What a deKock up!

What possessed our captain to field, after we performed so much better in the 2nd T20 when we batted first. When you have a useless newbie team bat first and try for a bit of scoreboard pressure.

Then how can you be bowled by exactly the same ball a second time in three games. The fawning commentators were telling us the prior ball Ock hit for four wasn’t a half volley. It was. Only to be silenced a ball later....a bit of inswing and then the Ock nemesis, a bit of away movement off the seam.

It’s all pretty calamitous,  the Proteas are usually tough to knock over at home. But now we have now lost the T20 to Oz and the Poms....lost the test series to the Poms....and our best result in 4 series is a draw against the Poms in the ODIs.

And despite playing 13 games we are nowhere in finding players. Only Nortje looks real quality but he also struggled today. Most critically the appointment of de Ock, a leader’s arse as captain, leaves us horribly handicapped.

I can’t remember South African cricket looking so hopeless.

Fine that is a problem - however, the real problem is being ignored.   That is that when De Kock failed in the batting line0uoo the rest of the team collapsed in batting.  Look at the results of the three T20I games:-

First Game  -  De Kock          -     3 runs

                       Rest of batters  -    86 runs

Second game - De Kock         -    70 runs

                       Rest of batters  -    88 runs

Third game   -  De Kock         -      5 runs

                        Rest of batters -     91 runs

I do not agree with the fielding first decision being wrong,  In shorter versions of the game  the situation is that the team batting second at Newlands win the game 60% of the time,  That being the case it is always preferable to bat second at Newlands and not first,

However, the bowling again was poor - very poor,  The fielding was not much better and the batting was atrocious,   So what difference would that lot have made by batting first?

I do believe that there are discussions between the coach and the senior players what would be  happening  if De Kock won the toss and that it is not a sole decision by the captain.   However, in this case De Kock was the one who made the call and he would be blamed for the call.

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Correlation is not causation. You say when Ock scores the team scores......that’s one interpretation.

My interpretation is when the team succeeds, that’s to say when conditions favour the batsmen, Ock succeeds. A great bat  when the ball doesn’t move.

Yes he has saved our arse a good few times in test matches batting at 6

That is not really going to happen opening the batting in ODI’s and T20’s as he usually leads from the front setting the example

There is a reason PSDT is highly rated

Putting most of our eggs in the Ock basket is going to end in tears....stick with moz.