"How to beat South Africa this summer" by LLL

Is spin bowling the South African cryptonite? I've just looked at the Saffie wickets to fall in this India-SA series.

South Africa lost 42 wickets in the three Tests. Of those 42, a whopping 33 of them were out to spin bowling. 33!!! Nearly 80% of the wickets that SA lost were to spin bowling.

So let's prepare some dustbowls! Everyone grab a hairdryer/portable heater/George Foreman grill and meet me at Lord's, a week before the first Test.

Seriously though, I think Monty could do well against them, especially as we're playing them towards the end of the summer, when English pitches are at their best for spinners. Monty's also a better bowler in English conditions.

I didn't see much of the IND-SA series. OK, the last pitch was doctored for spin but there's no excuse in the other Tests, one was flat and the other was a green top. What happened? Was it excellent bowling or are the South Africans vulnerable against spin (Kallis apart)?

Granted, India had Bhajji who had an excellent series, but he's hardly the greatest spinner ever. He's not Murali is he? Monty is probably approaching the same sort of level of ability.

If they are weak against spin and Steyn and Ntini go to town on our batsman, we could have an extremely low scoring series.

S.A were made to look poor on a pitch which would qualify for a points penalty if it was served up by a county in the championship - let's not forget that.

If we have learned one one thing from this series - it's not to serve up pitches with any juice in them for seam bowlers. But that's our strength too.................................

The pitches we've had for the last 2-3 years have been pretty good in England- A bit of movement early, then good batting conditions on days two and three, before turning and bouncing nicely for Monty on days four and five. Good cricket wickets, in other words.

Unless there's a heatwave that lasts for most of the summer, it's unlikely there will be too many bustbowls.

Henry wrote:The pitches we've had for the last 2-3 years have been pretty good in England- A bit of movement early, then good batting conditions on days two and three, before turning and bouncing nicely for Monty on days four and five. Good cricket wickets, in other words.

Unless there's a heatwave that lasts for most of the summer, it's unlikely there will be too many bustbowls.

"bustbowls" ?

A titular remark if I may say so.

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:
I didn't see much of the IND-SA series. OK, the last pitch was doctored for spin but there's no excuse in the other Tests, one was flat and the other was a green top. What happened? Was it excellent bowling or are the South Africans vulnerable against spin (Kallis apart)?

It was not a 'pitch doctored for spin' but it was an underprepared pitch that had uneven bounce.

Anything could have happened, and it was risk taken by Team BCCI which could have spectacularly backfired as well.

Aye but what about the other Tests.? As for their fast bowling attack - I have a solution for that too.



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I think Morkel is a more of a danger to England than Ntini on current form. Should he not open the bowling ahead of the latter?

It's not that the spinners were effective, it's just that the pacers were shit in the first 2 tests.

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:....So let's prepare some dustbowls! Everyone grab a hairdryer/portable heater/George Foreman grill and meet me at Lord's, a week before the first Test....

You'd need spinners for the master plan to come through...Monty and who else?

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:Granted, India had Bhajji who had an excellent series, but he's hardly the greatest spinner ever. He's not Murali is he? Monty is probably approaching the same sort of level of ability.

Dunno about that last statement.

Monty can't or doesn't chuck, so they're pretty ambiguous to each other.

Cry me a river, Ngam.

I would go with more to the point that in order to beat SA,. our batters need to score more than 40 runs per innings at some point. A 100 every now and again wouldn't go amiss.

furriner wrote:Cry me a river, Ngam.

I think that's a statement you should tell yourself. One can spin the ball both ways due to his chucking doosra. One is totally orthodox. Therefore, they're incomparable.

Cry me a river, Ngam.

Both are sikhs and both run like girls.

furriner wrote:Cry me a river, Ngam.

I'm not a DJ, mate. If you want Justin Timberlake, search the internet.

and only one can throw - and then only when asked to deliver an over

[furriner]Cry me a river, horace[/furriner]

<Ngam>Twats united, online<Ngam>

The Indian spinners took most of the wickets, but then they bowled most of the overs as well. 172 overs to Harbhajan, 98 to Kumble in 2 Tests - even Sehwag bowled nearly as many overs as RP Singh.

By the way, for all you "Ntini can't bowl overseas" merchants, he took 10 wickets in the series at an average of 24 and a SR of 43. And he was only second in the averages. We desperately need a proper spinner though. Still.

horace wrote:and only one can throw - and then only when asked to deliver an over

Brass Monkey wrote:[furriner]Cry me a river, horace[/furriner]

The above quote has met furriner's QC (TM) benchmark.

furriner wrote:
The above quote has met furriner's QC (TM) benchmark.

Don't forget your whingy nationalism quota.

doremi wrote:Both are sikhs and both run like girls.

Truest statement on this thread.

bliksem wrote:The Indian spinners took most of the wickets, but then they bowled most of the overs as well. 172 overs to Harbhajan, 98 to Kumble in 2 Tests - even Sehwag bowled nearly as many overs as RP Singh.

By the way, for all you "Ntini can't bowl overseas" merchants, he took 10 wickets in the series at an average of 24 and a SR of 43. And he was only second in the averages. We desperately need a proper spinner though. Still.

That should go nicely with his away average of 35.