South Africa v India Dec 10, 2023- Jan 4, 2024 3 T20s 3 ODIs 2 Tests

[PhatBoy]

I don't agree it's been straight up unplayable at times, you could say one all time great innings actually made this deck look better than it is.

I don’t think any batsman has been prepared to actually really give the pitch a lot of respect.
I’ve watched most of the match (hasn’t been hard, mind you - it’s gone for about two seconds) and while I agree Markram’s innings given every circumstance - conditions, quality of bowling from Siraj and Bumrah, lack of support, and the scoreboard, has been one of the all time great knocks, it has looked very much like most batsmen have been unwilling to play percentage cricket.

That’s not a traditional ‘these guys don’t want to dig in’ argument, or ‘back in my day they would have been tougher’ by the way. That’s not what I’m saying.

I’m just saying that there hasn’t been much lateral movement at all, the inconsistency has been almost entirely based around balls bouncing more than expected so batsmen have needed to put away horizontal bat shots and protect their stumps and wait for fuller deliveries and I didn’t see much of that yesterday. Shots like Verreyne’s, Elgar’s chop on etc - to me they were examples of guys who hadn’t assessed what was going on and taken the time to get themselves in very well at all. Rahul trying to lay back on that cut shot when he had done so well supporting Kohli in their partnership.

To me that wicket deserved a 200-200-150-150 score not a 125 over statistical world record

 

[Cleavy]

now for the 3rd Test... oh!

 

[Plugger35]

A lead of around 150 and that could have been an exciting finish, that lead of 78 was never going to be enough unless India threw it away.

 

[010203]

Now that those boring, dull and pesky tests are finished, South Africa can focus on the important stuff like the SA20.

 

[Santana]

 

[Fudge Nuggets]

Elgar with the Lifetime Achievement Award sharing Man of the Series with Bumrah.

 

[yabsy]

Hard to imagine this new record being broken in a hurry, but you never know...Could we ever see a test being completed inside one day

On Redmi Note 8 Pro using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Cleavy]

Now to sit back and wait for the pitch rating.

 

[Art Vandelay_]

Markram has done well to get a ton on a deck that gave up 33 wickets in less than 110 overs.

 

[James Colorado]

I say this without having seen a single ball of the match and relying only on the scorecard, but I'm going with the assumption they played this match using a trampoline for the pitch.

 

[The Passenger]

I love a good low scoring match but not sure this is what test cricket needs right now

 

[Lia]

Rohit Sharma the doctored pitch king is now whining about the ICC not being fair towards India. Fat campaigner with the worst take of 2024 already

 

[frankrizzo]

Rohit Sharma the doctored pitch king is now whining about the ICC not being fair towards India. Fat campaigner with the worst take of 2024 already

yeah his comments were strange this was a bad pitch everybody is calling it a bad pitch and will be given a below average rating so i didnt really understand his comments.

Sharma seems to think he can say oh see SA made a bad one so no more criticism if we make a bad one but it doesn't work that way they both should be called out just like we were for that gabba pitch vs SA.

 

[PhatBoy]

Rohit Sharma the doctored pitch king is now whining about the ICC not being fair towards India. Fat campaigner with the worst take of 2024 already

That depends on what happens in the wash up of the game.

The actual gist of what he’s saying to me is fine in some respects but he needs to remember a few things.

1. A pitch that seams is not going to start flat and THEN start to seam later. If it’s going to seam, it will seam at the start. So he let emotion get in the way of reality there and needs to have a think about what he’s saying. It was a silly comment and makes little sense.

2. Many of the pitches that are a huge challenge from ball one in SENA countries WILL get easier. There’s no way of knowing it either way but maybe if it got to day three or four it would have gotten easier to bat on: some of the crumblers in India there’s no chance of that happening.

3. His point about the World Cup pitch was a good one

I don’t think all his comments should be summarily dismissed. Asian pitches more than any others have a habit of being just written off as shit because THEIR natural characteristics don’t agree with the ones SENA teams are used to. When their teams come to the other nations and get flogged they just get called hopeless.

