Greame Smith is full of surprises in this world cup. A Captain, who has done his homework thoroughly and puts it in practice so effectively, which ensures certain talent crop up. Imran Tahir is a sensation in this world cup and he proved it with another 4 wicket haul. We have already seen captains starting the innings with the spinner. West Indies, New Zealand, Zimbabwe have done it too. But then Greame smith could bring in surprise even then. Robin Petersen was thrown the new ball and he picked up both the openers in his first over, rather first over of the match. Strauss dig his own grave, whereas KP did nothing wrong, but the turn and bounce in the wicket did the needful.
Couple of overs later, Petersen beat Bell in flight only to take a return catch to dismiss him. Ravi Bopara walks in to play a slow and important innings along with Trott to rescue England from death. Smith ensured that Spinners bowled the maximum overs and even part timers like Du Plessis looked unplayable, if they hit the right spot. During the partnership, one of the messages that they sent to the dressing room was that run scoring would be tough and more so, while chasing. Still, at the end of England’s Innings, 171 would not have pepped them enough, as they were short of 30 runs. All Strauss would have thought is for the fast bowlers to support the effort of spinners to pull off a miraculous win.
England could do that exactly, simply because of calculative moves of Strauss, who was a man with a mission. He did everything right, though he copied the style of Smith’s by starting the innings with a left arm spinner. Yardy could not make inroads into the strong batting combination of Amla and Smith. 63 run partnership kept the dressing room calm. After Smith’s wicket, Kallis came and played couple of stunning drives to keep the spirits high. But then Amla got out bowled when he tried to run the ball to third man.
In walked AB De Villiers, who achieved the feat of scoring back to back hundreds in a world cup. Including him, six others have achieved that feat in world cup. Mark Waugh, Saeed Anwar, Rahul Dravid, Mathew Hayden and Ricky Ponting are the others. Spare a thought for these legends. This factor also ensured that De Villiers’ wicket was key to England’s chance of testing RSA’s middle and lower order. James Anderson produced a beauty to get rid of AB. The ball moved away off the seam and on the way to the wicket keeper, clipped the bail and everyone realized the moment a bit late. After De Villiers’ wicket, 3 wickets fell as the scorecard read 124.
Strauss used Swann in three spells. KP was given nine overs and he created so many chances too. Matt Prior had a fantastic outing with the wicket keeping gloves apart from a missed stumping chance and a tough caught behind chance, both off KP. Stuart Broad turned out to be the life savior for Strauss with his fantastic spell of 4 for 15 in 6.4 overs. He along with Anderson and Bresnan bowled some tight overs in the middle and backed up Spinner's efforts efficiently.
A win against South africa was unexpected for both teams, but then it acted as a pain killer after their last match loss against Ireland. Hats off to England’s guts for topping the group A with 5 points. But then they have already played more matches compared to others in the group. They would go into the match against West Indies and Bangladesh as favorites, but then one could never predict the result.
Regards,
Prashy.
Dude Nice One... Keep Writing... Enjoyed Reading your blogs.... Cheers @ Saikrishna
ReplyDeleteThanks for the nice match report. Would like to know more about your views on 'Captaincy' in the match as you'd mentioned that it stood out.
ReplyDelete@Babu - I was thinking that I should have dealt on Captaincy part in detail. Thanks for highlighting the missing factor. Here are few points, according to me, which stood out in lines of captaincy.
ReplyDeleteObservations about Smith:
He was spot on with his field placements. There is no one specific formula used. Its like a switch of a button and fielders move as everyone knew whats the plan for batsmen.
Robin Petersen could bowl with a plan provided by Smith and he bowled all of his eight overs with a slip and close in fielder. Ian Bell and Strauss succumbed to that pressure as they both tried to step out too early to disturb the rhythm of the bowler. End result was England tottering at 15 for 3.
Smith always keeps the batsmen guessing with his rotation of bowlers. At the end of 10 overs of powerplay 1, he had bowled four of his bowlers. He read the wicket really well, as it not only helped the spinners, but also the medium pacers who keep stump to stump line. He relied on Kallis' experience of hitting the right areas. If we look back at the innings, hardly I remember a bowling combination who bowled 5 to 6 overs between them. This ensured that England never got out of trouble.
Strauss' job was even tougher, as he did not have the bowling variety as Smith had. Nor the score on board to defend. He strictly followed Smith's tactics, but then he knew his bowler's strengths too. Starting with yardy did not work for him as it did for Smith. He should have started with Swann cause an off spinner can get the better off left hand batsmen.
Trusting Kevin pietersen and providing attacking field for him ensured that Swann had good support bowlers which was tactical to me, as Swann bowled 6 overs in his first spell without much success.
His mixing of bowlers was commanding, as he made good use of little chances that came in their way. Swann, Yardy and KP kept the runs dried and Strauss used his seamers to pick the wickets for him, by bringing them in short spells. Field placements was neither attacking nor defensive for medium pacers. Infact, he did not even have slips, when he had to take 3 last wickets, though his job was to get south africa all out for winning the match rather than defending the runs. He strictly ensured that medium pacers did not give room for the batsmen and stick to stump line. This, according to me was killer punch move. I also recollect Anderson bowling wides down the leg side in trying to stick to the formula Strauss suggested.
Smith was a better captain no doubt, but then Strauss went home as a happy captain. England have played close games in all the 4 matches so far - but for Strauss' captaincy, England would have been dead and buried already.
@Sai Krishna - Thanks for your nice words. Keep following the blog and I would definitely reply to your comments.
ReplyDelete@prashy: Good Article, Way to go:):)
ReplyDeletespeechless, No words to describe the way both teams played. when van wyk got out and Morne Morkel came in. All of a sudden i remembered Chennai 28 movie intro match where Shiva (van wyk) tells Premji (steyn) to stay so that he an complete the match. When Shiva (van wyk) gets out other guy (morkel) comes in, Premji (steyn) tells the same words that shiva told him. Ultimate End is that they get defeated.
Coming to point yet again Indian pitch favored spin and hence both teams started with spinners. But credit needs to be given for English pacers for removing all the Proteus Batsmen. For the first time England showed class in fielding and bowling.
South Africa earlier were pin point in fielding and bowling. Three catches were simply stunning. unfortunately i missed england innings.For the first time i saw spinners doing better than pacers for south africa. Imran Tahir will certainly become like their yesteryear spinner PAT SYMCOX.
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yeah it was a wonderful match indeed....I remember vividly the conversation we had on both the captains and I still cannot imagine how South Africa went on to lose this match but it was expected considering the fact that they no more have a powerful lower order of yesteryears(Hero Klusener/Calm Boucher/Charming Pollock/Single specialist Jonty/unpredictable Boje/streetsmart guys like Brian McMillan)...and about Strauss using Yardy,it was quite defensive considering that he has been included in the squad for just containing runs(Strauss had confided earlier so adding that he may give good company to Swann as it will be tough for the opposition to score runs) and could have opened with Swann!!!
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the day an Englishman of South African origin won the match!!!
@Kiran - Well put. Englishman of South African origin ah.
ReplyDeleteI cannot agree with you more. Compared to Indians, South africans have not pushed their experience throughout the order. J P Duminy is sole player who has to play with likes of Du Plessis, Van Wyk to see them thru. Boucher was missed no doubt. But then Smith would only see the positive of things and against England it back fired, but they would be in the hunt in forthcoming matches.