The Cricket Thread

[Saddlerrad]

Didn't watch the last hour or so, but I had no idea Root dropped ABDV.

That could be absolutely massive.

 

[blademan89]

Please tell me you're not missing this!

I was there for every ball this morning i know what day to choose to get up haha felll very lucky . Left at 16.30 though when they stop selling ale.

 

[Saddlerrad]

I was there for every ball this morning i know what day to choose to get up haha felll very lucky . Left at 16.30 though when they stop selling ale.

Enjoyable?

 

[blademan89]

Enjoyable?

Very.

 

[Saddlerrad]

Dropped Amla in the 70s and ABDV on 5. They have since gone on to 56 and 97 currently. We really could have this in our favour hugely. As it is. Our 2nd innings is going to be a hard pressurised one now.

You can see it coming. We might struggle to get this pair out all bloody day!

 

[RavenBish]

Reckon this innings would've been a lot different if De Villiers or Amla weren't dropped. De Villiers was probably the more important as they could've easily nicked another after him in that evening session.

As it stands there's no way either team are getting 10 wickets in the 2nd innings. Amla seems to be actively attempting to draw the game as well.

 

[Super_horns]

Frustrating day but this is what Amla can do on a good day...and given the chance to.

 

[hodge]

Frustrating day but this is what Amla can do on a good day...and given the chances to.

FTFY

 

[Baz]

Amla having a proper dig in day, and he needed it to get back into some kind of form, that probably goes against us for the rest of the series too. Plus Saffers doing so well really shows how good the pitch is.

 

[blademan89]

Incredible how fucking boring that was today. Looks like a day in ale house tommorrow

 

[Pyeman]

This is just what Amla needed to get back into form. A road of a pitch and an age to bat himself back into some sort of rhythm. Fair play to him for applying himself, but the Amla we face now [and most likely for the rest of the series] is an entirely different proposition to the one from Durban, which is a tad worrying.

I'm still hopeful we can get them out by around the 500 mark - it all rests on getring rid of Amla early tomorrow and then we're amongst them. If we let him settle then he'll be there at stumps.

 

[JJH]

Game over, will fizzle out into a boring draw now - was pretty obvious from yesterday, but you have wonder where we'd be had those catches of De Villiers and Amla stuck.

At least you witnessed one of the most incredible test innings ever played blademan89, I'm sure that was a privilege! Enjoy the rest of yer time out there.

 

[RavenBish]

This pitch is a disgrace to Test cricket. Anderson's had 3 new balls and not got it to swing once and it's turning less than a gay bloke looking at a picture of Susan Boyle bathing naked in shit.

What a horrid spectacle.

 

[JJH]

2 quick wickets have made this slightly interesting.

 

[lordofthepies]

I think that's stretching it a bit...

 

[mowgli]

Now de Kock goes for 5,finally it's improved from the snooze cricket we saw yesterday.

 

[slaphead]

This pitch is a disgrace to Test cricket. Anderson's had 3 new balls and not got it to swing once and it's turning less than a gay bloke looking at a picture of Susan Boyle bathing naked in shit.

What a horrid spectacle.

Don't think it's that bad, what is a disgrace is Englands catching. Had we held just half of the nine dropped we would have been batting again with a substantial lead. It's not like they were even really difficult chances, all you would expect to be taking in Test cricket.

Oh shit, as I type, Root drops another. Ridiculous.

 

[hodge]

And the commentators slated South Africa's catching

 

[hodge]

Over 1200 runs for 12 wickets

 

[hodge]

 

[Super_horns]

Very impressive scoring even at school boy level!

An Indian teenager scored more than 1,000 runs in a single innings to set a new world record in school cricket.

Fifteen-year-old Pranav Dhanawade broke the previous record of 628 set by Arthur Collins in 1899 on Monday.

But he continued his innings in the HT Bhandari Cup inter-school tournament and reached 1,009 runs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-35230388

 

[Matt_]

Four days play, 1272 for 13, too many tracks like this will see the death of test cricket.

 

[Saddlerrad]

If we could catch we would have been well on the way to winning this match now. Obviously the blame can be shared, but if Root had caught ABDV for 5 at the end of Day 2 then the pressure would have been enormous on Amla to perform in the manner he did. We would be looking at another victory IMO. Not to be though and there has been plenty of other catches go down.

Definetely not good news to have their batsmen back in form with Steyn and potentially Philander to return on more bowling friendly wickets...

 

[Super_horns]

Hales and Cook out early which is a concern as the latter hasn't really hit form yet.

However like to think Compton and Root will manage to hold on and we can stick around long enough generally to avoid a disaster.

EDIT: Root got some good luck just now - no ball from Morkel when he was caught!

 

[appletablepenny]

England are 3 down now. I still strongly fancy the draw, but they could do without the scare. It's a bit like Abu Dhabi in reverse

 

[RavenBish]

It'll be fine, the weird doom mongerers are out though because England have lost THREE WICKETS. The swing and bounce suggests that it could've been an interesting 5th day had South Africa got something tempting to chase or England performed a bit better in the field

 

[appletablepenny]

Oooooh, Taylor dropped on 22.

 

[appletablepenny]

Compton gone, Boycott "that's a gettin' out shot"

 

[Super_horns]

Stokes will need to play a different sort of innings now - him and Taylor have been pretty steady so far..

 

[Saddlerrad]

Are the lack of runs from Cook becoming a worry? It's been a little while now and he hasn't looked comfortable so far in SA. Even without Steyn and Philander, I'd suggest we may be in trouble after this test... (AND IN THIS ONE)