Cricket

The only batsmen with any sort of decent technique are Pujara, Virat and Rohit, and none are experienced enough to counter that quality. Sachin told after the last tour how Steyn and Morkel gave him one of the toughest sessions he has faced in his career. Him and Gambhir couldn't rotate strike throughout that session and Steyn was absolutely on fire.

The only thing I can say about SA is I don't think they have a quality bowler who can use the old ball, Tahir maybe. So that's the time we might be able to capitalize on. But still, unless one of these young guns performs beyond expectations, it's tough to see much going in our favour.
 
omardalvi said:
Didn't Watson and Dhawan have an altercation in an earlier ODI? Anyway Dhawan shouldn't have done that.
And Raina wasn't mocking Watson, he was genuinely hit on the inside of the knee, the ball even left a mark.
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check your inbox Omar
 
KM said:
Shikhar Dhawan is a twat.

Mocking a player's injury(even though it's Shane Watson) is pathetic.
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So it turns out it was Watson who first made fun of Dhawan when Dhawan was hit in the midriff on Watson's bowling.

Phew, I can go back to hating Watson again. All is well.
 
The Sachin thread is getting a bit Kallis heavy so I thought I'd quote this here.

RooneyLegend said:
Haha, Kallis mentioned in the same sentence as Tendulkar! Absolute madness, and I'm South African.
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I think Kallis stats are hugely misleading. He's a brilliantly talented player but he doesn't change games as often as one would imagine, looking at his batting average and number of wickets.

Pollock did far more for the South African team, in my view.

EDIT: For sake of clarity I'll just add I'm referring to Shaun rather than Graeme. Aldo clearly has realised that but it does occur to me that I wasn't clear.
 
I'll agree to that. Personally I never found myself holding my breath to watch Kallis play, no that it should be used to measure one's ability but that's just one thing. Kallis' consistency is amazing, no doubt about that, but there's more to the game than numbers. Pollock was brilliant, world class bowler and always a much more than useful batsman.
 
The sooner Kallis retires the better. It'd be a shame if he kept going and ended up breaking Sachin's 100's record and runs record in tests. He's brought me too much anguish in his career. I could never under any circumstances praise such a stat padder with little to no regard for his own teams success.

He's a player with all the shots but can't force the issue. His innings are all one dimensional with no acceleration at any point(represented by his abysmal strike rate at all levels of cricket). He's a big part of the reason why we struggled to beat the Aussies(our biggest cricket rivals) in the past two decades.

He also has no bottle what so ever. Whenever the occasion called for it he couldn't perform. Theirs a loss, and then there's a glorious one. BC Lara played for a huge part of his life with talentless clowns but tried his utmost best to take them to victory. He failed most of the time but you could see he tried all he could. Kallis has never been that player. Never been the hero, never been the one to put his hand up when we desperately needed it.

In reality he has very few memorable moments in our history. You could bring up any name of other great players that have played for us and I could tell you about at least one heroic moment. With him, I honestly can't and that's why mentioning him with true greats like Sachin, Ponting and Lara should never ever be done.
 
RooneyLegend said:
The sooner Kallis retires the better. It'd be a shame if he kept going and ended up breaking Sachin's 100's record and runs record in tests. He's brought me too much anguish in his career. I could never under any circumstances praise such a stat padder with little to no regard for his own teams success.

He's a player with all the shots but can't force the issue. His innings are all one dimensional with no acceleration at any point(represented by his abysmal strike rate at all levels of cricket). He's a big part of the reason why we struggled to beat the Aussies(our biggest cricket rivals) in the past two decades.

He also has no bottle what so ever. Whenever the occasion called for it he couldn't perform. Theirs a loss, and then there's a glorious one. BC Lara played for a huge part of his life with talentless clowns but tried his utmost best to take them to victory. He failed most of the time but you could see he tried all he could. Kallis has never been that player. Never been the hero, never been the one to put his hand up when we desperately needed it.

