South Africa Vs England <Are Changes Needed?.>

[Ernest]

Following this poor performence by England against a South Africa A team, has this match given you any ideas as to the make up of the First Test coming up on the 17th Dec.?

They will need to improve, who are the weakest links?.

[Rachael]

Hmmm... can we try Jefferson, Smith, Pietersen, Bell, Prior, Collingwood, Batty, Read, Macarenhas, Mahmood, Lewis?

[Occasional Fan]

No easy answers to this one, Ern, given that there are only - what - 16 blokes out there and four clear days before the first test. But I am sure of one thing, as mentioned in the Butcher v Key thread: Butcher, I'm afraid, has not done anything in the last two days (which means, for whatever reason, the last six months) to justify selection ahead of Key. If we had obvious replacements for the rest of the top order (excluding Strauss and Vaughan), I'd be calling for them to be wheeled out as well. Pitiful performance almost all round, I'm afraid.

[Beny]

Not a good few weeks to be a touring team. PAK had a simmiler expericance over here... Granted that they were getting beaten by state second XI cricketrs... Is it a matter of not taking it seriously?

[Ernest]

I noticed that some of the England players were scoring at a run a ball, instead of adapting themselves in their first match of the tour.

Not a lot to purr about, Vaughan did well, flintoff got three wickets early on, G O Jones come out of it with a little credit.

See what they can muster tomorrow, they may post a match saving score

[Occasional Fan]

Originally Posted by Beny

Is it a matter of not taking it seriously?

I hope so, because that can be fixed with a bawling out in the deressing room. It's worse if they actually are as bad as they presently look (which I don't think is the case at least for the England team: it's just that they have to find their form very quickly now).

[Alison]

I think the biggest problem is that half the players haven't played in at least a couple of months and they've only had this game and a one-day game to warm-up in. It's been the ones who've not played who have done worst, which suggests to me that the problem is a lack of match practice.

[Goatman]

Lets paint a picture. SA have just given WI and NZ a good hard stuffing. They are being talked of as an imerging power. Several of thier players are, rightly, considered amongst the best in the world. They come over for a tour in ENG. Several Ex-ENG players give interviews suggesting that ENG will have to play 100% to compete. Several Ex-SA players comment that, dispite the fact that SA have not done so well in ENG in the past, they will win 2-1. A past SA great gives another interview suggesting that ENG will struggle to win a single test. To compound it, ENG, for reasons of thier own, have elected to give preference to players from the 2nd DIV of the County Championship in the test and ODI sides. So, some of our "top" players - particulalrly from the horridly over-represented Surrey ( ) - are absent from the ENG squad.

SA play ENG A in the first warm-up match. Anderson and SP Jones (dropped as a 1st DIV player....) play at the top of thier ability and the SA bats stumble to a pair of dissapointing totals. Butcher, excluded from the test squad because like Jones his county is too successful, gets a good knock, and Key bops a few runs too.

ENG A win by (say...) 6 wickets.

In that context, how much would you put on SA losing the series? Would that result really change your mind?

Or would you feel that the SA bats have been given a working over that will put some fire in thier bellies, and that thier bowlers have just had the ideal warm up match - bowling long spells on an unhlepful (and representative) surface against a number of test quality batsmen?

Think about it.

[Occasional Fan]

Goaty - my earlier comment that I would call for as many replacements as are available was too strong and I withdraw it with apologies for any embarrassment or offence caused to those concerned. I don't think this pitiful performance (words by which I do stand) will change the series result (England will still win it). But I do think Butcher should stay out of the team and Key should be in it.

[Goatman]

Originally Posted by Occasional Fan

Goaty - my earlier comment that I would call for as many replacements as are available was too strong and I withdraw it with apologies for any embarrassment or offence caused to those concerned. I don't think this pitiful performance (words by which I do stand) will change the series result (England will still win it). But I do think Butcher should stay out of the team and Key should be in it.

My point is not that no changes should be made. It is that if the roles were reversed, the rhetoric would be very different. It would all be about "class vs form", "producing it on the day", "one offs", "cornered tigers", "ENG being useless, basically because they're ENG" and "SA have talent and pride and can't lose basically because they're SA".

The fact that this SA team undeniably contains several 1st team players has been overlooked. Willoughby is a test class bower, who is not selected - it seems to me - because he is a late bloomer and white, whereas the management want young black players. He also can't bat, which seems to eb the no. 1 criteria for bwoelr selection in SA these days. Similar things can be said for Langeveldt. Boucher is a better specialist bat than some of the specialist bats that SA have fielded recently, and (unbelievably!) is also a better keeper than Tsolekile. Ontong, Duminy, Prince and van Jaarsveld have all played test or ODI cricket for SA in the past few years - thr SA authorities clearly believe they are at or near international class.

This is not like losing to Durham!

Imagine landing in WI and playing a testmatch less than a week later, with (basically) no warm ups at all. Would you expect many teams to win that first match? I wouldn't expect many to. Yet, this is not a dissimilar circumstance and we expect ENG to walk it. Come the second test in my imaginary WI series, I would expect the class team to win out. That is what is likely to happen in the current context - except the "2nd test" is actually the 1st test.