[Match Thread] Zimbabwe vs South Africa, 2nd ODI

[Jemisi]

We managed to bowl SA out. I am going to forget the second innings.

[Googly]

I didn’t watch the game but will bet most of Tahir’s wickets were googlies. You almost have to assume a googly is his stock ball and the leggie is a surprise. Disappointing, man, thought we were in with a shout there. When we’re short of game time we need warm up games. Tari and Ryan M must surely play in this last game.
I just want to see a new Board, that’s all.

[jaybro]

I’ll give you the tip Zimbo_05 throwing young kids to the wolves ain’t the solution.

If they can't play against second string sides, then we should just end it after the current crop retire.

Dramatic as always

[kudet]

last night's game just showed the gulf between the two sides.. the proteas capitalised on us not having to keep them under sustained pressure after having them at 107/7.. surely that was ours for the taking.. and we were rattled by the uneven bounce that was generated by the SA pacemen particularly Steyn with some balls staying low on a normal length and some jus taking off.. felt for slug who was rattled by steyn.. even pommie was worried.. never the less, at least two or three of the top order should have hung in and grinded.. character and patience were needed in such testing (freezing) conditions. one thing i noticed about the guys when playing tahir was they were not sure whether or not to go forward which they should have sought to do.. use the feet but alas.. we handed the guy a best innings figure..

[sloandog]

I watched the entire Steyn/Ervine battle and slug was doing well. He showed no emotion or pain when he got hit, or when he played and missed; just stared back and walked towards square leg. He was doing well and was showing some real grit. The shot he got out to was the right shot, just poor execution as it got too high on him; not to mention the fantastic catch from Andile. Steyn was on fire in that spell. Sometimes bowlers don't look like they're bowling all that quickly when watching it on TV, but last night Steyn actually looked like he was going to seriously injure Ervine; as Kudet mentioned I think Pommie was genuinely concerned at one point.


Tahir gets most of his wickets when the batters are hanging back anyway due to the way he skids the ball on. He doesn't turn his leg spinner hardly at all, but his googly is brilliant. I didn't seen Sean Williams bat but the fact he was stumped and hit two boundaries in 8 balls shows that he was playing too many shots. Not great from a senior player.

Overall, I think we should write this off. There were some fantastic bowling spells, especially from Jarv and Mavuta (who looks like a real prospect), and the batting was up against a spicy bowling attack, under lights, having played only 1 ODI since the WCQ.

Keep thinking of the positives.

[zimbos_05]

We managed to bowl SA out. I am going to forget the second innings.

That's not how the game works unfortunately

Dramatic as always

Haha, I've never been. Maybe passionate.

However, it's not dramatic. If the argument is that we can't throw youngsters to the wolves, then they can never be selected. We are a full member side and every other full member side are the wolves. We don't have a domestic comp, or grassroots program or any of the systems that other teams have to be bringing them through, so putting them in to the first team, within reason, is the only option we have.

[jaybro]

Playing young kids on that pitch against that attack would have done no one any favours. There are certain games and situations where you can blood players against quality attack.

The home series against Pakistan was perfect, docile pitches against a good attack, we saw Kamunhukamwe, Murray and Tari all show some promise but the fact none went past 50 even on those flat wickets means they’re still not quite ready to face Steyn, Rabada & Ngidi on the pitches we’ve seen in the two games so far.

As you can see from my previous posts if the next pitch is flat I’d play Murray and Kamunhukamwe.

[zimbos_05]

Playing young kids on that pitch against that attack would have done no one any favours. There are certain games and situations where you can blood players against quality attack.

The home series against Pakistan was perfect, docile pitches against a good attack, we saw Kamunhukamwe, Murray and Tari all show some promise but the fact none went past 50 even on those flat wickets means they’re still not quite ready to face Steyn, Rabada & Ngidi on the pitches we’ve seen in the two games so far.

As you can see from my previous posts if the next pitch is flat I’d play Murray and Kamunhukamwe.

I understand the point, the counter is purely that if the experienced guys cant get past 10, what harm does it do a youngster to play on that pitch. They will have to play on a pitch like that at some point, you might as well give them the chance when you can and, who knows, they might learn a lot from the experience and become better for it. Sheltering them is not going to aid their development. It is just going to give them someone to run to who will console them when things don't work out. I'm not calling for a complete overhaul. At least Murray for Chigs. He's played on SA pitches and showed he has glimpses against Aus and Pak. What difference does it make if Chigs scores 0 or Murray scores 1.

Remember, Blessing was thrown to the wolves, and look at him now. We don't really have the chances and opportunities to be picky with blooding players. We can't afford to take our time. Doing so results in us missing out on World Cups.

If you are going to say it will destroy confidence, then our whole philosophy, coaching set up, and structure is wrong.

[jaybro]

Why is experience the sole precursor for everyones selections?

Experience got us all out for 78. Experience got the opposition from 101/7 to 198. Experience struggles to beat Afghanistan, Holland, Ireland. Experience counts for a lot when they actually do something with it, our guys are merely just collecting caps.

In this post you clearly target the 'experienced core' that is the current squad, then in your latest post you just ask for Murray to be brought in for Chigs.

Hard to keep up with you sometimes tbh.

If it's just swapping Murray for Elton I'm ok with that as I've posted, but a total overhaul of the batting lineup will do nobody any good, if we want Tari, Kamunhakamwe, Murray, Burl, Roche etc to progress we need them playing lots and lots of cricket against good opposition and have them filtered into the side at the right time. It might be a case of reserving two spots for the batting lineup for younger players at all times so the experienced guys will have to fight it out for the other five spots.

I think we're getting too carried away with these last two games, I'm sure Pakistan and Sri Lanka would have been bowled out for cheap on these decks.

As for your argument about Blessing when it comes to bowling it's a whole different kettle of fish, pick your seamers when they're young and quick they'll learn on the run and adjust as they get older and lose their pace. If we had a 19 year old fast bowler who could hit 140 I'd have him in their asap.

[Kriterion_BD]

Sometimes I find myself agreeing with the "bring in the youngsters" argument and other times go with "the seasoned vets are still the best".

Reality is probably somewhere in between. Its true you wouldn't want to debut a player on such a pitch against such a bowling attack. But, zimbos makes 2 good points a) this might be the pressure needed to turn carbon to diamonds and b) we know none of the experienced core are going to score big runs in such conditions, so to quote the President, "what the hell do you have to lose?"