Dinger of a first day in the first test between Australia and South Africa. Australia won the toss and batted but South Africa quickly reduced them to 15/3. Katich and Clarke led the recovery but they were both dismissed in quick succession and South Africa were on top at 166/5. However, Symonds and Clarke hit entertaining knocks to wrestle control back somewhat. They finished up on 341/9 after a cracking day’s cricket.
Australia are on top now. SA collapsed from 234-3 to 243-8 in the last hour of the day. Mitchell Johnson was the man with 7-42. His last spell was 5-2-5-5.
Great test match in running in Perth. Australia had a 70 odd first innings lead but South Africa reduced them to 162-7 in their second innings before Haddin and Krejza steadied the ship. Australia have a 320 lead now with 3 second innings wickets remaining and there’s still 2 days left. South Africa will fancy their chances still if they can polish Australia off quickly tomorrow. But the pressure of a final innings run chase in Australia will be high. I reckon Australia have enough runs on the board to win it.
India are 179/1 at the end of the first day of the second test against England. Rahul Dravid finally made some runs but he’s painfully slow at times (65 from 200 balls). Gambhir made a ton after Sehwag was dismissed early doors. Interesting to see Harmison dropped by England and Wales. Bad light brought an early close to proceedings.
[quote=“Bandage”]Great test match in running in Perth. Australia had a 70 odd first innings lead but South Africa reduced them to 162-7 in their second innings before Haddin and Krejza steadied the ship. Australia have a 320 lead now with 3 second innings wickets remaining and there’s still 2 days left. South Africa will fancy their chances still if they can polish Australia off quickly tomorrow. But the pressure of a final innings run chase in Australia will be high. I reckon Australia have enough runs on the board to win it.
India are 179/1 at the end of the first day of the second test against England. Rahul Dravid finally made some runs but he’s painfully slow at times (65 from 200 balls). Gambhir made a ton after Sehwag was dismissed early doors. Interesting to see Harmison dropped by England and Wales. Bad light brought an early close to proceedings.[/quote]
Yeah, the Aussies are unbelievable for batting well down the tail. They got out of trouble in the 1st innings as well. SA will need to get these boys out early tomorrow. Haddin is confident now after the ton against NZ. Krezja was handy in the 1st innings as well.
India match is heavily fancied to finish a draw. India are a pretty generous 13/5. While they would have to step up their run rate the win is surely a bit more likely than this? They are starting half an hour earlier tomorrow to make up for the bad light today. Pitch is very flat but still think England and Wales could well be bowled out for a low figure.
Just caught the end of the cricket there. Great effort in the field from the English and Welsh to dismiss India for 453 in the end.
They were cruising along at 320/1 just after lunch but Flintoff kept steaming in on a really flat wicket and got some rewards.
Swann was quite good too and got Gambhir and Dravid with decently flighted deliveries.
England and Wales were offered the light so it looks like they’re done for the day.
The draw does look most likely but India’s spin attack is far stronger than the England and Wales attack.
Dinger of a game in Perth. Absolute dinger. Cracking stuff from Haddin and Krejza to bat Australia out of trouble but South Africa finished on 200/3 chasing 414. It should be a belter of a final day.
Unbelievable scenes in Perth. South Africa eased to 414/4 to win the first test and completed the second highest run chase in test match history in doing so. Jacques Kallis’ was the only wicket to fall on the final day, with AB De Villiers hitting an unbeaten ton and JP Duminy scoring an undefeated half-century on debut. Mitchell Johnson bagged 3 wickets having taken an awesome 8/62 in the first innings but none of the other Aussie bowlers really threatened. That’s some victory for the South Africans.
England and Wales are batting well in India and scoring pretty quickly too. KP’s just gone for a superb 144 after coming in when they were 2 down with only a single run on the board. Decent knocks from Cook and Flintoff - the latter’s still there on 61. They’re 280/5 so they’ve avoided the follow on anyway.
They got Flintoff too just before stumps so the English and Welsh finished on 282/6 after day 3. India will feel they can bowl them out and get a 100+ lead but they’re already 1-0 up in the series so I expect them to bat the game out of E&W’s reach rather than making a tempting declaration and trying to force the win.
There’s another fantastic test match in progress in Melbourne between Australia and South Africa. Australia made 394 in their first innings and looked well on top having reduced the South Africans to 198/7 at the end of day two. However, JP Duminy and Dale Steyn combined overnight in a ninth wicket partnership worth 180 runs to amazingly take South Africa to 459 all out. Duminy was last man out for 166 and Steyn made 76. A draw looks most likely now, which would see South Africa retain their 1-0 series lead going into the final test match.
South Africa are on the brink of clinching the series in Australia after they bowled Australia out for 247 to set themselves a victory target of 183. They went safely to 30/0 by close of play on day four so they’ll be odds on to knock off the remaining runs overnight.
Dale Steyn took another Michelle in the second innings to complete a 10-wicket match haul and Ponting (99) and Johnson (43) offered the only real resistance.
