Cricket fred

[Digby]

It had never occurred to me Philander was unplayable.

Thank god we didn't elect to bat last on this wicket

[Galfon]

3 gone in 8 balls - back on track.
YJ gets his timbers tumbled again..another chance for him goes begging.

[Digby]

Very giving of Bairstow not to give the selectors any issues if they wanted to pick a spinner

[fivepointer]

Poor shots from Root and Stokes. And a typical non shot from Bairstow who makes the bowlers job far too easy. Any kind of 1st innings lead seems unlikely at this stage.

[Galfon]

SA 158 lead with 7 wickets to play with..
It's another heady mix of Results wicket/ Eng. flakiness.

[Digby]

Plenty of soft dismissals from both sides in this match, that and the current state of the game after just 2 days leads me to conclude there'll be a winner in the opener, you heard it here first!

[Banquo]

It had never occurred to me Philander was unplayable.

Thank god we didn't elect to bat last on this wicket

Philander is a fantastic bowler.

[Galfon]

Philander is a fantastic bowler.

Apart from his wickets to concede just a run/over from 15 on that track was tops (compare Archer)
To call his retirement from the national team at just 34 seems a bit previous.He's off to Zummerzet next year & covering his options .

[Digby]

It had never occurred to me Philander was unplayable.

Thank god we didn't elect to bat last on this wicket

Philander is a fantastic bowler.

He's very good, just maybe not as good as we made him look

[Banquo]

It had never occurred to me Philander was unplayable.

Thank god we didn't elect to bat last on this wicket

Philander is a fantastic bowler.

He's very good, just maybe not as good as we made him look

Sounds familiar, we’ve also made their batsmen look better than they are. He showed us the line and length, but we seem unable to learn; Archer needs some help I think.

[Digby]

Archer just spent a week in bed being sick and was then asked to bowl first rather than rest another day, and do so in very hot weather when the pitch would only get worse. Though yes Archer needs some help, hopefully in the main with the workload

[Galfon]

The lurgy is getting a grip on the team - Buttler & not well-looking Root affected today..
The Nortje-watchman grabs forty, and the weather's worsening.Happy days.

On a brighter note, Clive Lloyd gets his knighthood - very fine player but a great captain.
Well deserved - put alot back into the game too.

[Banquo]

Archer just spent a week in bed being sick and was then asked to bowl first rather than rest another day, and do so in very hot weather when the pitch would only get worse. Though yes Archer needs some help, hopefully in the main with the workload

I was referring also to his 'form' in NZ....

my we bowled badly this morning, suppose some lurgy mitigation..

[Banquo]

The lurgy is getting a grip on the team - Buttler & not well-looking Root affected today..
The Nortje-watchman grabs forty, and the weather's worsening.Happy days.

On a brighter note, Clive Lloyd gets his knighthood - very fine player but a great captain.
Well deserved - put alot back into the game too.

....and one of the greatest cover points in the history of the game.

[Galfon]

wtf..??

(50 opening partnership)

[Digby]

Nobody saw that coming. If we can get some more runs before the next rolling of the roller wears off this might be a game yet

[Galfon]

A faint sniff - steady start essential.
Hopefully the illness in the camp doesn't spread (not literally) and complicate matters.

* Also i'd to point out this is the two-thousandth reply on this fred and as such could attract considerable value in the lurk export market, in a by-gone era.

[Galfon]

Not the best start - Burns & Denley depart.
Eng. need a big innings from someone now..
still a whiff.

[Banquo]

Not the best start - Burns & Denley depart.
Eng. need a big innings from someone now..
still a whiff.

Burns will be hanging his head a bit...

[Banquo]

Have to worry about YJB. Think he needs some proper time off; he's corrected technical faults before.

Buttler needs to play his normal game imo.

[Banquo]

amazingly, we collapsed again; illness is a bit of a mitigation, but these collapses are too regular.

[Galfon]

Last 5 wkts. in 5 overs.. 129 for 9 wickets today when a win was a possibility...
The debilitating extent of the lurgy is an unknown, but this team seems to fold more readily than a napkin at the moment.

[Digby]

The good news is with just one qualification spot open for the utter abhorrence that is the world test championship bollocks we're exceedingly unlikely to make it.

[fivepointer]

Think illness was a telling factor. Most of the team had bouts of illness before and during the game. It shouldnt be used as an excuse as England, yet again, came up short in too many areas. Opting to bowl first looked a gamble at the time and hindsight confirmed it was a poor decision.

[Digby]

I'd accept the illness and attending lack of a spinner more as explanations for the bowling than the batting, and certainly than batting collapses. Especially when collapsing in both innings is what our batters do when in theory not ill, if anything they maintained standards admirably.

Ideally we'd make SA bowl another 70-80 overs at us in the next test, but we've got to manage another 50 odd unless SA have at least one miserable failure with their batting.