Who are your fast bowlers other than Donald?
Who are your fast bowlers other than Donald?
Adcock, Mike.
Heard of him?
Noooo Moz
Here we go:
Richards
Smith
Kallis
Graeme Pollock
AB
Amla
de Kock
Shaun Pollock
Rabada
Steyn
Donald
We have never had a world beating spinner so I’m not going to select one for the sake of it.
And Proctor Mike....ever heard of him.
Tayfield was the best spinner around 56 through 58. Rabada has been in an elevator going down...much to prove. Ock is a mess who can only bat against long hops.
Hell Dave your team has 5 bowlers...you can’t be serious. Dudley Nourse had the highest SA test average until Pollock came along....he was a giant in his day.
Amla, Sean Pollock and Steyn are all worthy contenders. But I prefer Nourse, Proctor and Adcock.
Both were medium-fast bowlers with an average pace of roundabout 135 kph.
The reason for this was threefold Adcock, Heine and a great off-spinner named Hugh Tayfield.
The curious action
Adcock ran in with an almost unbelievable action. Every step was taken with the toes pointing towards the batsman, including his delivery stride. According to Wisden, He bowls without interruption in the course of his run, swinging his arm on a trunk that is virtually upright like a sudden gust turning a light windmill. When he released the ball, a line joining the hand and foot would encroach onto his body.
Graveney said, He was as near to being an arm bowler as anyone I have ever seen. For that elegant England batsman, the fact that such an action could deliver such ferocious pace remained a constant source of wonder. When he saw him bowl in England in 1955, Fred Trueman was amazed at how he could bowl out-swingers with an in-swing bowler s open-chested action.
The next Test at Johannesburg, however, announced his arrival on the dark wings of terror. Adcock charged in to produce one of the most dangerous opening spells in the history of cricket.
In his first over, Geoff Rabone and Murray Chapple were struck by balls that flew from good length.At nine; Chapple was bowled off a ball that ricocheted off his chest.
Sutcliffe walked in and played two deliveries from Adcock, before another flew for his head. He tried a desperate hook, but failed to make contact. The same could not be said about the ball. It struck him on the side of the head and according to Sutcliffe himself, he went out like a light. His ear was split, blood poured all over in a ghastly sight. He was carried off, and taken to a hospital where he fainted again twice.
John Reid was the next man in and was pummelled by Adcock. Within a short span of time he was hit five times on the body. With the score on 24 for 3, Lawrie Miller was hit on the chest and was forced to retire and made for the hospital following the footsteps of Sutcliffe.
Matt Poore scored 15 before Adcock made another one rise. The ball struck his ribcage and was deflected on to the stumps.
.]
Before the 1968 season began, I had my first news of Procter as a player, from David Green who had also just joined Gloucestershire, from Lancashire, and had batted against him in the nets and trials. "This man is extraordinary," David said. "He bowls at a hundred miles an hour from extra cover off the wrong foot." The two men were to become fast friends, though this did not prevent Procter giving him a fearful bouncer when they were playing against each other in Rhodesia. David went for the hook, missed, caught it with his head, and was laid out. Procter unperturbedly began his long walk back, throwing scarcely a glance over his shoulder, until about halfway through it came the casual query, You all right, Greeny?
As to bowling off the wrong foot, that is a matter difficult to define, but Procter's action, with its long run and the last-moment whip-through of the arm, was certainly an unusually testing one. It says much for his strength and stamina that he was able to keep it up for so long. He suffered strains and injuries but, looking back on his career, not much more than most really fast bowlers suffer.
Sure sounds like 135 ks....hey Tokkie you ignoramus..
All long before my time Moz so can’t comment on the old days other than to say the footage of those old days shows a very average standard of cricket compared to today
Rabada might have lost a little of his mojo probably thanks to being bored with playing with such a shit side but he is still breaking records along the way.
de Kock is by far our best wicket keeper bat we have ever had
Look at video of Harold Larwood....still scarier than anything I have seen. Should be on you-tube. De Ock has never come through under pressure...Waite, the master of the late cut, and Dennis Linsey did so time and again.
Wrong de Kock has come good many a time and I doubt any of those old boys had his batting class
My grandfather used to tell me about Larwood and Adcock and Heiney
Smarts decline through the generations....your grandfather was clearly the smartest man in the family.
Larwood looked pretty good but difficult to really judge
Steyn, Donald and KG get my vote
Quintie is a better bat than Boucher was, in terms of eye for the ball.
