Pakistan tour of SA

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Ohitsthatguy

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What language does the black population in SA speak primarily?
Afrikaans I believe.

I'm a huge fan of Abbas but he was going to struggle coming back from injury.

South Africa are scary, they have the best fast bowling in the world and it's not even close honestly.

Olivier is your guy you can bring in to do the job? Yeah, he's averaging a lazy 17 in test match cricket..
 
Afrikaans is also the language of like 3/4 of the Coloured population too. It's not solely a White thing.

That being said, I do think a lot of the world mistakenly think the Black population in South Africa is similar in number to (for example) Native Americans or Australian Aborigines (true minorities at present, despite being the Indigenous peoples of tgeir land), and fails to realise that 80% of South Africa's 58 million population are Black, and a further 12% are either Coloured or Asian. By comparison, Whites are the significant minority in population in South Africa.
I would think that's actually pretty common knowledge.
 

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May 5, 2016
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Afrikaans I believe.

I'm a huge fan of Abbas but he was going to struggle coming back from injury.

South Africa are scary, they have the best fast bowling in the world and it's not even close honestly.

Olivier is your guy you can bring in to do the job? Yeah, he's averaging a lazy 17 in test match cricket..

I was having a discussion with someone today about under-valued cricketers and two that came to mind were Kallis and Harris. Kallis obviously isn’t underrated, but having guys like them that could, in his case, bowl 10 overs a day and chip in with a wicket, and Harris who could keep the rate to 2 an over, just allowed Smith to unleash this barrage of high quality quicks one after the other and let them go as hard as they could. Now Maharaj has become that sort of role player too.

Of course in this test with more help for the quicks, they don’t even have to bother - they just bring in a 5th choice quick, after Morkel has retired, Abbott has left and Ngidi has been injured, and go even harder.

It’s f***ing joyful to watch.

Sooner or later - maybe it will only happen in retrospect when the era has passed - the question needs to be asked: does SA’s absolute production line of quicks over the last 20 years match, or surpass that of the West Indies from 75-95?

Donald
Pollock
Ntini
Steyn
Morkel
Philander
Rabada

Marshall
Holding
Garner
Roberts
Croft
Ambrose
Walsh
Bishop

It’s often said that the guys who couldn’t play for the WI either due to being behind the superstars or the rebel tours, were good enough to walk into every other side in the world.

Realistically the support cast for SA over the years probably could too.
The likes of Fannie De Villiers, the injury cruelled Brett Schultz, Abbott etc - they’d stack up pretty well to guys like Wayne Daniel, Sylvester Clarke, Patrick Patterson, the two unrelated Benjamins, Franklyn Stephenson etc.
Hell, even Kallis, I’m absolutely certain, if he wasn’t a batsman and put all his energy into bowling, had the tools to be a genuine mid-20s averaging quick. His seam position was beautiful and off a tiny run up he generated real pace.
 

Park cricketer

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Afrikaans I believe.

I'm a huge fan of Abbas but he was going to struggle coming back from injury.

South Africa are scary, they have the best fast bowling in the world and it's not even close honestly.

Olivier is your guy you can bring in to do the job? Yeah, he's averaging a lazy 17 in test match cricket..

SA definitely has the best pace arsenal in the world but I'm not sold on Olivier yet. I know he's averaging low but he seems to bowl too short too often and not pitching the ball up much. That style of bowling might be counterproductive when there is movement. I think Ngidi is a bit better than Olivier, just from early signs. Rabada is a superstar, Steyn even in this age is still a gun and Philander is an accurate prober as always. So SA will be very hard to beat especially at home.
 
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SA definitely has the best pace arsenal in the world but I'm not sold on Olivier yet. I know he's averaging low but he seems to bowl too short too often and not pitching the ball up much. That style of bowling might be counterproductive when there is movement. I think Ngidi is a bit better than Olivier, just from early signs. Rabada is a superstar, Steyn even in this age is still a gun and Philander is an accurate prober as always. So SA will be very hard to beat especially at home.

I think Olivier is being given a licence to bang it in to be fair. There are three 140km/h tearaways in this side who’s style is to be ultra-aggressive, anchored by Philander.

Probably got a bit lucky with that one. No problem with the Hawkeye projection but surely the umpire sees the doubt in that shout.
 

Ohitsthatguy

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You're right, Olivier does rely on the short ball but it has worked for him so good on him.

But yeah, I rate Ngidi higher too. South Africa are just scary.
 

red+black

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South Africa innings victories over Pakistan:
inns & 142 runs, Cape Town, 2 Jan 2003
inns & 92 runs, Dubai (DSC), 23 Oct 2013
inns & 18 runs, Centurion, 22 Feb 2013
 

red+black

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Most Test Wickets (6th to 11th):
519 - CA Walsh (WI)
434 - Kapil Dev (IND)
433 - HMRKB Herath (SL)
433* - SCJ Broad (ENG)
431 - RJ Hadlee (NZ)
431 - DW Steyn (SA)

with Pakistan 8/247
 
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red+black

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Assuming Steyn remains fit, he will play his 97th to 100th Test matches next Summer at home v England (4-Test series).

Wouldn't be a bad series to go over and watch.
 

