Topic: Test Cricket Prediction and Discussion Thread [self - mod] - page 1063. (Read 152945 times)

It was a funny banter when one of our member said that South Africa will easily chase the score of 390 runs on the final day, no team will chase a score of 280 runs on the final day in India that easily let alone 390 runs and hence i said i will shave my head if they are able to defeat India . Surviving the final day to draw the match in India is a hard task let alone trying to chase the score.

No further comments  . I don't mind doing so if that makes you happy  .

At his peak, Murali was like a one man army for Sri Lanka. He was single handedly responsible for many of their wins. You can't compare Murali with Ashwin (although both of them speak the same language  ). Murali was able to perform on any type of surface, while Ashwin got almost 80% of his test wickets in India and Sri Lanka. Murali got most of his wickets against strong sides such as Australia and England, while for Ashwin a large part of the wickets came against teams such as Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.

But it is true that he has at least 6-7 years remaining in his international career, as he is just 33 years old. Nowadays it is not very uncommon to find spinners in their late 30s and even early 40s representing international teams. Imran Tahir of South Africa is 40, while Fawad Ahmed is 37. Mohammad Hafeez is 39 and he is still playing well.

Here is the thread that gives you an idea about the funny conversation. . erikalui said that South Africa will win the match easily while SR said that he will shave his head if they will win chasing the huge total  .

@Sasirajavu i really wish to see your curly looks gone  
I know you were sure that the chances of South Africa were minimal when taking this challenge, but still you want to take up a challenge here makes me laugh .

Ashwin is an exceptional talent but Muralitharan was on a different level in my opinion and the longevity he had was impressive and he was performing to his best till his final over before retiring from cricket, if Ashwin is able to perform like that in the next five years, it would be equally impressive.

South Africa is not a good team to perform that well in subcontinent wickets and Ashwin bowled really well in the first innings and Jadeja in the second innings but i was impressed with Mohammed Shami in the second innings where he was able to pick 5 wickets in a dead wicket in India and that too in the final day of the match is quite impressive, he was able to land the ball exactly in the cracks in the pitch and was able to extract the advantage and hence he was able to trouble all the batsman and that is how he was able to pick all the wickets is impressive.

South Africa had no chance after losing early wickets, they couldn't put any partnerships together to even try and play for the draw. Ashwin has had an amazing career so far as in this match he tied with Muralitharan for the fastest to 350 wickets which took just 66 test matches. Could we see Ashwin overtake Muralitharan in the next 10 years? With the way he is bowling it wouldn't surprise me to see this happen.

Well yeah, I am happy for the double selection I made and I am not sure if anyone else picked on it too. I think tomorrow I will do some gambling too depending on the mood. :-P

What was it with Sasirajavu ? I really missed the fun of all these cricketing topics.

Mayank Aggarwal I don't think is also someone whom we can judge as consistent yet. One innings with double hundred isn't enough. You have to test the player against different sides as well.

Anyway we have a lot of openers and the selectors have lot of options to pick is someone goes inconsistent. It's working and should be that way to give everyone equal opportunities to develop.

Moreover we have already seen selectors replacing normal lineup with some new faces and handing over older players some chance and time to time resting the normal players as well so it's not like everyone is not getting opportunities.

Looks like India winning this match has made a few members happy 
Royse because of winning his bet  and Sasirajavu because he doesn't have to shave to shave his head 

Well I won and good to see the India won the test with huge margin. This was very expected. And guess what these days my less activity in the forum caused me 4 pages lagging behind in this topic LOL


Well finally I am back again. I have not much to do for the next few weeks.

If you look at the statistics in world cricket in Test matches, none of the team have a consistent openers for the past two years, not sure the reason why none of the team have consistent openers, the quality of players are not that great in the opening slot when you compare with the old generation of players. When i saw a good opening partnership with Rohit Sharma and Mayank Agarwal that almost broke many records you will understand that they could perform for a long time. Rohit has already proved his worth as an opener in the shorter format and he can translate that to Test level too.