In reality he has very few memorable moments in our history. You could bring up any name of other great players that have played for us and I could tell you about at least one heroic moment. With him, I honestly can't and that's why mentioning him with true greats like Sachin, Ponting and Lara should never ever be done.
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He is playing until the 2015 WC at least - he just asked to come back in the ODI team. The only record he may break is test centuries stat. I don't see him going 2015 and he probably won't make the nearly 3000 odd runs needed to beat the run stat. However, with the Indian bowling going to SA, who knows.
 
RooneyLegend said:
The sooner Kallis retires the better. It'd be a shame if he kept going and ended up breaking Sachin's 100's record and runs record in tests. He's brought me too much anguish in his career. I could never under any circumstances praise such a stat padder with little to no regard for his own teams success.

He's a player with all the shots but can't force the issue. His innings are all one dimensional with no acceleration at any point(represented by his abysmal strike rate at all levels of cricket). He's a big part of the reason why we struggled to beat the Aussies(our biggest cricket rivals) in the past two decades.

He also has no bottle what so ever. Whenever the occasion called for it he couldn't perform. Theirs a loss, and then there's a glorious one. BC Lara played for a huge part of his life with talentless clowns but tried his utmost best to take them to victory. He failed most of the time but you could see he tried all he could. Kallis has never been that player. Never been the hero, never been the one to put his hand up when we desperately needed it.

In reality he has very few memorable moments in our history. You could bring up any name of other great players that have played for us and I could tell you about at least one heroic moment. With him, I honestly can't and that's why mentioning him with true greats like Sachin, Ponting and Lara should never ever be done.
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That's exactly how I've felt about Kallis always. Interesting to see someone from SA feel the same way.
 
RooneyLegend said:
The sooner Kallis retires the better. It'd be a shame if he kept going and ended up breaking Sachin's 100's record and runs record in tests. He's brought me too much anguish in his career. I could never under any circumstances praise such a stat padder with little to no regard for his own teams success.

He's a player with all the shots but can't force the issue. His innings are all one dimensional with no acceleration at any point(represented by his abysmal strike rate at all levels of cricket). He's a big part of the reason why we struggled to beat the Aussies(our biggest cricket rivals) in the past two decades.

He also has no bottle what so ever. Whenever the occasion called for it he couldn't perform. Theirs a loss, and then there's a glorious one. BC Lara played for a huge part of his life with talentless clowns but tried his utmost best to take them to victory. He failed most of the time but you could see he tried all he could. Kallis has never been that player. Never been the hero, never been the one to put his hand up when we desperately needed it.

In reality he has very few memorable moments in our history. You could bring up any name of other great players that have played for us and I could tell you about at least one heroic moment. With him, I honestly can't and that's why mentioning him with true greats like Sachin, Ponting and Lara should never ever be done.
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:lol: :lol: Are you serious? I mean, for all your points there is easily a counter but I am actually stunned by all you have said. I will assume it is just a WUM.
 
Stat padder and Selfish! :lol: Yeah, people that's what keeps you in team and gets you 288 test wickets, 270 ODI wickets, 13k+ test runs, 11k+ ODI runs, 60+ centuries in total and one of the best slip fielders. All you have to be is stat padder. The team chokes on crucial moments, why it is all Kallis's fault. His selfishness was the reason why SA saved the 3rd test vs. India in 2011 right? when he played through injuries to score 100's in both innings.
 
The Man Himself said:
Stat padder and Selfish! :lol: Yeah, people that's what keeps you in team and gets you 288 test wickets, 270 ODI wickets, 13k+ test runs, 11k+ ODI runs, 60+ centuries in total and one of the best slip fielders. All you have to be is stat padder. The team chokes on crucial moments, why it is all Kallis's fault. His selfishness was the reason why SA saved the 3rd test vs. India in 2011 right? when he played through injuries to score 100's in both innings.
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what are his other great knocks?

this is the only great one I remember.
 