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It troubles me that Supersport still produce a product with an Afrikaans language option. No one there doesn’t speak English - it’s easily the closest they have to an official language (or a compromise language.)

The only people who still want to use Afrikaans are arseholes who equate it with a long-deceased sense of superiority. I guess apartheid still lives, both in the existence of an alternate language option, and in the knowledge that only a tiny fraction of South Africa’s black population can afford pay television.


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app

What a weird comment.
 
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Most Test Wickets (6th to 11th):
519 - CA Walsh (WI)
434 - Kapil Dev (IND)
433 - HMRKB Herath (SL)
433* - SCJ Broad (ENG)
431 - RJ Hadlee (NZ)
431 - DW Steyn (SA)

with Pakistan 8/247

I know you could say this about a lot of bowlers but if it weren’t for injury he’d have at least another 100 scalps, probably more
 

red+black

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Pakistan might take this into a 4th day. Lead is 37. Probably too many runs for SA to chase.

Steyn has had 2 catches dropped in going for his 5-for.
 

estibador

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Boo I wanted the extra half hour to watch SA try knock off 41 in 20 minutes. Would have been a fun ending.
 

red+black

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correct decision by the umpires, 41 runs in 4-5 overs is too much

noball by Philander cost them runs and time
 
I know you could say this about a lot of bowlers but if it weren’t for injury he’d have at least another 100 scalps, probably more
This is true but as you say, you could say it about a lot of bowlers. If not for injury and suspension Warne probably would have taken 800, for example. McGrath probably would have taken 600. Who knows how many wickets Ryan Harris (IMO one of the very best Aussie quicks of the past 30 years) ends up with if is his body doesn't let him down so often.

While we can speculate endlessly of course, projected stat if not for *insert injury/suspension* can't ever be used as an argument to boost someone's all-time standing.
 
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This is true but as you say, you could say it about a lot of bowlers. If not for injury and suspension Warne probably would have taken 800, for example. McGrath probably would have taken 600. Who knows how many wickets Ryan Harris (IMO one of the very best Aussie quicks of the past 30 years) ends up with if is his body doesn't let him down so often.

While we can speculate endlessly of course, projected stat if not for *insert injury/suspension* can't ever be used as an argument to boost someone's all-time standing.

To be honest I don’t think his all time standing needs boosting. If you remove some of the statistical freaks from pre-WWI, the guy is probably in an all time world XII squad. More so than other bowlers, I think the ‘if not for’ argument would mean that he would have ended up on an aggregate to match his standing. It’s criminal that arguably his most noteworthy contemporary is going to end up with 150-200 more wickets, basically because a) he never broke his shoulder and b) his side plays a lot more test cricket.

On the flip side it’s pretty widely acknowledged that along with maybe Lillee, Marshall is the greatest quick of all time and he is well down the list
 

newblueo

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Would be a fun debate steyn or McGrath the better bowler.. how dale got masood out was world class.
 
McGrath was the more metronomic though.

I don't think I can split them to be honest.

I was having a discussion with someone today about under-valued cricketers and two that came to mind were Kallis and Harris. Kallis obviously isn’t underrated, but having guys like them that could, in his case, bowl 10 overs a day and chip in with a wicket, and Harris who could keep the rate to 2 an over, just allowed Smith to unleash this barrage of high quality quicks one after the other and let them go as hard as they could. Now Maharaj has become that sort of role player too.

Of course in this test with more help for the quicks, they don’t even have to bother - they just bring in a 5th choice quick, after Morkel has retired, Abbott has left and Ngidi has been injured, and go even harder.

It’s f***ing joyful to watch.

Sooner or later - maybe it will only happen in retrospect when the era has passed - the question needs to be asked: does SA’s absolute production line of quicks over the last 20 years match, or surpass that of the West Indies from 75-95?

Donald
Pollock
Ntini
Steyn
Morkel
Philander
Rabada

Marshall
Holding
Garner
Roberts
Croft
Ambrose
Walsh
Bishop

It’s often said that the guys who couldn’t play for the WI either due to being behind the superstars or the rebel tours, were good enough to walk into every other side in the world.

Realistically the support cast for SA over the years probably could too.
The likes of Fannie De Villiers, the injury cruelled Brett Schultz, Abbott etc - they’d stack up pretty well to guys like Wayne Daniel, Sylvester Clarke, Patrick Patterson, the two unrelated Benjamins, Franklyn Stephenson etc.
Hell, even Kallis, I’m absolutely certain, if he wasn’t a batsman and put all his energy into bowling, had the tools to be a genuine mid-20s averaging quick. His seam position was beautiful and off a tiny run up he generated real pace.
Australia of 1990ish through to 2015 isn't far out of the conversation either.
 
Afrikaans I believe.

I'm a huge fan of Abbas but he was going to struggle coming back from injury.

South Africa are scary, they have the best fast bowling in the world and it's not even close honestly.

Olivier is your guy you can bring in to do the job? Yeah, he's averaging a lazy 17 in test match cricket..

Australia with a population of 23 million is falling to the wayside due to our limited talent pool compared to countries like Sth Africa with 56 million people,India with 1.4 billion.

It’s incredible how dominant we have been in the long term history of the sport.

In today’s World money talks.
 

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