South Africa under Alrounder80

[Alrounder80]

Tough luck there, but you did choose a good side to lose too!

Yup, no shame in losing to the good old Black caps

[cricfan1]

Yo should post series summery after series completion

[Alrounder80]

Yo should post series summery after series completion

Will do later, been a bit busy lately.

[Alrounder80]

Getting to the semi-final wasn't a bad effort but with a team of this quality we should be winning these kinds of tournaments. Australia ended up winning by 7 wickets against New Zealand to lift the T20 World Cup trophy for the first time ever.

Best Batsmen Award: Hashim Amla
2nd highest run scorer in the tournament behing Jessie Ryder isn't a bad effort. He performed consistently throughout.

Best Bowler Award: Dale Steyn
3rd highest wicket taker in the tournament. Bowled with aggression with the new ball and kept the runs down at the death. A good economy rate of 7.16 considering he regularly bowled his last two overs at the death

[Alrounder80]

The South African's now head of to Australia for the 3 test match series against the Aussies.

Here's the 18 man squad:



I've included 4 players who haven't represented South Africa in Test matches yet. Rossouw, de Kock and Pienaar will undoubtedly represent us in test in the near future. For this tour they are here basically to get used travelling with the squad.The big hitting Albie Morkel's also in the squad.

So straight into the first test.



Vernon finally came into his own for South Africa under me. David Warner slashed at one outside offstump straight to point for the first wicket. Soon Australia found themselves in trouble at 31 for 3. Phil Hughes resisted and scored a well made half century. No one else really made significant contributions and Australia ended up all out for low score of 210. We also lost our openers cheaply but Amla played fluently with his trademark flicks and backfoot punches. Rudolph (59) and Duminy didn't do their position in the team any harm with their knocks. Scoring 85 at number 7 was a good effort.
Another poor total by Australia in their second innings. Clarke played well for his 65 along wiht Hussey. Everyone else struggled. All the South African bowlers chipped in with wickets. We knocked of 83 runs with the loss of one wicket. Great win!
Vernon Philander picked up the Man of the Match award
7 wickets in the test.

[Alrounder80]

Apologies for not including the XIs for the sides in the previous test.

Here are the line ups for the second test anyways.

South Africa XI:
G.Smith
A.Petersen
H.Amla
J.Kallis
A.de Villiers(c&wk)
J.Rudolph
J.Duminy
V.Philander
M.Morkel
D.Steyn
I.Tahir

Fair to say I haven't looked to experiment much with the test side!

Australia XI:
D.Warner
S.Watson
M.Hussey
M.Clarke
P.Hughes
C.Rogers
P.Nevill
M.Johnson
R.Harris
P.Siddle
J.Pattinson

They've swapped Marcus North with the Chris Rogers. If Rogers was born in any other country other than Australia I'm SURE he'd have played stacks of international matches (so would the likes Stuart Law, Stuart MacGill, Jamie Cox, etc). Shame really.



Mike Hussey and Michael Clarke shared a 3rd wicket stand of a marathon 287 which gave us no chance to win the game. Only a draw or a win to the Aussies was on the card and it ended up being a draw.
To say Mike Hussey took Tahir to the cleaners would be a massive understatement. He took advantage of the ball spinning into him and peppered the legside field with slog sweeps, paddle sweeps and leg clips and never let him settle. Tahir ended up with horror figures of no wicket for 166 of 32 overs. Vernon was once again the go to man and he along with Morkel took all the wickets in the first innings. After Hussey's and Clarke's vigil some late order hitting seriously demoralised the lads.
We replied brilliantly though, with Smith (88) and Amla putting on 152 after the early loss of Alviro Petersen. De Villers played a true captains knock. One of the best batsmen to watch when in form. We piled on 462 runs but defeat still looked likely for us. Australia immediately showed urgency in their second innings. Wickets fell regularly as a result but the runs came at a fair tick and they quickly put on 300 before declaring. Hussey was the man of the moment again.
So, we had to survive all of a 102 overs on a deteriorating pitch with the Aussie bowlers really pumped up. After being 38 for 2 we never looked back. Petersen first knock of any significance came after 8 fruitless innings but I'd have still liked to have seen him carry on to the three figure mark. Kallis did so and with typical grit. He and Rudolph (58*) batted for 50 overs and didn't give the bowlers a sniff. Very impressed with Rudolph's cool head under pressure. Although he's 31 he still has at least 5 or 6 years in him and should be a key figure in our test side. Kallis is, and always will be, brilliant!
Man of the Match went to, OFCOURE, Mike Hussey.

