South African Standard Bank squad:
Graeme Smith
Johan Botha
Hashim Amla
Mark Boucher
AB de Villiers
JP Duminy
Herschelle Gibbs
Jacques Kallis
Albie Morkel
Morne Morkel
Makhaya Ntini
Wayne Parnell
Dale Steyn
Lonwabo Tsotsobe
Vaughn van Jaarsveld
Have to admit I'm a little surprised that Amla is in this lineup while Ashwell Prince and Neil Mckenzie. But otherwise a good solid lineup with Herschelle Gibbs being thrown a lifeline.
Inconsistency
I do however have a bone to pick with the selectors - Kleinveldt, Zondeki, Louw all got games for SA six weeks ago when we were playing Kenya and Zimbabwe.
Now suddenly you have Parnell, Tsotsobe and Van Jaarsveld in the lineup - where's the consistency?!
These guys needed the game time and exposure to the squad setup if they were going to be part of the Aussie series - so why did they not get involved early on?
The new boys
If I slated the selectors in the last paragraph then I need to praise them for a bit of progressiveness with their selections here.
For the Australians who haven't seen much of Van Jaarsveld (pictured left) - he's a super aggressive young left handed batter who has been a great success in the domestic one day game. If he could get his head screwed on right he might even be knocking on the test squad door. Good selection.Parnell (pictured right) and Tsotsobe we don't know much about. They're two young left
arm seamers with some solid performances in the local game. If these two can get some good performances under their belt, they could contribute some nice variety to the SA attack which has often been accused of being a bit one dimensional.Word of warning
Graeme Smith is already battling with his old elbow injury and Dale Steyn, Makhaya Ntini and Morne Morkel have a long season of hard test cricket in front of them - we don't want to be running them into the ground chasing a couple of ODI victories at the expense of our premium strike bowlers....
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3 comments:
hey marc...no need to apologise for taking your time out in PE!
I know of VanJaarsveld well, but I am surprised to see Hershelle Gibbs there, similair antics to Andrew Symonds, although Gibbs' track record is rather dodgy. Amla is quite effective in the ODI format so I am not surprised with his input. Everyone there seems equipped.
In truth, the Aussies have the edge on the ODI squad, better stocks for ODI cricket and depth through too Australia A.
The test arena is the struggle, and I hope Bracken will get the call up, as he has done everthing Andrew Hilditch (NSP) told him to do. Others must step up, and sure Siddle will be sidelined.
Boxing day, will wait and see what they do, SA have no worries I think, more a case of maintaining that benchmark now.
Lets just hope that Symonds and Gibbs don't end up in the same pub together.
Dunno about Amla but we'll watch how the series plays out.
Agree you guys have a little bit more depth and some great ODI players but lets see...
HAHA! That was funny.
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