 

[philreich]

Rohit Sharma the doctored pitch king is now whining about the ICC not being fair towards India. Fat campaigner with the worst take of 2024 already

Ummm didn't India request a certain type of pitch for a World Cup semi final recently? How do you spell hypocrite: R-O-H-I-T.

 

[PhatBoy]

As I alluded to last night one of my bugbears with tough pitches whether it is green ones or dusty ones is that teams often make an assessment that the only way to play is the supercharged 10000 mile an hour method rather than just to try and make some assessments and see if you can try and just bed down for a while and plod along.

464 runs were scored in less than 110 overs, and that included the SA first innings where they were basically shellshocked and didn’t get a ball off the square.

There’s nothing wrong with a happy medium; a good ball IS going to get me but I don’t have to accelerate the process and I can minimise the kind of shots that will make that happen. The cross bat ones on an up and down pitch for example.

 

[NYRB]

Im not sure how many of these Indians are playing in the upcoming series (white ball ) against Afghanistan and with the SA players more focussed towards the SA20, having 3 days off would have been a big thing on their mind given how valuable time off is.

Im not surprised the game didnt go into a 4th or 5th day but surprised at how quickly this match did end. (in 5 sessions)

 

[Jimthegreat]

yeah his comments were strange this was a bad pitch everybody is calling it a bad pitch and will be given a below average rating so i didnt really understand his comments.

Sharma seems to think he can say oh see SA made a bad one so no more criticism if we make a bad one but it doesn't work that way they both should be called out just like we were for that gabba pitch vs SA.

Difference is this pitch wasn't totally by design unlike the India doctored dustbowls.

Obviously, there was a decision to leave more grass on it, which doesn't greatly disadvantage India with their fast-bowling line-up, but stuffed it up big time. India does there's to make sure the other side can't win.

 

[Cleavy]

JUST IN: The pitch for the second #SAvIND Test in Cape Town has been rated 'unsatisfactory' by the ICC.
Newlands receives one demerit point - if a venue receives six demerit points in a five-year period, it will be suspended from hosting international cricket for 12 months

Newlands Test pitch receives 'unsatisfactory' rating

Venue also picks up demerit point after hosting the shortest result Test in history

www.espncricinfo.com

 

[PhatBoy]

JUST IN: The pitch for the second #SAvIND Test in Cape Town has been rated 'unsatisfactory' by the ICC.
Newlands receives one demerit point - if a venue receives six demerit points in a five-year period, it will be suspended from hosting international cricket for 12 months

Newlands Test pitch receives 'unsatisfactory' rating

Venue also picks up demerit point after hosting the shortest result Test in history

www.espncricinfo.com

Probably fair.
Still made for fascinating watching, though

 

[akkaps]

I understand the rating, I just don't like the rating.
The second was short, but it provided with an interesting watch.
There was nothing dangerous or anything that would cause injury to the players

 

[PhatBoy]

I understand the rating, I just don't like the rating.
The second was short, but it provided with an interesting watch.
There was nothing dangerous or anything that would cause injury to the players

This. Pitches that deserve a bad rating are pitches where, in my opinion, there’s not a lot different the batsmen, or the bowlers in the case of a pancake that yields to 550+ declarations, could have done differently to change how the game played out.

I believe that both teams could have played the game in significantly different fashion and it could have stretched deep into the third day.

Low scoring still yes, bowling favourable yes, certainly. No denying that for a second.

But the way both teams played with the bat for significant portions of the game is as sub standard and that’s what the scoreboard reflected. Combine that with any bowler friendly pitch and you will get a debacle. The difference is that in days gone by, on an obviously bowler friendly pitch batsmen are would immediately alter their game to respect the pitch above all else.

No batsman aside from KL Rahul did that: Kohli and Markram managed to play ‘above’ the pitch. Rahul was the only batsman I saw that tried to really buckle down from memory.