General Cricket Discussion

[Durbsboi]

SA sport is surely a proven nation builder, whether its Rugby, Soccer or Cricket

[harsh1802]

Source

[haggiesm]

lefty huh. definitely seems to have a better straight drive than GW

[Durbsboi]

The man knows which sports are good not that dumb baseball, lol

[phaedrus]

[Durbsboi]

So ICCT20 World Cup starts today?

Think SA can do it? or will India come up trumphs again?

I think we've got a good chance if all our guys come to the party.

[Durbsboi]

Got to admit, I wasnt paying too much attention to this whole Indian Champions League tournment simply because Dolphins werent in it. so wasnt following the build up and hype etc... but yesterday whilst at gym I was forced to watch it on the bike, stepper & threadmill since it was the only channel working on it

I caught the Cobra's batting innings, and what a fucking class act by JP, at first they were falling like flies but shit JP pulled off something great there!

Duminy's 99 outdoes Bangalore

Cape Cobras 184 for 5 (Duminy 99*) beat Royal Challengers Bangalore 180 for 4 (Taylor 53*, Uthappa 51) by five wickets



At this venue in 2008, Brendon McCullum slammed the most famous Twenty20 century to knock the stuffing out of Royal Challengers Bangalore. On another starry South Indian night, against the hosts again, JP Duminy struck the most awesome 99 you will see in this format to take the Cape Cobras to a thrilling last-over victory.

And so a new chapter in the rapidly growing Twenty20 format has begun. After a gala opening ceremony reminiscent of the opening night of the first IPL, the two teams treated a capacity Chinnaswamy Stadium to a superb exhibition of Twenty20 overs. Anil Kumble had no hesitation in batting first on a good batting track and 20 action-packed overs later the Cobras had their task cut out, after Robin Uthappa and Ross Taylor starred in a powerful batting display. But Duminy thumped five sixes and eight fours in as clinical and perfect a display of shotmaking as you could hope to see, and his partnership of 61 with Ryan Canning transformed the game after Bangalore had grabbed three early wickets in defence of 180.

The Cobras were in real strife early on with the bat, as Herschelle Gibbs edged Praveen Kumar behind in the first over, and captain Andrew Puttick followed suit with a leading edge to point. Henry Davids played a couple of handsome strokes but when Virat Kohli took an easy catch at point off R Vinay Kumar, the scoreboard showed 62 for 3.

As he has done at the international stage, Duminy didn't waste time in finding his range. Kumble continued to vary his pace and fed Duminy a steady diet of googlies; Duminy was beaten on occasions but replied with deft boundaries, the pick being a cut behind short third man for four. There was a moment of drama, too: Taylor dropped a dolly at long-off when Duminy was 23, after which a dead ball was called because the ball hit the cable of the fly camera.

Once he found his range, Duminy was unstoppable. Vinay was scooped for four and Roelof van der Merwe was driven over mid-on for six. After getting to 50 in 30 balls, Duminy stepped up a notch and Canning played his part with 20 from 18 balls.

The game was wide open when the Cobras needed 54 off five overs. That was eased significantly as Kohli's part-time medium-pace went for 13 in the 16th over, Kumble and van der Merwe were struck for big sixes and Vinay was mowed for boundaries either side of the pitch. Duminy's final six took him to 99 yet, cruelly, there was to be no century as Rory Kleinveldt finished the deal with two balls remaining.

This seemed a distant possibility after 20 overs in the field, when the Cobras seemed distinctly overawed by the moment and a packed house breathing down their necks, misfielding with alarming regularity and serving up a dozen too many full tosses. Uthappa paved the way with a belligerent but plucky half-century, being dropped on 18 and miscuing more than a few between catchers, and an astonishing assault from Taylor rounded flattened the attack.

Depleted by the injury blow to Charl Langeveldt in the sixth over, the Cobras were sloppy in the field, putting down three catches and missing a run-out. Uthappa was the beneficiary of one sitter and a couple miscues that dropped safely, and flourished in Rahul Dravid's company after Langeveldt took out Jacques Kallis early. Using his feet regularly to try and get on top of the bowlers, Uthappa pulled off some stinging shots down the ground and over midwicket, each of which the partisan home crowd cheered with gusto.

