Proteas A plus…..Board experts D minus

Okay Jansen:

mozart

Hall Of Fame

35558 posts

Jan 03, 2022, 21:36

Jansen is about 8 ks quicker and he gets more bounce. He is fast/medium maybe just fast. He is awkward enough that he might have a bit of a test career. Olivier looks bog ordinary.

I’d say India were in the stronger position, but for the injury to Siraj which could decide the test.

Pietie was easily the standout for me. I hope he builds on this. Hard not to get on the hype train. Let’s not forget that this was a home test series. The first one where a team won a test series without scoring beyond 250. Granted that in two of the 6 innings we could have gone beyond that. India’s shockingly low scores are an enigma. To the point where I’m paying more attention to Kholi’s claims of ball tampering than I know I should. The consistency of how poorly they batted is what really boggles. One could understand the odd collapse. But they were coming apart in every innings, without fail. 340 being the most they managed in six attempts. The top ranked side in the world!? I said at the start of the series that our bowling attack was too same’ey. No real variety. Yet, despite there being no surprises, perhaps the consistent pressure is what did India in. The Protea bowlers seemed to be there or thereabouts throughout, with nobody really looking like the weak link. At some stages they did seem to want to target Jansen but he mostly won the contest. While everybody is down on Olivier, I thought he did a good job. Yesterday morning he was looking unplayable, beating the bat by half a foot on occasion from a scrambled seam. Ngidi is tuning into a proper champ. He’s just one of those infectious type characters that gets more dangerous the more he smiles. He’s a proper throwback to some of the Windies bowlers of the 80s. Rabada, I don’t even know. Something is going on there and he’s either receiving some top quality mentoring or just has the Midas touch for whatever reason. In all, the bowlers handed this series to the Proteas on a silver plate. They all seemed to time their contributions perfectly with the supporting acts never really letting momentum slip. But let’s forget the bowling for a moment and look only the totals we posted. We chased down 200 in the final innings of the first win…not exactly a massive achievement. Today we did the same thing and of course the win was great but I’d back Bangladesh to chase down 200 away from home against any top flight side. The other four innings we far less good than they were bad. Markram failed all six times. Elgar got a big score and was tough but still below par for what we expect from our top order batting at home. Rassie did well today but was all but missing previously. Bavuma was easily the most solid of the middle order but didn’t exactly set the world on fire either. None of this is surprising. The Proteas have been batting badly for some time now. And there is an argument to make for this series win perhaps making things appear a lot prettier than what they actually are. Malan is simply a better bat than Elgar. Rickleton is a better opener than Markram. And I agree with Saffex in that van Tonder could and should replace Rassie. This series reminded me quite a bit of our return to international cricket where we’d never get big scores but our bowling would keep us in and often win us games. Edit: Someone posted about Peteresen “He is 28 now. Where has he been all this time?” Answer…the same place that Malan, Rickleton and van a Tonder are right now. Waiting for older and less skilful players to retire.

I have to concede I got it wrong when it comes to Petersen, he is very good I just find it extremely frustrating that we have only seen him selected aged 28 Jansen has been a big find, Olivier a huge disappointment