Comparison to Multan continues...
In addition to the three points raised in the post below, you can now add these two:
4. England's target in Multan: 198. South Africa's target at Centurion: 199.
5. Chasing their target, England's second wicket fell at 64 in the 20th over. South Africa's second wicket fell at 67 in the 18th over.
Eerie coincidences aside, I actually don't think we're going to win tomorrow (and I'm not just using the age-old "saying something when you actually want the opposite to happen" trick). The reason is that South Africa's batting lineup is much better, and much deeper, than England's was in Multan. Plus, they recently chased a very similar total against India, so they know how to go about it. Be that as it may, I'm proud of our team. We're missing our best bowler of last year (Gully) and our best batsman of last year (Yousuf), our diamond in the rough (Asif) is returning after a long lay off, our team has gone through all sorts of turmoil recently, and we've still fought these guys tooth and nail. Yes, some of our top order batsmen could have gone on after making starts (they've combined for three 60's, a 40 and two 30's and exactly 0 hundreds) but I think that's missing the bigger picture: we're seriously undermanned in this Test, in a country where we've had very little success, against a team on a high, and we've made it close. That's a good thing.
In addition to the three points raised in the post below, you can now add these two:
4. England's target in Multan: 198. South Africa's target at Centurion: 199.
5. Chasing their target, England's second wicket fell at 64 in the 20th over. South Africa's second wicket fell at 67 in the 18th over.
Eerie coincidences aside, I actually don't think we're going to win tomorrow (and I'm not just using the age-old "saying something when you actually want the opposite to happen" trick). The reason is that South Africa's batting lineup is much better, and much deeper, than England's was in Multan. Plus, they recently chased a very similar total against India, so they know how to go about it. Be that as it may, I'm proud of our team. We're missing our best bowler of last year (Gully) and our best batsman of last year (Yousuf), our diamond in the rough (Asif) is returning after a long lay off, our team has gone through all sorts of turmoil recently, and we've still fought these guys tooth and nail. Yes, some of our top order batsmen could have gone on after making starts (they've combined for three 60's, a 40 and two 30's and exactly 0 hundreds) but I think that's missing the bigger picture: we're seriously undermanned in this Test, in a country where we've had very little success, against a team on a high, and we've made it close. That's a good thing.
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Cricket
1 comment:
you seem to also be forgetting that England was playing in Pakistan.
South Africa, quite obviously, is not.
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