NZ vs SA TEST CRICKET

there must have been posts deleted in this thread... !

debut 50 for mcCullum.. first by a nz keeper... nice work

Pulled a nice one out of your ass there didnt ya

Now, this is something I like the look of...

South Africa 459 & 31/2 (19.4 ov)
New Zealand 509

South Africa trail by 19 runs with 8 wickets remaining

What are the South Africans doing? They had a chance to win the game, to give New Zealand a chance to win it, to make the game interesting and they completely killed it off and played for a draw.

How bloody dull. What a waste of time. We could have been watching a Sunday afternoon of wickets and big shots as New Zealand set off for a big total. Instead the Saffies have shut up shop and shown their negative mindset.

And the moaning and bitching about the pitch and everything else under the sun.

I've always thought the South AFricans were hard, aggressive cricketers. Not so on this tour - they are reminding me of the English...

They do seem stuck into the old style of test cricket, don't risk losing to give yourself a chance of winning. whatever you think of the aussie team they at least make test match cricket interesting by risking losing in order to have a chance of winning.

Sth Africa knew they were in a precarious position, especially after day 4. They decided then that a draw would be a good result for them, and played for it the rest of the match.

If the next two pitches are fair, and make it possible for 40 wickets to fall, I think NZ could easily win 2-0. The Sth African seamers might do better on a wicket that helps them a bit more, but I think the NZers will be better, plus they have spinners (even Wiseman looked good in the 2nd innings.. well, better than Adams did the whole game).

The key to the next two games is the form of the two captains with the bat (if one gets going, and not the other, that side will have a huge advantage) and NZ's middle order, especially Cairns and McMillan. I think several of the Sth African batsmen have technical deficiencies, especially in NZ conditions against a good attack. Besides Kallis and Kirsten, the rest of the top order may struggle.

hmmmm I can smell a 0-0 series draw here unless someone leaves some grass on one the wickets..................both teams batting line-ups are too clearly too strong for the others teams bowlers, particually NZ with SA having to get through outr top order then our no's 7,8,9 and 10........ made 100, 50 ,50 40 in this test

Not sure what the groundmen are going to do quite frankly, if they prepare an absolute greentop (one that plays the same for both teams) then its anyones game, If they prepare one of those half-a-greentop pitches then we run the risk of jammy-ass Smith winning the toss again and being on the back foot from day 1, like this test

To that end I think the boys can be pretty pleased with their performance, on a pitch like that SA the only ones that could have won after winning the toss

Oh and reading more about the pitch repairs thing its a bit of a disgrace really, if that happned in India we would be jumping up and down and shouting cheats! and stuff.

That groundsman was on the tea party thing and he was clearly a dickhead. "I didnt hear the inscruction properly" ...............bullshit and he should have known the rules anyway. Quite an embarrassing episode for us esp with our reputation for preparing 2-day pitches anyway. good on the ya-yas for being suss and taking pics of the pitch and busting him

haha... WI showed how "good" they are against England... they did us a huge favour by giving SA a false sense of confidence before they came here

Good batting effort in first innings and congratulations to Jacob Oram.
On a sad note the whole doctoring the pitch incident and changing the sight screens makes us look like a bunch of cheats.

Had to laugh at Smith's assessment of Hamilton being the hill billy capital of NZ.

things that i knew already but were reaffirmed by this test...

- jacques kallis really is a cut above pretty much everyone in the world at the moment... he is an absolute machine...

- jacob oram is one of the best 'up and coming' all rounders in the world with kallis, pollock and cairns getting old... oram looked awesome with the bat (and it was predicted by me too)

- paul adams is shit... shit shit shit... he bowls more 4 balls than wiseman and stuart macgill combined, and he's a cheat too...

- the south african bowlers really aren't as good as they like to think they are in general, they haven't performed since they've been here, and they'll need to start...

- graeme smith isn't quite the captain everyone likes to talk about, fleming got under his skin alright, and its starting to show in his batting - thats probably due to the fact that he got smacked 5-1 in the one dayers though...
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just a quick note - i am embarrassed that anyone from the NZ cricket team or management thought it was in ANY way acceptable to ask for the pitch to be repaired.

what a boring test, I got score updates but that was about that it, the runs per over was a joke

SA should have try to smashed there last hundred runs quickly & set us 250 odd off 50 instead of 250 off 23 overs