...but Boucher had better technique and could be relied on where Quintie can't.
So what's more valuable for a batting keeper? A ten run higher average or being able to get down and battle when the team needs it most?
Boucher has my vote for tests and in the shorter version I'd go with AB.
Rubbish de Kock has a far better technique than Boucher
The only thing Boucher had over de Kock was resolve - he was a fighter and hard man
de Kock is a flamboyant maverick
I’d take de Kock the better bat hands down especially in a side having the likes of Richards, Smith, Kallis, Pollock, Amla and AB ahead of him.
Not to forget Shaun Pollock after him
Saffex,
Better technique or better eye?
If you think he has a better technique, I'm all ears. Honestly, would like to know why you say so.
Post apartheid 11:
Notes:
Maharaj only selected to avoid an all right arm pace attack. But he hardly disappoints.
My team also doesn't take quotas in to account
Hard to only pick 11...
Ntini, Cronje, Gibbs, McMillan, du Plessis, Klusener, Boucher... all unlucky not to be in the 11.
Plum de Kock when in form is technically perfect whereas Boucher was more laboured. His technique was solid never fluent
Flash agree with your side although for me it would be KG ahead of Maharaj and Gibbs ahead of Kirsten
Cronje was at best solid, was not a great bat same applies to Faf
I disagree Saffex.
He often plays with minimal foot movement while also not meeting the ball with his head.
His good eye helps to hide that problem a touch but it's clear as day that he's playing around a technical problem that is, at this stage, cemented into his style.
Even when he's in form, that issue persists. It's also why he has a higher than average strike rate in tests. He flashes more.
And therefore why he can't be relied upon to bat for time...like Boucher could.
To me, a player, particularly a keeper, in a best 11, must have both the ability to front-run but also to dig in when the world is falling down around him. I can't remember when last Quintie did that. Can you? Boucher did that plenty. Proof is in the pudding.
Had Quintie a perfect technique as you suggest, this would not be the the case.
Plum your take is bullshit
I’m not saying de Kock has the perfect technique but what it is is it’s better than Boucher’s
The fact that de Kock has the better test average and his average will go up now that he is relieved of the captaincy proves he is the better bat regardless of the circumstances they batted in.
Like I said, Saffex - I'll trade that extra 5-10 points of batting average for a reliable fighter. All day.
Feel free to pick the inferior bat
I on the other hand select the best in the business
10 runs extra per innings throughout a career is one hell of a lot more runs than the inferior bat
Ock throws the bat at the ball, leaving a huge gap between bat and pad. He also has very high hands for balls well outside the off stump. My view is players fail under pressure because their technique is not inherently sound.
Ock has no faith in his ability to dig in and construct an innings. He knows his defence will let him down......so he tries to take charge. That works as long as the ball isn’t moving.
Mostly it is. Ock has never come through when he had a chance to change our fortunes....he has had his ‘great’ innings when the match was probably going to be won anyway.
Lindsey, Johnny Waite of the peerless technique, Boucher.....Ock.....in that order.
Rubbish there is nothing wrong with de Kock’s technique hell if he has issues imagine what we would be saying about the techniques of Steve Smith, Graeme Smith, Gary Kirsten, Amla or Labascagne
de Kock is the best wicket keeper bat SA has had - certainty better than Boucher by a good 10 runs per innings and Waite had a crap average of 30
mozart your team gets my vote.
Waite and Lindsey were in a class of their own as batsman/keepers.
But Smith, Kallis, Rice, Bland and Seymour are all worthy of a mention..
Sorry no place for the new young hopefuls of today.
AJ I would be happy to pick Smith, Rice and Bland. It’s sad that the world’s best cover fielder ever, Bland, can’t be picked. But can one leave out Nourse or AB to do so?
The batting depth in that team is awesome....Proctor coming in at number 8, That only happens if you have great all rounders and we had three in that team....Kallis, Proctor and Barlow.
Speaking of Barlow, he wasn’t an all time talent. But he was an all time competitor. No single player did more to instill a belief that South Africa could beat England and Oz. Every other player was better when Barlow was in the team.
Ultimately I'd probably take AB as my keeper. Why not, right?
Saffex, de Kock doesn't like to move his feet. It's that simple. To get him out, you force him to decide between moving his feet and playing a bad shot...then the odds are always in your favour.
Here's a test were he scored 95. He is hitting it well but only appears to be moving his feet correctly when you bowl full and at his feet. His counter-punching role is not something he chooses, it's basically all he can do.