[Alrounder80]

Started other careers with county teams so may stop this. When I'm in the mood I might start again. There isn't much interest anyways!

[cricfan1]

Started other careers with county teams so may stop this. When I'm in the mood I might start again. There isn't much interest anyways!

Have to reach No 1 in all 3 format

[6ry4nj]

Started other careers with county teams so may stop this. When I'm in the mood I might start again. There isn't much interest anyways!

I totally respect your decision either way. That said, I'm not sure how you're assessing there to be not much interest. You have 1200 views for 30-odd posts. That's as good as anyone gets on here. If you want us the silent readers to contribute more, I for one 'd be happy to (not sure what to say though).

[Alrounder80]

I totally respect your decision either way. That said, I'm not sure how you're assessing there to be not much interest. You have 1200 views for 30-odd posts. That's as good as anyone gets on here. If you want us the silent readers to contribute more, I for one 'd be happy to (not sure what to say though).

OH RIGHT I thought the 1200 views wasn't much compared to the likes of Imager, GrahamB, etc. But hadn't realised I've only done not many posts! In that case I may continue and in reply to your question, no, there isn't any need for more contribution.

[Alrounder80]

The 3rd test now and both sides made one change. Imran Tahir was duly dropped after performing far below what was expected of him. The debutant Obus Pienaar replaces him. Some are already taking about him 'replacing' Jacques Kallis as our next alrounder! The Aussies have brought in Marcus North for Chris Rogers.



Exactly what we wanted in order to win the series. The deck was absolutely dead. Taking that into account our bowlers bowled exceptionally accurately and Australia batting poorly to put up a total of 385. That really was under par on such a good batting wicket. Surprisingly Kallis was the pick of the bowlers with with 2 for 41 of 11 overs. I say surprisingly as previous to this he was averaging over 200+ with the ball this season!
That definitely showed when we put up 518 runs in our first innings. The top seven batsmen ALL scored above 41 runs. Along with Petersen and Kallis, Smith (83) as well as de Villiers (60) were the others to reach fifty.
Australia second innings was much improved in terms of result but in truth in was only because of David Warner's brilliance that led to their strong total of 476 for 8 declared. Annoyingly, the last three wickets with the batsmen effectively being tail enders put on 136. All was good though because we managed to bat out the 81 overs only losing 3 wickets. Petersen is now really showing us what he's made of was an exquisite century. No need to talk about Kallis, but of topic, we all know he's better than Gary Sobers.
Petersen is the Man of the Match. Solid draw and a good series win, albeit a dull one.

[Alrounder80]

Series stats time.






For the South African's, Jacques Kallis is at the top of the runs charts with 322 and a stunning average of 107.33. Alviro Petersen is second with 298 runs and that will surely be a surprise for him. On the bowling side, Philander really stands out along with Morkel. Pienaar didn't perform well at all in his debut but certainly one I'll keep an eye on in the future and continue to give him chances in the side.
For the Aussies, Hussey incredible double century along with a few other scores means that he's the highest run score of the series with 452 runs. Their second is Michael Clarke who even exceeds Kallis. Shows how dominant they were with the bat. But the bowling averages show why South Africa won the series. The highest average for the ball was 40.85 for Pattinson which is quite terrible. No one showed up with ball in hand.

Best Batsmen Award: Jacques Kallis
The most runs for the Proteas with the highest average, as often the case with him, the stats speak for themselves.

Best Bowler award: Vernon Philander
He bowled very accurately with enough movement either way to cause the Australian's a lot of trouble.

[GrahamB]

OH RIGHT I thought the 1200 views wasn't much compared to the likes of Imager, GrahamB, etc. But totally forgot I've only done not many posts! In that case I may continue and in reply to your question, no, there isn't any need for more contribution.

Good that you're continuing.
Don't see stories as a competition to see who can get the most views.
Some will follow yours, some will follow mine, some will follow others, some will follow all of them.
I think the main thing is that you enjoy posting your story.

[Alrounder80]

Good that you're continuing.
Don't see stories as a competition to see who can get the most views.
Some will follow yours, some will follow mine, some will follow others, some will follow all of them.
I think the main thing is that you enjoy posting your story.

No of course I don't take it as a competition but I was of the view that there was literally no interest for this story. Nice surprise to know that there is some interest

[DaveK93]

No of course I don't take it as a competition but I was of the view that there was literally no interest for this story. Nice surprise to know that there is some interest

I for one am glad this is continuing, if only to scout players for me to sign! But on a serious note, it's a good read, I'm enjoying it.