test cricket is boring 🙁 😉

that stokes inning might prove to be a Ronnie 147 moment everything after just a bit “mleh”

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Drink beer save rhinos

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Can’t share the image but a great incentive to put a few down in the sun #DrinkBeerSaveRhinos

the squeeze is on

It’s almost as if the camera crews have a seating plan with dots on it to fill the short intermissions with…

Come on new ball and time to get on with things

Guessing you lot are all working, finally some movement on the ball

At last!

Your about 20s up on my feed flashy, come on time to get amla and up them… Near on midnight here get a move on

Yawnnnnnn……..

De Villiers scored his 88 in more time / balls than Stokes took to score 3x as many!

Still – get one, get two, then we’re in their dodgy lower middle order and tail, and they still need another 150 to avoid the follow on*

(* although if the Chef asks Broad and Anderson to go straight back out there again I suspect he’ll be fielding with his trusty Gray Nicholls wedged somewhere)

Enjoying the chortling on TMS about Boucher enjoying the bush 😀

Aaaargh! FFS! Another one dropped. Kicking the table round the room here. Where the heck is the fielding coach. I bet Jonty Rhodes is pissing himself at England’s expense.

Aaaargh! FFS! Another one dropped. Kicking the table round the room here.

Meh, I’m not sure they care any more. Whoever prepared this pitch should get a kick in the nuts.

Aaaaargh!

Bravo, Bravuma!

And a declaration, too.

At least something interesting has happened…

Game on!

One day moving ball can we get a result

Aaargh!

Hell of a catch… Could be a good day for the neutral

Oh dear Morne.

Balls

I hope someone can steady the ship, its not looking good at all.

As much as I hate to say it an England collapse is their beat chance of winning, as they just said on the commentary England took 17 wickets in the first innings if you count dropped catches.

20 minutes of Ben Stokes, 300 lead and then a session and a half to bowl them out

<already biting fingernails in anticipation of us french connection UK-ing this up>

6 down. Could we actually lose this?

😯

England finding another way of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory….

Apparently, no team has ever lost having scored 600+ in the first innings. Gulp.

Nor when a batsman has made in excess of 250. History makers.

It’s a test match in which all manner of records have been broken.

The plus side is it’s moving, stokes will be getting warmed up and we have some bowlers who can cause trouble, SA chasing a winable total may work for England

I’m still inclined to think we won’t lose it. However – from a position of no hope, record breaking, massive totals, etc., who’s going to be favourite into the next test now.

momentum counts…..

So Adelaide 2006 remains the highest total declared in the first innings by a team who went on to lose the match… 😳

Momentum? Given England’s form in the last year, with that sort of momentum I’d expect them to thrash SA next match!

Gosh. Hashim Amla has resigned, De Villiers takes over. I thought he’d keep going until the end of the series after that.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/cricket/34403995

Didn’t see that coming!

Score potentially match-saving 150. Then resign. Massive two-fingered salute to team bosses there.

No and yes. No surprise at all that Amla doesn’t want the job – a surprise to see AB take it on, which given the lack of any other obvious candidates is why it’s a surprise for Amla to go. He was kind of captain by default because of the retirement of all the other senior figures and the apparent reluctance to overburden AB – who was after all talking about lightening his load. It does I suppose give him a sure fire excuse to avoid the gloves if he needs that in future.

I suspect in the short term this will be good for SA, but possibly not in the longer term.

Why did you dock him 50 runs?

I suspect he gave up captaining on Sunday when Stokes and Bairstow were going bananas and he looked completely lost in terms of ideas how to stem the runs or in terms of how to motivate his team. Mind – There’s a few might have struggled with that at that time.

From thereon – his mind was clear as he knew he was jacking and all he had to do for himself and for the team was to bat and bat. And bat and bat. And then bat some more.

At that point – he’s free to do what he is bloody good at unencumbered by worrying about anything else.

Captains who can compartmentalise captaincy from their own game are very few and far between.

SA are like most teams who have made number 1 with a great group of players on top of their game. They then decide to tail off or retire. The rest are left with the weight of expectation and status but not always the right team. Amla as said appeared to be Captain as everybody else took that one step backwards..
Probably highlights the need to bring leaders through, Australia with Warner as VC and England with Root, both get used by their captains when needed and it shows in the way the teams are doing.

Rashid is doing well in the BBL – warming up nicely for the T20 WC.

de villiers back in the hutch relatively cheaply