Time stamp 00:25
Watch where his feet are the rest of the time. Even when he moves them, it's not outward to meet the ball but rather straight ahead with his bat flashing far outside off. Looks good sometimes and makes a nice sound but isn't good technique.
Now, compare this to Boucher who has nowhere near the natural eye that Quintie does but would stay there to see out days and tough spells and/or allow Kallis and co to post big totals.
Timestamp 02:39 - He actually makes two movements here to play a length ball through cover.
In modern cricket not many players move their feet to the ball - that is old school, so de Kock is in the company of most.
For me de Kock is our best keeper/bat by some distance when it comes to the options I have seen over the years
It’s not even close for me. Boucher was very good as was Dave Richardson but neither have the class of de Kock
de Kock’s biggest issue is his head
"de Kock’s biggest issue is his head"
I agree.
It's never behind and over the ball 
You may be right - but their is another issue as well. De Kock is likely to be totally demoralized by the shirt teams he has to captain and then getting the blame for the junk performances resulting from teams election. He apparently lost interest in playing for SA and in local cricket. If that be the case I think he gets my sympathy for the rubbish SA loads on him consistently,
Good one Plum
Quintie's dad adopted a young kid some time back.
Poor chap has no cricketing aptitude but de Kock senior had him placed in a children's provincial side anyway. Because...reputation & influence.
He failed abysmally which was bad for him and the poor kid that got dropped to make a space for him. He won't be following in Quintie's footsteps since it was too much for him and he no longer wants to play cricket.
My nephew plays kids provincial cricket and it's actually pretty crazy to see how good some of the kids are. I shit you not when say that some of them are hitting double hundreds. They're not even ten years old yet.
There's also a little leg spinner that bowls his stock ball, which turns quite a lot, in a foot-mark size area four out of six times. He has three variations, including a wrong-un, flipper and a top spinner that climbs way more than it should.
I was watching him bowl to some of the dad's recently...bamboozled is about the best word to describe the situation.
There's no lack of talent in SA.
However, I do hope they all go and play in England and Oz...because screw quotas.
I have a mate in CT who’s kid played WP cricket from u13 and because of quotas got dropped now in his last season or two as they are only allowed 4 white guys in the side.
Apparently the black kids are not great bats so those 4 spots go to white batsmen
His boy is a fast bowler. He said that at the trials one year his kid got 3 of the batsmen selected out in 2 overs and still could not make the side
It’s nothing short of fucking disgusting. He said to me, how is he meant to console his kid given those circumstances. He is looking to come play for a club here once he leaves school
I hope he does take himself abroad, Saffex.
All the better in English conditions and he'll get the recognition his talent deserves.
The government put quotas in place but then do not create sufficient conditions where enough talented quota players come through. So you doom the poor sods that get a shot anyway because the pool they came through wasn't competitive enough.
Perhaps that's a generalisation since enough good POC bowlers make it to the highest level and do well. But then, no great batsman started playing the game in his late teens, like some great bowlers did.
I think that rugby and bowling in cricket are, in some senses, more reliant on speed, stamina and physical ability while batting is more of a mental art. Of the two popular sports, I'd say tennis and cricket, particularly batting, are the most deeply reliant on wide muscle memory pools. Too wide to be picked up sufficiently for a professional standard after 16-17 years of age.
The guys don't see cricket in primary school, then get to high school and perhaps take up the game in Grade 9 or 10. That's well behind the mark compared to the standard of the kids that played cricket for most of primary school. And it's not an issue that you can force. You simply have to make cricket available to black kids in primary schools across SA.
Failing that, you cannot expect the late starters to stand shoulder to shoulder with their peers - certainly from a batting perspective.
It's unfair and toxic to everyone involved.
If XP is the yardstick, Biff (one of the best gritty, hard nosed openers in the game ever) should replace Richards in that team...such a pity Barry only got to play a few tests...such a shame.
Yeah Plum it’s one sad state of affairs
Watching that domestic T20 here, the standard was pretty poor and the physical condition of some of the players was insulting as was the advanced age of some of the players
The sides look like they are clutching at straws and unfortunately many of the black players look bog ordinary
We certainly do not have a large pool of class to choose our national side from - it’s the polar opposite to our rugby position
mozart
Hall Of Fame
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Richards
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AB de Villiers
Pollock
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Kallis
Lindsey
Proctor
Tayfield
Adcock
Donald