South Africa v Australia, 1st Test, Cape Town, 9-13 November, 2011

Hughes becomes Philanderer's first victim and Boucher's 500th....the bad news for Vernon is that Lawson has compared him to Malcolm Marshall.

bye bye Hughes - hopefully only one more innings in Test cricket.

Couple of nice cherries to remove Watto and Fuse. Too-fitty will be a good score by Aus on this deck.

Too-fitty? Let's see fitty-two first.

Red wrote:Clarke wanted to bat anyway so the toss was redundant.

From cricinfo

Clarke must be relieved he didn't win the toss. Batting first voluntarily on this strip would have looked a bit silly in hindsight.

Looking more and more like a shonky opening partnership. Can them both. Get Marsh and *ahem* to open, put POCson at 6.

I blame skully for this.

Choosing who has the cred out of Red and Crocinfo is like choosing between a P76 and a Valiant.

And they're off....barely perceptible drizzle.

I blame Clarke. Krabich was big billy bananas last time in SA.

And they're on again. FFS!!!

Fred ... I suggest it's more like P76 v Edsel

Ah, memories: What do you call a P76 convertible? .... a skip

Brass Monkey wrote:I blame Clarke. Krabich was big billy bananas last time in SA.

So was Hughes.

what a tough examination for Ponting and Marsh

Katich would have been fairly handy here. Best spinner going about the Australian scene atm, too.

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1658545,00.html

Time's 50 Worst Cars of All Time. Surprisingly the P76 doesn't get a gig - maybe they figured a half-brick sitting on top of a full brick with a wheel on each corner and a clapped out Victa mower engine didn't constitute a car.

So the awful Philander at least will end up with one test scalp. One more than McGain.

taipan wrote:
So was Hughes.

Only because your tinpot hick bowlers kept feeding his strengths. As soon as someone with more than four brain cells made plans for him, he was toast.

FFS, even Trev had picked it before the SA series had even finished.

It really says something about the lack of brainpower within your attack.

Brass Monkey wrote:

taipan wrote:
So was Hughes.

Only because your tinpot hick bowlers kept feeding his strengths. As soon as someone with more than four brain cells made plans for him, he was toast.

FFS, even Trev had picked it before the SA series had even finished.

It really says something about the lack of brainpower within your attack.

Nah, I said at the time he would be worked out pretty quickly.

But then again we had the great Vinnie Barnes as our bowling coach then.

2-39 in the shorten 1st session seems a par result given the conditions. Drunky looks primed for the fight and Bog has looked quite assured.

Of course, I'll be going to bed shortly to facilitate a 5.00 am rise, so will have no idea until that time whether I have stated fact or woofed the schizenheimer out of the boys.

skully wrote:2-39 in the shorten 1st session seems a par result given the conditions. Drunky looks primed for the fight and Bog has looked quite assured.

Of course, I'll be going to bed shortly to facilitate a 5.00 am rise, so will have no idea until that time whether I have stated fact or woofed the schizenheimer out of the boys.

Sleeping in again?

Damn, 5am... I'd have only been sleeping for around four hours. Does Aus hold antisocial cricketing hours, for the most part?

I can only think of Aus and NZ that aren't 'bearable' hours, in England, viewing-wise.

skully wrote:2-39 in the shorten 1st session seems a par result given the conditions. Drunky looks primed for the fight and Bog has looked quite assured.

Of course, I'll be going to bed shortly to facilitate a 5.00 am rise, so will have no idea until that time whether I have stated fact or woofed the schizenheimer out of the boys.

Yes they did well to weather the storm until lunch. Steyn is bowling close to 150 again after mainly bowling in the 130s in the limited overs series. Morkel was a tad expensive in his short spell. The pitch does look pretty slow when they pitch it short.

Brass Monkey wrote:Damn, 5am... I'd have only been sleeping for around four hours. Does Aus hold antisocial cricketing hours, for the most part?

I can only think of Aus and NZ that aren't 'bearable' hours, in England, viewing-wise.

Actually Dan, I'm up at 5.15

taipan wrote:
Actually Dan, I'm up at 5.15

Good grief. I just don't know what's wrong with people. Suppose I wouldn't mind if I had kids, but as I'm free and easy... that's a length I don't want to go to. I get up at 6.10 though, so it's not like a big snoozefest for me.

Brass Monkey wrote:

taipan wrote:
Actually Dan, I'm up at 5.15

Good grief. I just don't know what's wrong with people. Suppose I wouldn't mind if I had kids, but as I'm free and easy... that's a length I don't want to go to. I get up at 6.10 though, so it's not like a big snoozefest for me.

We start at 7.30 so we can finsh at 4, so we can miss the traffic.