"His critics, particularly those who have a limited understanding of the dynamics of the South African team, accuse him of not dominating attacks he has already ground into the dust, of unnecessarily slow scoring, and of failing to take the match situation into account as he plots his innings. All of which hints at selfishness, which is quite ironical, because his team-mates vouch for the fact that Kallis bats the way he does precisely because he puts his team first and his personal ambitions some way behind. It's the only way he knows how."
 
zing said:
That was a genuine question.
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There are lot many. His century in each innings in Karachi test in 2006, performance in Sydney test in 2006, kolkata test in 2004 when he scored 100 and 50 in the 2 innings but others crumbled.
 
The Man Himself said:
There are lot many. His century in each innings in Karachi test in 2006, performance in Sydney test in 2006, kolkata test in 2004 when he scored 100 and 50 in the 2 innings but others crumbled.
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Karachi test was in 07 iirc, we don't take pakistan seriously in all honesty. We had a big lead going to the second innings, and there had been a series of contributors amongst our batting order. Pakistan crumbled as usual and we won, simples really.

The sydney test is a big example of why he's not a great like the true greats that I mentioned above. We were desperate for a win in that test. We had lost a test, and drawn another. It was a 3 test, test series. It was our only chance to square it up, draws weren't gonna cut it and this is what happened. Don't let the numbers fool you.

First innings Kallis and Asshole prince took their sweet time get runs on the board. Now the aussies had an aggressive run scoring machine yet those two clowns had decided to do what they did best, waste valuable time. Now against pakistan its all good and dandy, but against the Aussies it never, ever cut it. We posted a slow target after the first innings, decent one at that.

The aussies struggled for a reply, the other batsmen seemingly we having an off day. Then Gilly came to the crease(batted 7 in a lot of tests) and him and ponting realising they were out of batsmen upped the rate to get something reasonable on the board. The Australia innings ended with them having a deficit of about 100 iirc.

At the start of the second innings it was clear that if we were going to win the match we had to post a more than decent total, but had to do that in quick time to give our bowlers a look. You see, what asshole and kallis had done(first innings) had consumed so much time that posting a big enough total was improbable. Our aggressive batsmen took to the stage but many failed. Gibbs did what he could do, but left kallis there. Kallis continued to waste time, and waste time, and waste even more time to an extent that for us to have any chance of taking 10 wickets Smith had to declare prematurely with nowhere close to enough runs on the board(lead of approx 290 iirc) especially considering the surface hadn't broken down.

In the second innings for the Aussies, Hayden and Ponting had a field day with our bowlers. They chased our score as if it was a big ODI score. They simply saw an opening and figured it was there for the taking and went for it. In reality, the opening would've never been there had kallis, and asshole batted at a slightly quicker pace. We could've set them something more daunting. The stats books say he was fantastic in that test, but in reality he was one of the reasons we lost it, Ponting was the reason Australia won it.(Both made 100's but impact on the game vastly different)
 
It was not only South Africa, but every team suffered at hands of Australia during that era. Mcgrath and co. were no mugs that you can just go bang-bang in a test match vs. them in Australia just because you were trailing 1-0. If a target of 280 odd was chased down in 60 overs by Aussies, Kallis playing bit faster wouldn't have made much difference. You would have given what, 350 target in 90 overs or so to them? Still wouldn't have mattered and it wasn't Kallis because of whom you lost the test but he was the only who fought and put in efforts. You think 100 and a 50 in a test vs. that Aussie bowling is a joke? All you need to be is obsessed with stats and one can do it just like that?
 
amolbhatia100 said:
That's exactly how I've felt about Kallis always. Interesting to see someone from SA feel the same way.
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There's a reason despite his records he isn't some hero in these parts of the world. When he comes in to bat you'll never see people losing their voices due to screaming. You could drive all day here and you wouldn't see one billboard of his. Only so called cricket 'experts' like him, fans don't. He's simply not a competitor and that's what we appreciate the most from our players. The other thing is ODI is the form of cricket that's loved the most in this country, and he's been dire in that form.

