking advice from Suarez.

I'm trying to find the story, but Hashim Amla actually had internal bleeding in the groin from a blow. If he didn't get a slightly dodgy LBW call he may have been in very serious trouble.

Bruce wrote:

2012 seems to be the year of bowlers so far.

Philander already has more than 50 wickets in only 7 matches including 6 5-fers. Incredible.

I'm very excited about the SA bowling line-up at the moment, it's such a varied group that's working well in concert.

I think it's summed up well here.

Excitement mounted throughout the fourth day which was as filled with tension, intensity and extremity as any I could remember. The relentlessness of the pace barrage was ferocious and frightening from the commentary box - God knows what it must have been like in the middle. Unlike most comparable days, it was obvious that there would never, ever come a point when the NZ batsmen had 'weathered the storm.' The storm was going to continue, for as long as it was required.

Fellow commentator Iain O'Brien was barely able to contain his excitement. The 'pain' he felt for his very recent teammates was large, but nothing compared to the exhilaration he felt watching Steyn, Morkel, Philander and De Lange firing mortars for hour after hour...after hour. "It's special to watch - it's like the great West Indies teams of the 80s. Actually, it's probably as fast and hostile as any attack that has ever played. And I don't care how many historians take issue with that."

Philander has been a great find. No great pace, just accuracy and swing. I think he's been a good influence on Morne Morkel too. Big Bird has become more precise in the last few months, and isn't consistently short. I feel bad for Taylor getting his wrist broken immediately after getting back from injury, but the killer instinct our whole attack is showing is creditable.

I like the stats for Philander's achievement.

Philander's sixth five-wicket haul in just his seventh test matched that of England's Tom Richardson, who also achieved 50 wickets in the first innings of his seventh test, in 1896.

Australia's Charlie Turner holds the record having achieved his 50th wicket in his sixth test in 1888.

We've been feeling the same here with the rise of Pattinson and the resurgence of Siddle and Hilfenhaus. The appointment of Craig McDermott as bowling coach seems to have been the difference with different lines and lengths turning last summer's plodders into a strong attack that hunts as a pack.

The Kiwis did a pretty good job holding out against a sustained day of quality bowling. When batsmen can't look forward to 'seeing off' a dominant bowler and getting a look at a weaker link it changes the mindset completely. Not having Mitch Johnson in the team has been great for us here as 5 out of 6 games he was the pie chucker they could go after. This summer the next guy has been just as good and just as tight and it killed of the Indian spirit inside the first match (although it may be that this is not that tough a feat these days).

Nice of the West Indies to send a second XI. Their players seem to pick and choose when they are available for international duty and when they aren't.

Amusement this morning as a simple question from David 'Bumble' Lloyd about why WI hadn't brought Jerome Taylor sparked a top-notch rant from Michael Holding about the incompetence and partiality of the WI board and how certain players just step out of the international team and then straight back (ello, Chris Gayle). Bumble seemed genuinely taken aback, and Holding seemed genuinely annoyed...his last words on the subject were "There's no point wasting any more time on those people".

One of the best rants I've heard since the legendary Sir Viv Richards one a few years back, when that England - WI game was abandoned in the stadium named after him, and someone asked him for his opinion on the matter...

Not sure this was the best idea anyone ever had - Denesh Ramdin celebrated getting a ton against England's second string bowlers in a series they've already lost by holding up a little note to Sir Viv Richards.

IMAGE(http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/60813000/jpg/_60813016_146100966.jpg)

Pity he couldn't do it when it mattered. Or against Anderson and Broad.

Commentators laced into him at the break. As Michael Holding said "what's he going to hold up next time he fails ?".

Bit of bad luck for Mark Boucher on the first day of SA's game against Somerset as they try to prepare for the series against England. He got a nasty injury to his eye resulting from a bail as Imran Tahir's delivery bowled Gemaal Hussein as Boucher stood just behind the stumps.

IMAGE(http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/61461000/jpg/_61461342_boucher_eye_getty.jpg)

Hope he's OK, rumours are he's about to retire so it'd be nice for him to at least go out playing. I suspect the first Test is out if the laceration is too bad though.

Seems pretty bad, he's been sent home this morning. I don't think he should be in the side, his form has been more down than up for ages, but I really don't want him to go out like this.

Yeah, it's now been announced that he's out of the tour and that a replacement keeper will be called up. Apparently the third Test would have been his 150th, so maybe he'll play on later in the year.

Get well soon.

Still looking forward to the series though - hopefully picking up some tickets for the day/night slogging game at Old Trafford.

Oh nice, hope you get to that.

I need to wait till December to see NZ here, and outrageously the Boxing Day test has been cancelled this year so the only game I can get to is a T20.

Boucher announces his retirement. That sucks, what a sh*tty way to go out.

Yeah, heard that - Graeme Smith announced it on Sky, was very appreciative of what Boucher had achieved during his 15 years in the team. As you say, it's a shame for his career to end that way, but hopefully his eyesight will not be permanently affected. It's odd that it happened this way, but Allan Donald was interviewed yesterday and reminded people that exactly the same thing happened to ex-England w/k Paul Downton.

England playing Australia at Old Trafford now. Bumble and Tom Moody in the commentary box. Bumble just comes out with "I was here at Xmas". Camera cuts to commentary box, Moody looking at him as if he'd lost his marbles. Bumble then clarifies his point - "I was in Manchester on Xmas Day and it was 14c. It's the middle of summer now, and it's 13c".

Good first day for our Saffers, good toss to win and a good recovery after Strauss went with 0 on the board.

Mr DeVil may have seen it differently, but the commentators here thought that SA looked a lot more passive than usual - other than Steyn not taking the new ball, Smith seemed content to be letting things drift along, and there seemed to be much less backchat.

Didn't actually get to watch today, but on analysis it sounds like you and the commentators are right. Very limp start so far. Seems like we may be undercooked thanks to lack of game time. Hopefully we can show up tomorrow.

Yeah, the point was made by Athers and co that SA had suffered because of the weather, and that they may have got more benefit from another 4 day game. Bumble also mentioned quite early on that the bowling wasn't as hostile as we'd been expecting - in the first 40-odd overs, there was less than 2 overs of short stuff. It was all a bit friendly out there.

Do you think that Boucher's injury has had a negative morale effect, as well as depriving SA of its regular keeper ?