There’s huge question marks over a number of Australian players now ahead of the Ashes next summer. Matty Hayden’s in terrible form. Who’s their spin bowler going to be? Will Ponting retain the captaincy?
England and Wales are naming their touring squad for their 4 test series in the West Indies at lunchtime. There’s a lot of speculation over Michael Vaughan even though he’s no form whatsoever. I can understand him still being in their plans purely because of his Ashes experience and excellent record against Australia but he hasn’t scored runs of note in ages. Owais Shah should really be next in line if they’re thinking of dropping Bell or someone.
[quote=“Bandage”]South Africa are on the brink of clinching the series in Australia after they bowled Australia out for 247 to set themselves a victory target of 183. They went safely to 30/0 by close of play on day four so they’ll be odds on to knock off the remaining runs overnight.
Dale Steyn took another Michelle in the second innings to complete a 10-wicket match haul and Ponting (99) and Johnson (43) offered the only real resistance.
There’s huge question marks over a number of Australian players now ahead of the Ashes next summer. Matty Hayden’s in terrible form. Who’s their spin bowler going to be? Will Ponting retain the captaincy?
England and Wales are naming their touring squad for their 4 test series in the West Indies at lunchtime. There’s a lot of speculation over Michael Vaughan even though he’s no form whatsoever. I can understand him still being in their plans purely because of his Ashes experience and excellent record against Australia but he hasn’t scored runs of note in ages. Owais Shah should really be next in line if they’re thinking of dropping Bell or someone.[/quote]
Indeed. I see E&W resisted the temptation to recall Vaughan. Good decision, he needs to score runs for Yorkshire before a recall is justified. It would look like too much of an old boys club otherwise. However, Bell contradicts that by still being included for the WI tour.
The Aussies are in a spot of bother alright. Some fine performances in the test. Duminy scoring 166 in only his 2nd test to follow his 50 not out in the Ist. Steyn’s two Micheles and just as crucial his 76 in the first innings. Ponting has batted well 101 and 99 but as you say his captaincy is seriously under question now. He is getting a slating in the Australian media. Hayden seems to be finished and Symonds seems to have been picked just because he is Hayden’s mate, he’s done nothing else to justify inclusion. Brett Lee is injured and couldn’t bowl much in the test. I was reading somewhere that he has bowled a ridiculous number of overs this year 570 plus and that his injury is due to being over used.
103/0 already and this is almost done.
183-1 48 overs. Great win for SA
A story’s doing the rounds today that Kevin Pietersen’s threatened to resign as England and Wales captain in a row over the non-inclusion of Michael Vaughan in the squad for the West Indies tour.
Apparently, Peter Moores was against recalling him and the other selectors went with him over KP. Vaughan’s superb tactically and a master tactician and Pietersen was strongly pushing for him to tap into his acumen and experience.
But he simply hasn’t been scoring enough runs to justify a place in the side. The best thing he could do is work his balls off in the nets pre-season and pile up the runs for Yorkshire in April and May and make a case for inclusion in the summer. I still think we might see him against Australia following his performances against them in the past.
A Michael Vaughan off form is still worth his place in the English side…
Australia ended the first day of the final test against South Africa on 267/6. They were 162/5 at one stage and Ponting was dismissed for a golden duck but a 75-run partnership between Clarke and Haddin got them to better position. Steyn getting Haddin late on puts South Africa slightly on top and some of the out of form Australians didn’t really silence their critics with Hayden and Hussey both only scoring 30 odd.
Haven’t been following much southern hemisphere cricket recently - is Hussey out of form? I knew Hayden was on a bad streak.
He did alright in India (got a big ton in one of the games if my memory serves me correctly) but he’s had a horrid time against South Africa. He’d barely made double figures in 4 innings in the first two tests.
You would think so.It’s a tricky one. Vaughan was in lousy form when he quit and didn’t score many runs afterwards. But if he is not picked for WI how is he going to get enough play before the Ashes? He can play in county cricket and WI when they come to England but that won’t be until April/May. You can take the coach’s line that he needs to score runs and earn his place back but then you see them picking Ian Bell and can see the inconsistency. I’d rather have Vaughan batting for my life at #3 than Ian Bell. Moores the coach, is a bit of an anorak, never played at the top level. He didn’t get on with Vaughan and Pietersen is close to Vaughan, probably owes him for bringing him into the England set up. Vaughan apparently was close to quitting earlier last year because Moores would not recall Simon Jones, the man England really need to have to have a crack at Australia. If Vaughan was in the squad then you could say that England are just an old boys club , the same criticism being levelled at Australia now over Hayden. And Vaughan (age 34) wasn’t shy about dropping an ageing Graham Thorpe, the best English batsman of the last 15 years before the 95 Ashes.
On balance, I think Vaughan should not travel to WI because Pietersen needs to estabish himself as a captain without looking over his shoulder at his predecessor. But the door needs to be kept open for Vaughan if he has some form, they will probably need him.
I concur…