Amla and De Villers are doing more for our cricket atm than Kallis has ever done. They are producing but producing with a clear intent to take the team to victory. Batting in the moment better than Kallis has ever done.
 
RooneyLegend said:
There's a reason despite his records he isn't some hero in these parts of the world. When he comes in to bat you'll never see people losing their voices due to screaming. You could drive all day here and you wouldn't see one billboard of his. Only so called cricket 'experts' like him, fans don't. He's simply not a competitor and that's what we appreciate the most from our players. The other thing is ODI is the form of cricket that's loved the most in this country, and he's been dire in that form.

Amla and De Villers are doing more for our cricket atm than Kallis has ever done. They are producing but producing with a clear intent to take the team to victory. Batting in the moment better than Kallis has ever done.
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He has most MoMs for SA in ODIs and his strike rate is as good as Ganguly who was considered one of the better ODI batsmen and a strike rate better than Dravid whose importance was recognized in ODI format by the 'experts.' It wasn't Kallis's role to go with a strike rate of 90 odd in ODIs. You had Gibbs etc for that at top. Good that the team and players in SA recognize the value of Kallis to the team otherwise if fans like you had their way, your team would have been so much worse of. But then, we have got people like you in India as well who will try to point out/dig stats or instances to prove that Sachin didn't do anything for India and how comparatively some other player from other country has been better.
 
The Man Himself said:
It was not only South Africa, but every team suffered at hands of Australia during that era. Mcgrath and co. were no mugs that you can just go bang-bang in a test match vs. them in Australia just because you were trailing 1-0. If a target of 280 odd was chased down in 60 overs by Aussies, Kallis playing bit faster wouldn't have made much difference. You would have given what, 350 target in 90 overs or so to them? Still wouldn't have mattered and it wasn't Kallis because of whom you lost the test but he was the only who fought and put in efforts. You think 100 and a 50 in a test vs. that Aussie bowling is a joke? All you need to be is obsessed with stats and one can do it just like that?
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However it was only us who could handle that sort of bowling. Conditions in sa aren't so different to those in Australia. As a matter of fact, we had drawn the first test without kallis in the side. Great batsmen can take on any sort of bowling attack and take them to the cleaners.

350-400 takes the game away from them. Surely you understand the difference of risk between chasing 290 and chasing 350-400 on a 5th day of a test match. When they saw that target the chanced it, if it was more they'd have had a different approach. Kallis didn't play the situation, he played like how he always played. One paced.

We had many contributors in that test match in all honesty. Prince's first innings more than matched his efforts in the first, pretty much identical innings. In the second Gibbs had a much better showing. Its not a joke, but in the grand scheme of things it wasn't some magical show of batsmenship.
 
RooneyLegend, I think you're underrating Kallis a bit. You don't score the number of runs he has without being a quality player. You've seen more of him than I have and some of your criticisms may be spot on but I get the feeling you're exaggerating them a touch.

BUt yeah Kallis is never in the Sachin/Lara/Ponting category.
 
The only way the discussion even makes sense is in regards to his bowling as well. Why people keep focusing on his batting and then saying 'yeah he wasn't as good as Tendulkar' I don't know. That goes without saying.
 
NinjaFletch said:
The only way the discussion even makes sense is in regards to his bowling as well. Why people keep focusing on his batting and then saying 'yeah he wasn't as good as Tendulkar' I don't know. That goes without saying.
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Tendulkar was a massively talented bowler as well. ;) He was actually brought in as a bowler initially. And he can practically bowl any kind of a delivery and turned the ball more than Harbhajan or Kumble. Tennis elbow plus a lot more responsibility while batting reduced his time as a bowler but he still put in many crucial spells and was a proper partnership breaker.
 
akash02 said:
RooneyLegend, I think you're underrating Kallis a bit. You don't score the number of runs he has without being a quality player. You've seen more of him than I have and some of your criticisms may be spot on but I get the feeling you're exaggerating them a touch.