I think Rahul has a big problem with his consistency he performs for a day or two but in long term hasn't provided a permanent solution to India for the opener slot. I think mayank aggarwal and rohit sharma have had a similar sort of performance. Once again what we want from them is consistency. More importantly on foreign pitches India wants a solid starting duo which slot is pretty empty too. So it's a long way before we declare both these players as permanent openers of this team.

Rohit Sharma is an established opener in ODI and T20 and now he has performed well in Test too, if he is able to perform in green pitches as an opener then he will be a permanent fixture as a Test opener, Mayank Agarwal is a fixture in the opener slot as he has performed well in the past series too. If they are performing consistently then there will be no spot for Rahul or Dhawan in the team as the middle order is full of talents and then the tail which comprises of Ashwin and Jadeja has a really good average.

I disagree. Sharma did perform well, but 2 matches are not enough to judge whether he is fit for that position. Vijay might find it tough, but Rahul and Dhawan especially will still probably be given a lot more chances in my opinion.

Rohit needs to continue performing well in that spot for many matches in order to be given a higher preference. Mayank Agarwal still has a long way to go and they are still experimenting with him. I would prefer Rahul over Agarwal any day currently.

The quota is for "colored players" and it includes black players. Actually it is not a quota in favor of the black people. It is a quota against the inclusion of the white players (since everyone else is being considered as "colored").  My calculation is that they have lost more than 50 players, mostly to county cricket in England, but also to countries such as New Zealand, Australia, and even to smaller teams such as Netherlands (Roelof van der Merwe, Colin Ackermann.etc) and Scotland.

Also we have players such as AB de Villiers, who stopped playing international cricket after the 2015 world cup semi-final scandal (for the semi final match against NZ, de Villiers wanted to pick Kyle Abbott, who had performed well in the earlier match. But Abbott was replaced with Philander by the selectors to have 6 colored players in the side. Philander went wicketless in that match).   

It was OK, if the quota was limited at one or two players (as the case during the 1990s). Now all the domestic teams are required to field 6 colored players in their playing XI (a minority of only 5 can be on merit), and 3 of them needs to be black Africans. This is how players like Temba Bavuma and Andile Phehlukwayo have found a place in the playing XI, when white players such as Hardus Viljoen and Chris Morris miss out on selection.

Rohit Sharma was experimented as a Test opener for the first time and he scored centuries in both the innings and now he will be fixed in this position along side Mayank Agarwal and if Rohit Sharma is able to perform the same in away series in bouncing pitches then it would be a great opening combination, now KL Rahul, Murali Vijay and Shikhar Dhawan will have a difficult time to get back into the team.

India is a dominating force even if they play in South Africa as they have the players to beat any team outside the sub continent, some of their bowlers are injured for the series and yet they could defeat South Africa with ease. India will white wash the series and they will be preparing spinner friendly wickets and from the next match they might add another extra spinner. Shami bowled really well in the second innings and Rohit Sharma performed well for the first time as an opener.

South Africa lost the match, by one run Senurian has missed the fifty on his very first international appearance. Though he is not out the other end made Rabada losing his wicket made the match come to an end. Today's win will give more confidence to India on the upcoming matches.

Well someone just saved his head from being shaved As expected when it came to chasing 395 in the fourth innings in just one day South Africa once again choked pretty Badly. As I said previously the 5th day pressure is damn too much for any team to take the match on their side. Not to mention that the Pitch also behave pretty unevenly until day 5 due to which Ball doesn't quite comes onto the bat. So it was a really wise decision by India to declare yesterday so that South Africa could fight for their win. Just one wicket to go and I hope Rain or bad light doesn't becomes any problem. Even though Umpires would stress at getting a result soon.

They have the local rules one of which is to include the quota of black players in their team to represent whole of the South Africa. If you see the recent world cup they took only 3 black player with them and none of them was a batsmen. They do not give priority to the black people and therefore we did not see world class bowlers like Makhaya Ntini and Kagiso Rabada to excel in the team.

Jadeja and Shami finished the team. I really thought SA would manage to get the runs but never expected such a poor result and batting from them, a team who managed 400+ in the first innings. My prediction went wrong this time but so glad India are going to win this first test.

9th wicket gone and just 1 left. They won't reach even 200 now.