South Africa v England, 1st Test, Centurion, Dec 16-20

Dello wrote:On the subject of a what a complete toss-receptacle Ian Bell is (I assume someone's talking about it in this thread or elsewhere), five of his last six innings for England have ended in single figures.

8, 3, 72, 4, 5, 2.

In fact, since his 199 vs SA, he's been out for single figures ten times in ten games.

361 runs @ 20.05.

How is he in the squad, again?

embee wrote:

Dello wrote:On the subject of a what a complete toss-receptacle Ian Bell is (I assume someone's talking about it in this thread or elsewhere), five of his last six innings for England have ended in single figures.

8, 3, 72, 4, 5, 2.

In fact, since his 199 vs SA, he's been out for single figures ten times in ten games.

361 runs @ 20.05.

How is he in the squad, again?

this is a family forum , dello

We arent allowed to mention "knob gobbling" or "arse banditry" so it shall continue to be an unsolved mystery ...

Gary 111 wrote:
The pitch was perfect for him, it was dusty with plenty of spin and bounce right from the first day. In all four innings the spinner in the four man attack bowled easily the most overs. Both Swann and Harris took 5 wickets in the first innings.

Another thing about the fifth bowler is that with your 3 fast bowlers who all perform best with the new ball the fifth bowler often has to bowl in the graveyard shift when the ball is soft and little is happening off the pitch. Unless we have a specialist reverse swing bowler like Craig White or Simon Jones who can produce something different then a fast bowler won't be a great threat. The 15 overs bowled by Collingwood and Trott in this match were at such moments. However a spin bowler will still be a threat with an old ball.

If South Africa produce a green top, like a traditional Headingley wicket then you wouldn't want a 2nd spinner, but there is an argument then also for picking 6 batsmen. Very few wickets now are out and out seamers wickets anyway. Centurion was a good cricket wicket that actually favoured spin more than anything else, as can be seen by Harris claiming only his 3rd career 5 wicket haul.

Another area where the leg spinner would be very useful is bowling at the tail, as specialist bowlers are usually unable to pick all the variations of the art. If South Africa's tail continue to bat like the 1st Test there is no way England will win the series. Morkel faced 48 balls, Harris 89, de Wet 67, none of them are particularly skillful batsmen but they batted nearly 50 overs between them and added over 100 runs. Rashid would add to our armory here greatly.

Henry wrote:Bell is surely finished. Move on. There's other talent around- Hales, Taylor, Hamilton Brown.......

Brass Monkey wrote:

Gary 111 wrote:
The pitch was perfect for him, it was dusty with plenty of spin and bounce right from the first day. In all four innings the spinner in the four man attack bowled easily the most overs. Both Swann and Harris took 5 wickets in the first innings.

Another thing about the fifth bowler is that with your 3 fast bowlers who all perform best with the new ball the fifth bowler often has to bowl in the graveyard shift when the ball is soft and little is happening off the pitch. Unless we have a specialist reverse swing bowler like Craig White or Simon Jones who can produce something different then a fast bowler won't be a great threat. The 15 overs bowled by Collingwood and Trott in this match were at such moments. However a spin bowler will still be a threat with an old ball.

If South Africa produce a green top, like a traditional Headingley wicket then you wouldn't want a 2nd spinner, but there is an argument then also for picking 6 batsmen. Very few wickets now are out and out seamers wickets anyway. Centurion was a good cricket wicket that actually favoured spin more than anything else, as can be seen by Harris claiming only his 3rd career 5 wicket haul.

Another area where the leg spinner would be very useful is bowling at the tail, as specialist bowlers are usually unable to pick all the variations of the art. If South Africa's tail continue to bat like the 1st Test there is no way England will win the series. Morkel faced 48 balls, Harris 89, de Wet 67, none of them are particularly skillful batsmen but they batted nearly 50 overs between them and added over 100 runs. Rashid would add to our armory here greatly.

I'm not the most comfortable with the citation of the first innings, as the second innings showed slow, non-vicious turn especially with Harris, who got wickets with some darts; two or more of his wickets came from utter ineptitude - though I definitely agree with you re: the tailenders.

Dello and yourself are right in that we'll always be on the lookout for a genuine all-rounder and he looks our best bet. I'm not sure he's ready however. I don't think you're right about the fifth bowler in that the likes of Plunkett can reverse it so it is something different that the fourth seamer would offer. No doubt I'd have taken Rashid over Bell in this Test.

Just how good he is as a bowler will not be clear until he has played more Test cricket on the sub-continent. The pitch at Centurion broke up into cracks. That helps the bowler, because if the ball lands on a crack it will grip and turn but if it misses one it can just skid straight on. That means the pitch provides the variation for the bowler. You do not get many wickets like that in India, where the turn is often considerable, but predictable. A good batsman can cope with that.