Dravid, dropped on 16, played some crisp and orthodox shots before he was run out for 28, after which Kohli was stumped for 17. But Bangalore took 61 off their final four overs, 40 of them in boundaries off just eight balls by Taylor, who picked up a 24-ball half-century off the final delivery of the innings, courtesy a top-edged four. Taylor has a penchant for clearing his front leg and heaving across the line, but this evening he was aided by an array of stray slower balls on the pads and rank full tosses.

A target of 181 ultimately proved a saunter with Duminy at his dazzling best. Tonight a new chapter began, one that could dictate the future of club cricket.

[Durbsboi]

So the first test was not bad, nail biting at the end, Onions made us cry for sure!

Boxing Day test is back in Durbs! starts on Saturday at Kingsmead, anyone going down???

[SA BOY]

lots of rain... check, very hot... check, perfect conditions for a green mamba wicket and for england to win toss and be all out for 85 on first day

[Durbsboi]

well rain is here today, I'll let it soak in tomorrow to get some sprouts on the pitch, bring in Mr Styen to break some bones on the first day then we're back in action!

[ToxicBunny]

So going to be at the boxing day test...

Look out for the Safari Army populating Castle Corner

[Durbsboi]

I'll be Westside parking in the shade

[ToxicBunny]

We've got a kit and alles...

We'll be showing those Barmy Army morons how to enjoy a day at the cricket..

[Durbsboi]

lol, sounds wicked! last time tried to compete with them, but couldnt ended up running to the toilets over 20 times.

I just hope this rain go's away

[dysan1]

haha well its a brilliant day in Durbs... also off to the cricket...see ya'll there.

[Durbsboi]

ok well we got a must win game coming up to level the series, really disspointing series this was. I really expected us to put the English in their place, but sadly it was the other way around. Credit to them, they played well. Lets hope we have alittle luck for the 4th test which starts on Thursday.

[SA BOY]

bring back white lightning and vinnige farnie

[Durbsboi]

but please note Big Mac!

Harris to be dropped from the final test, heres a funny article I found

Paul Harris in ball-turning shocker
In which the South Africans counter a heinous allegation against their, er, spinner


Mickey Arthur stormed into the South African dressing room.

"Have you seen these comments from the England lot?" he asked. He brandished a newspaper angrily.

Graeme Smith put down his post-workout isotonic recovery éclair. He shook his head.

"They've accused Paul Harris of messing about with the ball," said Arthur. "They say that when he bowls it sometimes he tries to make it deviate off the straight."

"That's astonishing," said Smith. "How could they accuse him of that?"

Harris emerged from the shower area. "I can't work the shower," he said.

"Duminy," sighed Smith. "Go and show Paul how to turn the shower on." JP Duminy took Harris by the hand.

"And Paul," said Smith. "Have you seen this? The English are accusing you of trying to 'spin' the ball." Harris looked blank.

"It's that thing where you sort of tweak you fingers to make it rotate through the air and then it behaves erratically when it hits the pitch," explained Duminy.

"That's malicious, that is," said Harris. "If I've been guilty of anything, it's being not very good at bowling, but there's no way they can say I tried to work on the ball to do this 'spinning' thing."

"I think we should make an official complaint about their complaint," said Arthur.

"No," said Smith. "I've got a better idea. Let's moan about it to a few journalists, but then not actually complain to the authorities."

"Sort of take the moral high ground, as it were?" said Arthur.

Smith looked puzzled.

"No, no," he said "It'll just be more annoying for the English this way."

"I dunno," said Arthur. "They shouldn't be allowed to sling mud like this. What would they say if our spinner was from Pakistan?"

"Well, we've tried that, haven't we?" said Smith. "But unfortunately, nobody believed that Imran Tahir was South African."

"I told you that sticking him in that rugby shirt and getting him to call everybody 'bru' at the immigration interview wasn't going to fly," said Arthur.

"Well, if he could have just drunk the Castle to get his courage up like I told him and said that his name was Piet Van Der Tahir as we discussed, we wouldn't be in this mess right now," said Smith.

"But how can we spin this story to our advantage?" said Arthur. "Erm, that's against the rules, isn't it?" said Harris. He looked confused. "I bet Nathan Hauritz doesn't have to put up with this."

[Durbsboi]

Ok, from dominating the Indian team in the first test to playing second fiddle in the 2nd test,what happened? over confidence? seems like the only player that kept his head in place was Amla and currently he is saving our ass! 2 test matches and over 400 hundreds, thats what legends are made off!

[Durbsboi]

soooooooo close, there was like 15min of play left! Hashim Amla, 2 tests, 3 innings, 494 runs, take a bow!