The Springboks made no secret of the fact they felt they had been the better of the two sides throughout the test series. After the 4th test where England was comprehensively demolished, it is hard to disagree with that opinion. Apart from their one below par display in the 2nd test, South Africa played positive, aggressive cricket. England on the other hand seemed more interested in avoiding defeat as opposed to pursuing victory.
Overall, it was a decent series for England but you can’t help wondering what might have happened if they had been more positive. Now that Flintoff is no longer around the side continues to lack balance. Selecting an extra batsman is not the answer if you want to win test matches. Indeed, right throughout the series England have not scored enough runs even with the additional batsman. England bat down the order with Swann and Broad so runs should not be too much of a problem.
Taking 20 wickets must surely be the priority but in the final test England once again selected only four bowlers. Unfairly ditching Onions in favour of Sidebottom with his novelty left-arm bowling merely compounded the error. We keep hearing about our world class attack but if you take Swann and his wickets out of the equation we would have struggled. They have potential to be a world class attack but are certainly not the finished article. England still requires a long term replacement for Harmison as the current attack would benefit from the addition of genuine pace.
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For me the problem is the batting.
You can pick four or five bowlers, it dosen't matter if you don't put the runs on the board in your 1st innings.
Look at how SA crumbled in the 2nd test, all of a sudden our bowlers did look world class with scoreboard pressure (I do agree they are not, by the way).
For example, if England had batted properly in the 1st innings of the 4th Test and got, say 380-400.
Then SA's batsmen couldn't have been as watchful as they were, as they would have needed to get up to and past Eng's score in quick time and therefore, needing to take more risks, probably resulting in wickets.
The fact that Eng only managed a pathetic 180, meant SA could bat carefully, without risk and see off the new ball and wait for Eng's attack to wilt before milking them for easy runs.
I agree they are not world class, and they are certainly not good enough to defend 180.
But with runs on the board I think that a four man attack can be good enough to put teams under pressure and force mistakes, and can win you test matches.
It is the same old story at number 3 with the batting. It used to be Bell who was not doing the business. He looks better at number 6 while Trott was all over the place.
It just shows how important a player Pietersen is. When he hits a barren spell we feel it.
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I LOVE TEST CRICKET, BUT I am afraid IPL will destroy the Intl. Cricket, especially the Test Cricket.... Read this post & Decide Yourself!
IPL EXPANDS...BUT WHY?
I have no doubt the popularity of twenty20 will increase. However, test cricket is pure. No glitz, or glamour, just pure technique.
Mind you, the test format would benefit from a change in the rules. Boring draws on flat wickets should be done away with. I would impose a maximum number of overs to be bowled for each innings. That would solve the problem.
Test match are getting Boring Day by Day.
Viewer only want short and Fast match.
Nice blog.
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