BUt yeah Kallis is never in the Sachin/Lara/Ponting category.
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Look, I've never said he isn't a quality player. That much is obvious. He's very consistent and performs in most conditions. However compareing to those three in shouldn't be done for the reasons I listed IMO.
 
t
I Anal Doer 18 said:
Tendulkar was a massively talented bowler as well. ;) He was actually brought in as a bowler initially. And he can practically bowl any kind of a delivery and turned the ball more than Harbhajan or Kumble. Tennis elbow plus a lot more responsibility while batting reduced his time as a bowler but he still put in many crucial spells and was a proper partnership breaker.
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Obviously, but there's a difference between being a talented bowler and a good partnership breaker to taking 300 international wickets.

I think its fair to say that Tendulkar has bowled enough in all forms of the game for his average to be a decent reflection of the threat he posed. He was certainly no mug, and if he had spent more time on it could well have turned in to a very tidy bowler but he didn't, so it seems more than generous to mention it about Tendulkar as anything more than a footnote.
 
NinjaFletch said:
t


Obviously, but there's a difference between being a talented bowler and a good partnership breaker to taking 300 international wickets.

I think its fair to say that Tendulkar has bowled enough in all forms of the game for his average to be a decent reflection of the threat he posed. He was certainly no mug, and if he had spent more time on it could well have turned in to a very tidy bowler but he didn't, so it seems more than generous to mention it about Tendulkar as anything more than a footnote.
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I told you the reason why he didn't go on to become a full time bowling option. However, you can see the comments from any opposition captain about his bowling. Akram, who captained Pakistan, recently said that whenever Tendulkar picked the ball we knew there would be a wicket.
 
To hold up Tendulkar's bowling as an additional measure to judge him on is extremely silly, IMO.
 
The Man Himself said:
He has most MoMs for SA in ODIs and his strike rate is as good as Ganguly who was considered one of the better ODI batsmen and a strike rate better than Dravid whose importance was recognized in ODI format by the 'experts.' It wasn't Kallis's role to go with a strike rate of 90 odd in ODIs. You had Gibbs etc for that at top. Good that the team and players in SA recognize the value of Kallis to the team otherwise if fans like you had their way, your team would have been so much worse of. But then, we have got people like you in India as well who will try to point out/dig stats or instances to prove that Sachin didn't do anything for India and how comparatively some other player from other country has been better.
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We had gibbs and smith who could take the game to the opposition. Everyone else couldn't, not even our best batsman kallis. That's where the problem was for our side. Whenever we had to chase a big ODI total or had to set one due to good pitch conditions we just couldn't. When Klusners time was done, we were done. He had the bottle, the flair, the understanding of game situations. Our best ODI batsman ever and no one in this land would disagree with that.

ODI's are mainly about the two big competitions. The ICC champs and the world cup. Kallis did nothing of note in either of those(either than 100 vs sri lanka in 07+he was utterly fantastic as a youngster in 98) but he failed most of the time. He despite having so much more runs than our second highest run getter in ODI's still doesn't have the record for most centuries. Lara, Ponting, and tendulkar all have 30+ centuries, he has less than 20.

Compare that to the Aussies. When Hayden or Gilchrist got out, ponting would come in and he could also dominate the opposition. They also had a list of other capable batsmen waiting who could speed it up when needed. These situations always arise in the big competitions and if a team is incapable of it, you'll suffer.
 
zing said:
To hold up Tendulkar's bowling as an additional measure to judge him on is extremely silly, IMO.
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Of course it is, and he's far beyond the point of judging for me. Was just pointing out that it wasn't like he couldn't throw the ball to save his life. Irrelevant in the bigger picture.
 
