Ou Maaikie, it is time for you to catch a wake-up, sunshine. I never once denied that QDK is a talented player with a good future ahead. I just did not buy into the hype about him. You argued, two years ago, that QDK was paramount to us winning the CWC. You kept on believing it. You bought into the hype after his knock against Sri Lanka.
Look at what you said:
clevermike Status: Hall Of Fame Posts: 15774
RE: NZ v SA Semi FinalMarch 23, 2015, 14:47:07
I said elsewhere that if De Kock comes off - like he did against SriLanka - and I think he will - its going to be a hard day at the office for the Black Caps. De Kock earlier in the tournament was badly out of form, lack confidence and his timing was completely out - in the SriLanka game that lack of confidence vanished and his timing and accuracy were faultless.
You did not want to hear, from anybody that the Sri Lankan bowling attack was near toothless on the day.
And there was this one:
clevermike Status: Hall Of Fame Posts: 15774
RE: de KockMarch 18, 2015, 16:01:51 De Kock always was a classy player - but his preparation for this WC was not what it should have been as a result of his injury keeping him out of cricket for 8 weeks.
I never doubted that he would not come back into form sooner rather than later.
I think AB thought the same and with the support of AB - De Kock would come right at the critical time.
He has his confidence back and that makes things look bleak for the next opposing team.
You asked Moz if AB was lying, when Moz did not agree with AB's viewpoint. I have also questioned AB's captaincy. Remember that I said elsewhere that I respect AB as a brilliant cricket player but I do not rate him as a captain. He, like you, believed that QDK will win us the CWC. Yes, I know that hindsight is perfect science but this is what AB said after the match against Sri Lanka:
AB - We will obviously discuss team selection moving forward. Russell and I and the selectors will sit down and discuss all the different possibilities and combinations that we have and we'll make that final call once we get closer to the time.
But talking about Quinny, there's no doubt in my mind that he's a match winner, and I've said it before that he's going to play a big part in us winning this World Cup. I would hate to see him go, but it's something that we will discuss.
But for now he's still my first pick, and like I said, he's going to win – I really believe he's going to play a big knock for us.There is part of our problem right there. AB as the captain, said in the media that we were going to win the CWC and that QDK was going to play a major role in it. It was the wrong thing to say at the wrong time. None of Graeme Smith, Ricky Ponting, Sangakara or any of the good captains would have made such a statement in the media at that time. That was bad captaincy. I am quite sure that he conveyed that in the dressing room as well. Our guys have sold the skin before we shot the deer, my friend.
Yes, I agree that there were many factors in this game that culminated in us losing it but where did it start? You were once a huge proponent of the idea that when things start of crap in a match of one day cricket, it normally goes downhill all the way.
I agree that Amla did not have a particularly good innings either and that did not help us. Our problem was that we set them an good target but not an impossible target by any means. Our batting did not put us far enough ahead and put loads of pressure on the bowlers to perform.
I have not been able to watch our innings, or much of the match, for that matter but when I saw, in the early hours of morning, what our score was, and had a quick look at the score card, I just knew that it was going to be an uphill battle. I remembered how some around here were so confident that we had a much better batting line-up but I did not buy into that. NZ's batting line-up was not to be underestimated. Not with someone like Vettori came in towards the end.
Although I did not watch the game, I was following the NZ batting innings in Cricinfo ball by ball and kept on checking the over-by-over comparison. NZ was always way ahead of us.
They knew that it was not that difficult a target and they had a go at us from the word "go". Their runrate never dipped below 6 in their entire innings. Not once. The lowest that it went was 6.44 in the 30th over. Our runrate started off with 0 in the first over, going up to 5 after the second, and up to 6.66 after the third, down to 6.25 in the fourth when we also lost Amla. And the QDK krept back into his shell. He was battling against Boult and he did not seem keen to have a go at all.
"Boult to de Kock again. De Kock has been all at sea against Boult. A fourth slip walks in. I am loving McCullum's intent5.1Boult to de Kock, no run, short of a length, angling in, gets an inside edge onto the pad
5.2Boult to de Kock, 1 run, no swing this time, worked away with the angle. Off strike now"
That was the start of the serious decline in our runrate, not helped one bit by QDK scratching around for more than half an hour to find 14 runs of 17 balls. And included in those 14 runs were two fours. So, his remaining 6 runs came 15 balls in 36 minutes. He was not inclined to attack their bowling at any stage, when it was really needed to get us going.
As I said we did not bowl great and our fielding was not top notch but the pressure was due to not having enough runs on the board to back up our bowling.
PS. Wasn't QDK involved in a botched run out attempt as well? Not too sure. Just asking.