A bit late now it's over but England done good. Great to see Bairstow accumulate plenty of runs. Steyn is out for the next test.
What a sorry state the Saffers are in - they've lost too many good players at once, their replacements are crap, and the remaining class acts are starting to creak (hence Steyn's injury). Doesn't help that they dropped a LOT of catches in the first Test too.
We've caught them at the right time, and with Steyn out now it's looking like a very winnable series. Great year for England really and glad I got to go see them in action
What's happened to Philander? Is he injured? I know South Africa are suffering from their team breaking up, but England have really impressed me with their bowling in the 1st Test. Woakes will probably be making way for Anderson for the 2nd Test, but he's been great at tying down South Africa's batsmen whilst Ali has ripped through them on their own ground. Been a while for an English spinner to look that good in long spells. We've really missed Swanny. Finn & Broad were also terrific when required. Just need the top order to add something to the party in the runs department & we can hopefully look at an away Test series win.
I think South Africa underestimated how much they would miss Kallis, he just added so much balance to their team. I think he is a massively underrated cricketer, look at his stats and he has to be one of the best players of all time. You would think SA would of being preparing for his retirement, but they really are unsure on how to replace him. England have impressed me greatly will the ball. Moeen Ali looks to have developed a heck of a lot in the last 12 months, and his control in this match is far better than it was in the UAE. I think their is a lot more to come to, I think Taylor, Bairstow, Stokes, Finn and Ali will improve now that they know there places are fairly secure. I hope we give the youngsters a long time in the team rather than thinking about dropping them after a few bad games. Although I do think we could bring Ballance in for Hales as his test match average is brilliant.
Agreed ^^^^ this. Also, Bairstow got a stumping today(the first England stumping for yonks) to put to bed that nonsense over AB yesterday. Bairstow has had a very good test match overall. imo. Hopefully Anderson will be back in the side for Woakes on Saturday(2nd test) and that makes England even stronger.
agree about kallis. properly puts most other all-rounders in the shade, including several over-rated ones.
Kallis was right up there with Tendulkar and Ponting as a batsman alone. Then when you take into account his 292 Test wickets... Best all-rounder ever, no question.
He was also one of the best slip fielders around.... Yet he gets very little media coverage compared to Tendulkar, Ponting, Sangakarra etc...
Agree with every word other than one small bit about Kallis, I don't think he's underrated and think there are actually a lot of people like me (and you) who rate him as possibly the best all rounder of all time. When you see him in the IPL or Big Bash, he's still one of the best players. I'd add that the loss of Smith was a massive problem too, similar to when we lost Strauss (only Smith was better) its years later and neither of us have properly replaced them. Even worse for them, they only have 2 obvious captain choices, AB who is already overworked or Amla who is just not a captain. I think the Saffers would be best off putting QDK in the team as keeper, making AB captain and letting Amla just bat.
I suppose my issue with Kallis came with the coverage of his retirement, compared to the retirement of Tendulkar and Ponting. I saw him in the Big Bash the other day, and I wish he was still playing test cricket as he is a great player and I do think cricket has lost a lot of great players in the past few years. Strauss and Smith both provided a clear plan and strategy, I think Amla (and Cook initially) fail to provide that and the sides have very little structure and you are unsure where the team are going. When you look at the England team now you see a clear plan, and you know the brand of cricket they are going to play. QDK has to come into the team to ease AB's workload and personally I don't think Amla is an out and out leader. The only issue I see with AB becoming captain is that he plays all three formats, and I imagine he will miss a few tests here and there.
Kallis is certainly one of the best all rounders. But the best? My choice is Gary Sobers. Brilliant batsman, could bowl fast-medium, orthodox left arm spin and left arm wrist spin (one of the very few). Also an excellent fielder close in and away from the bat. They played less test matches when he was around, but 8032 runs @ 57.78 and 235 wickets in about half the number of matches that Kallis played gives an idea. He had the record for the highest score until Lara beat it 36 years later (and was not out, so could conceivably got more) and the record for most test runs until Boycott passed him. But stats don't do justice. There aren't too many videos of him in action, but here are his 6 x 6s in one over (the first person to do it in 1st class cricket) from 1968.
Fascinating listening to comments about Compton on the Sky coverage, he seems to be an old-school Test Match player in the mould of Boycott and Tavare. Just let him get on with it and let the other lads get runs in my book, if he stays in more the better, we have too many collapses in the batting in Tests in any case.
It's hard for me to comment on Sobers given i'm mid 30s and never got to see him play, looking at stats alone they were v close in both bowling (Kallis slightly better) and batting (Sobers slightly better). There was a great article on Cricinfo recently which discussed the two http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/391570.html which is well worth a read.