RooneyLegend said:
We had gibbs and smith who could take the game to the opposition. Everyone else couldn't, not even our best batsman kallis. That's where the problem was for our side. Whenever we had to chase a big ODI total or had to set one due to good pitch conditions we just couldn't. When Klusners time was done, we were done. He had the bottle, the flair, the understanding of game situations. Our best ODI batsman ever and no one in this land would disagree with that.

ODI's are mainly about the two big competitions. The ICC champs and the world cup. Kallis did nothing of note in either of those(either than 100 vs sri lanka in 07+he was utterly fantastic as a youngster in 98) but he failed most of the time. He despite having so much more runs than our second highest run getter in ODI's still doesn't have the record for most centuries. Lara, Ponting, and tendulkar all have 30+ centuries, he has less than 20.

Compare that to the Aussies. When Hayden or Gilchrist got out, ponting would come in and he could also dominate the opposition. They also had a list of other capable batsmen waiting who could speed it up when needed. These situations always arise in the big competitions and if a team is incapable of it, you'll suffer.
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Agree completely. Klusener was brilliant, one of my favourite players of all time. Spent a lot of my childhood copying his style. :lol:
 
RooneyLegend said:
We had gibbs and smith who could take the game to the opposition. Everyone else couldn't, not even our best batsman kallis. That's where the problem was for our side. Whenever we had to chase a big ODI total or had to set one due to good pitch conditions we just couldn't. When Klusners time was done, we were done. He had the bottle, the flair, the understanding of game situations. Our best ODI batsman ever and no one in this land would disagree with that.

ODI's are mainly about the two big competitions. The ICC champs and the world cup. Kallis did nothing of note in either of those(either than 100 vs sri lanka in 07+he was utterly fantastic as a youngster in 98) but he failed most of the time. He despite having so much more runs than our second highest run getter in ODI's still doesn't have the record for most centuries. Lara, Ponting, and tendulkar all have 30+ centuries, he has less than 20.

Compare that to the Aussies. When Hayden or Gilchrist got out, ponting would come in and he could also dominate the opposition. They also had a list of other capable batsmen waiting who could speed it up when needed. These situations always arise in the big competitions and if a team is incapable of it, you'll suffer.
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I remember before the 2007 semi final, someone from the Australian camp had a go at Kallis's poor-ish strike rate (as mind games obviously). Result? Tried to play a ridiculous shot and got done in by McGrath. Don't think that would happened to the really top players.


I Anal Doer 18 said:
Agree completely. Klusener was brilliant, one of my favourite players of all time. Spent a lot of my childhood copying his style. :lol:
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Yes Klusener was brilliant. If only Allan fecking Donald had the same cricketing acumen...
 
The Man Himself said:
He has most MoMs for SA in ODIs and his strike rate is as good as Ganguly who was considered one of the better ODI batsmen and a strike rate better than Dravid whose importance was recognized in ODI format by the 'experts.' It wasn't Kallis's role to go with a strike rate of 90 odd in ODIs. You had Gibbs etc for that at top. Good that the team and players in SA recognize the value of Kallis to the team otherwise if fans like you had their way, your team would have been so much worse of. But then, we have got people like you in India as well who will try to point out/dig stats or instances to prove that Sachin didn't do anything for India and how comparatively some other player from other country has been better.
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Those are random stats that don't prove anything.
 
Meh! Think it was adequately summed up in the Tendulkar thread. He is not someone who the opposition would be afraid of could turn the game on its head. Not to say he isn't a fantastic player. Think his batting is being severly underrated on here. His bowling has never impressed me. I'd rather have a more aggressive bowler in my team.
 
Not really unexpected. There are two groups, one who read statsguru and worship him and second who think he's ordinary when neither is true. His consistency is absolutely amazing and has been for many years, which when combined with his longevity has got him the records he has and full credit for that. He's a notch below the top tier of his generation, which is not unfair.
 
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