South Africa v England, 4th Test, Jo’burg, Jan 14-18

Onions to bat out the final over?


Sid in for Kev?

Sid Barnes or S F Barnes?

Bring in Barry Richards for Prince.

Bell will probably get dropped. Liam Plunkett to come in as the extra bowler.

All jokes aside, same team.


It's worked wonders so far. If it ain't broken...

There must be some way to shoehorn Luke Wright into the team?

What about that Matt Prior, he didn't get many runs in the 2nd innings.

How's Colly's finger?

[Ashley Giles]Still fits.[/Ashley Giles]

DJ_Smerk wrote:All jokes aside, same team.


It's worked wonders so far. If it ain't broken...

What joke was that then???

England will retain the same team and hope for a draw at the very worst. It's SA which has thinking to do with a lack of a spinner, only one specialist opener, a problematic middle-order and a lack of support for Steyn.

Red wrote:England will retain the same team and hope for a draw at the very worst. It's SA which has thinking to do with a lack of a spinner, only one specialist opener, a problematic middle-order and a lack of support for Steyn.

Evening Re-.....oh...wait.

DJ_Smerk wrote:

Red wrote:England will retain the same team and hope for a draw at the very worst. It's SA which has thinking to do with a lack of a spinner, only one specialist opener, a problematic middle-order and a lack of support for Steyn.

Evening Re-.....oh...wait.

Hard to argue against that though isn't it?

Ironic to say the least that Arthur went on about mental scarring after Centurion and pointed to a so-called fragile English middle-order. Bell and Collingwood have certainly outperformed AB and JP. The mental scars surely now are torturing the SA coach.

England will be unchanged. For South Africa, I reckon they might consider dropping Harris and playing Duminy as the sole spinner, and unleashing an all pace attack on what i'm sure will be a spicy Wanderers pitch. De Wet is probably out injured, so there could be debuts for Wayne Parnell and Lonwabo Tsotsobe. Otherwise, Makhaya Ntini could get an unexpected recall. Possible team-

Smith(c)
Prince
Amla
Kallis
De Villiers
Duminy
Boucher+
Parnell
Steyn
M.Morkel
Tsotsobe/Ntini

Red wrote:England will retain the same team and hope for a draw at the very worst. It's SA which has thinking to do with a lack of a spinner, only one specialist opener, a problematic middle-order and a lack of support for Steyn.

Nice tits

so what happens with the Test rankings?

Nath wrote:so what happens with the Test rankings?

Cricinfo's table hasn't been updated since 20 Dec (this'll prolly look sh!t):

Code:


Team           Matches     Points  Rating
India            32    3957    124
South Africa    30    3672    122
Australia    35    4054    116
Sri Lanka    31    3574    115
England    39    4102    105
Pakistan    21    1744    83
New Zealand    29    2337    81
West Indies    29    2224    77
Bangladesh    19    255    13



skully wrote:

Nath wrote:so what happens with the Test rankings?

Cricinfo's table hasn't been updated since 20 Dec (this'll prolly look sh!t):

Code:


Team           Matches     Points  Rating
India            32    3957    124
South Africa    30    3672    122
Australia    35    4054    116
Sri Lanka    31    3574    115
England    39    4102    105
Pakistan    21    1744    83
New Zealand    29    2337    81
West Indies    29    2224    77
Bangladesh    19    255    13



I notice VOR's rankings have disappered since Aus started dropping

Nath wrote:so what happens with the Test rankings?

Posted the rambling ranking rules in a new thread, Nath. They are farkin mind-boggling but it appears that the rankings won't change until the two current series are completed.

So England have the most points, followed by Australia, yet they lie 5th and 3rd respectively.

WTF?

Under the wacko rules, vilky (see ICC rankings - Jebus H Crikey thread), the overall points are divided by the number of matches played in the 3 year period. England are hampered by the fact that they played a sh!t load more games than all other teams. Eng played 39 Tests in 3 years up to Christmas 2009. Nearest is Aus with 35.

Singlehandedly keeping test cricket alive we are don't you know, as demonstrated again yesterday .

Well, you are certainly adding a great deal more to Test Cricket than Banindia is.

vilkrang wrote:So England have the most points, followed by Australia, yet they lie 5th and 3rd respectively.

WTF?

Divide the number of games. Can only be fair that the average is taken.

To show how the table doesn't really give that much a clue of events, I don't think England would get many points from a series win in SA because our last series there was a win anyway.

And if it was 1-1 (which for a rebuilding side following the Ashes result would be a good series) we would actually lose points I think?

JKLever wrote:

vilkrang wrote:So England have the most points, followed by Australia, yet they lie 5th and 3rd respectively.

WTF?

Divide the number of games. Can only be fair that the average is taken.

To show how the table doesn't really give that much a clue of events, I don't think England would get many points from a series win in SA because our last series there was a win anyway.

And if it was 1-1 (which for a rebuilding side following the Ashes result would be a good series) we would actually lose points I think?

That can't be right, surely? Last time England were ranked 2nd in the world and South Africa 3rd. This time South Africa were ranked top at the start of the series and England 5th. How the hell could we lose points?

Ah, didn't think of that

Pakistan call up Wayne Parnell and Imran Tahir. Ntini axed from the squad, so it really is the end for him.