It's brilliant to see Jaques Kallis finally getting to 200 - he's an absolutely class act and unlike many - I'd have him in my all-time international cricket XI. Together with centuries from Amla and de Villiers, South Africa look certainties to take a 1-0 lead against the number 1 side in the world.
India look alarmingly poor in the field. It was their batting collapse in the 1st innings that set up the game but their batsmen will bounce back, although they need to get used to playing on bouncy wickets again. Sreesanth, however, is not a good enough bowler to lead an international attack, and Dhoni seems to have forgotten how he became a successful captain. When de Villiers came in on day 2 he was greeted by not a single catcher. That's right - no slips or gully. Dhoni got the job by demonstrating how he could take calculated attacking risks to get wickets and I hope he doesn't forget that. He simply has to attack more if India are to compete, let alone win the series.
1) How is Daryl Harper still employed as an international umpire?
2) Noted in a previous post, AB De Villiers is no saint when it comes to cheating.
3) Graeme Smith declared too late. Surprisingly, not a lot has been said of the timing of his declaration, which I find odd, as England were never going to chase anything above 350 runs and with an extra 20 or so overs, Smith would have had a third new ball at his bowlers' disposal.
4) Of the fifth bowler options available for England at Cape Town, why is Trott being chosen ahead of Pietersen, who I feel should bowl more, and Bell,who isn't a bad medium pacer but seems to be forgotten amongst the part-time bowler options?
Whether there was any intent to change the condition of the ball from James Anderson or Stuart Broad seems to be open to question, but AB de Villiers is keen to suggest they've done wrong.
Whether they did or they didn't, I'd just like to remind Cricket Burble readers that this is the AB de Villiers who claimed a slip catch during South Africa's last trip to these shores which bounced a long way in front of him...it wasn't a half-volley, it bounced miles in front of him. He knew that and still claimed it so he is hardly integrity personified.
I just thought I'd add to a previous post regarding the South African changes. I too am surprised McKenzie was dropped, especially given that Smith will be out. Having dropped him, however, I would not have opened with Prince. Why not bring de Villiers up to open (he's done it before) or move Amla and Kallis up one slot each. As for Morkel, he is undoubtedly talented, but his performances in the last two tests certainly warranted him being dropped. He has just been so lethargic. His bowling has lacked energy, he is a poor mover in the field, and he seems to disengage his brain whenever he picks up a bat.
My gut feel is that South Africa are being overly ruthless in dropping McKenzie and Morkel following their loss in the first two Tests against Australia. Morkel is young and looked really talented when the Saffers were over here last year. But in particular I'm not sure I like the tactic of using Prince as a makeshift opener alongside a debutant in Khan. Yes, McKenzie did a great job of converting from the middle order to open the batting, but that doesn't mean that everybody can.
McKenzie averages 24.2 in the series away to Australia that South Africa won. The reason that I feel a little sorry for him is that in a series that lasts only 3 games you only get 6 innings and one hundred in that time wouldn't be a bad success rate. In the 2nd Test, McKenzie was going well on 59 not out when South Africa won the game, depriving him of the chance to complete what might have been his big innings of the tour.
In the return series in South Africa McKenzie averaged 25.5 in the first two Tests which doesn't make him the worst South Africa batsman, with Amla narrowly less than that. But if England dropped players after such a brief run of poor form then Bell, for example, would have been discarded after the 2005 Ashes. The South African selectors seem to have felt that they were rightfully the best country in the world and, riled at not making this a reality, have reacted like a school kid would when they didn't get their own way. Courtney Walsh used to say that the West Indies loved touring England because if they won the first couple of matches they found themselves playing the England 2nd XI by the end of the series and I fear the South African selection has a whiff of that. Presumably Morkel will pretty rapidly come back into the squad, but McKenzie will struggle given his age - doubly so as Graeme Smith has openly talked about that and said it will be tough for him.
So when Smith is fit again, it will be interesting to see who gets the other opening slot - it's only a minor selection point but two left-handers is not preferable to a right and left combination. If one or both of the new openers do well then it will be seen as a great decision, but it's high risk and knee jerk - those sort of decisions rarely come off. If they wanted to boost the batting, I would have considered using AB de Villiers as keeper and dropping Boucher. Considered it....and then rejected it, realising that just because South Africa lost it doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't their best team playing.
One last point of note in the South African situation is that Prince comes back into the side as captain. I wonder how many times that has happened? Somehow I doubt we'll see the same from England if Strauss gets injured, no matter how much people like me might want to see Vaughan's captaincy skills at work again.
