BAD DAY FOR SA CRICKET !!

If you offered me a drawn result at Tea time yesterday, I would have taken it.

PS. did anyone notice that India had 9 fielders on the boundary towards the end?
 
In the next few days I expect Cricinfo to publish the list of tight finishes ... it would be interesting to see the list of those who gave up the chase with victory within their sights, and the list of those where the very tail end had to bat many overs to save the match - with a crumbling pitch or fizzing spinner.

This game was drawn by tea for the South African team. That was result at tea. Game drawn, decent result to dig in and fight back. Except after the first hour of tea we had victory in sight. Steyn, Tahir and Ashwin have match figures that show how easy it was for the batsmen from day 3. In the forth innings : I don't know how Peterson got bowled. Two runouts and a freak dissmissal, and two miss hits onto the the stumps, not to mention an inside edge on the wrongful LBW.

Giving this context, playing for a draw when you have victory in sight does not cut it as a good result.
 
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Worst part: second last over....... maiden. Not even an attempt to run a single! That's the disappointing part for me.
 
As disappointing as it seems.. I would really not be in Philander's shoes to lose the game after all the other boys did all the hard work to save the match.
 
Wimhotep said:
:mad::mad:

Very bad example of sportsmanship , after an amazing batting performance by some of the Protea batsman , the captaincy / management decide to "give up" the run chase when they have all the opputunity and time to win.

Leaves a very bad taste in one's mouth. Not the example I would want to be taught to the youngsters who are interested in being the next great SA cricketer.

Management and the SA Cricket Board need to rethink their priorities. This behaviour is not what i would expect from the No.1 team in world rankings.

Sad day for SA Sport + SA Cricket.

:mad::mad:
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WTF man? Not sure if you being serious or not???

This thread is the worst example of how SA sports fans should behave! Not the sort of example I would want to teach youngsters who are passionate about the sport and in particular their national team.

This has been widely regarded as one of the best test matches in a number of years. How you would construe that as being a bad day for SA cricket is beyond me...


DJ... said:
Wasn't Smith. Was Vern and Dale's decision on the pitch. The wrong one, but so be it...
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The right one. We didn't lose.

satanboy said:
We didn't lose!!!

hello??
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You would think we had the way this lot is carrying on...

Jola said:
Poor show !
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Only by the BCCI and CSA for scheduling a 2 test series.

Wimhotep said:
agree 100%.
Excellent test match. Deserved a "proper" result. After fighting for five days , to tapper out to a draw is a huge let down.

Just the last few hours of day 5 ruined it. Bad decision making.
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As already pointed out, with a day and a half to bat and a world record total of 458 to chase down for victory a draw is a very very very "proper" result! There 3 results for a test match, a win, a loss and a draw...
 
imo us as South African supporters (all sport) don't like going down without a fight, backing down or settling for second best (a draw). I think most people do GET a draw. Problem is it would have been equally impressive if we were still 200 runs short but still batted it out. The sour part is we were within striking distance of a another record but didn't pull the trigger.
 
What someone said on the first page, imagine all your guys responses if they did go for the chase and ended up losing their wickets and we lost, then everyone would be saying why didn't they just go for the draw, you say you wouldn't have cared if they lost, but then you'd just see everyone labeling them as chokers. If Faf was still in and they decided to go for a draw then yes I can understand the anger, but when you only really have Tahir, who's batting is atrocious, and an injured Morkel, it's really not that hard to get 3 batsman out for 8 runs, we all see it happens, so yes the decision was on the safe side, but now I guess all they got was another label from everyone "cowards"
 
Haha and also when I see how our SA supporters are, it actually shows me why we have such s****y online gaming communities.
 
With half an hour to go the game was ours to take. Silly dismissal for Faf, but seemed like we gave up after that. At some point we needed 16 from 3.2 overs. We still needed those same 16 off the last over. We had better chance going for the runs than being bowled out. The difference between us and Australia (especially when they were still no1) is that they would definately have gone for the win. Remember this was a huge opportunity to break records, and 45 minutes left in the game India was staring a shocker loss in the face. It has been a great fight from the guys but I just feel we gave up in the home stretch.
 
satanboy said:
rubbish...one of the best games in years

did you at any stage believe SA would get +400?
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No - I don't think any of us did

DarkSpectre said:
In SA's defence, Morkel's injured and Tahir's ****. In these extremely difficult conditions, it was super easy for SA to lose wickets in a clump after Faf's exit. So I guess there was nothing wrong with them going for the safest option at that particular time. A loss would be huge gut-wrenching.
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This

Wimhotep said:
They knew this yesterday , you telling me that the batsman could not score an extra 8 runs over an innings of +-130 overs to accomodate any possible batting short commings they might have ???
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:rolleyes: - oh dear!

Ou grote said:
This your first time watching cricket?
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:D

Garson007 said:
And this is what people don't get. A draw is a proper result. Test cricket is played within five days and 450 overs. Playing for a draw has huge merits.
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This!

Phew!

This was a great game with a creditable result - Verne and Steyn made the right call.

I STILL remember that rabbit in the headlights look on Alan Donalds face in that fiasco all those years ago. If India had won this game by 1 or 2 runs we would have been fuming, livid and heaping vitriol on the heads of everyone involved.

After we lost Faf, the guys made the correct call - we gave India the biggest fright of their test playing careers - they got really lucky with the bad decision on Kallis (and Dhoni the previous day), and the run outs were due to great throws.

Again, well done to the team.
 
Yes and if South Africa gets beaten by India at Kingsmead we will lose the series. Then we will look back at this as an even worse result.

The Indians will be happy they got out of jail and that their batsmen were able to come to the South African pitch and face Steyn and the gang and knuckle down and score some solid runs. Which they gave hardly ever been successful at in their tours here.
 
People still defending the draw all high and mighty based on what they think they know about cricket.
Final innings you had 458 to chase, you made 450 and blocked the last 2 overs.
This is why they say test cricket is dieing. All the emotions fight and skill with no result. So sad.
Not to mention the record was missed by 8 runs.
Also we have NEVER beaten India at the wanderers... 2 losses and now 3 draws.
Seems like it was all to play for with nothing to lose really!
 
I really don't get how anyone can be content with this result. Today, we had the chance to make history, to break records, to reinforce our dominance in test cricket... Instead, our cowardly decision revealed nothing more than our lack of confidence in our own abilities.

You can't just say that 'had we been offered a draw yesterday, we would've taken it'. Yesterday we didn't need 16 runs to win with three overs remaining. If you want to use that logic then had you had been offered a draw at tea time today, would you have been so keen to take it? No! The game was ours to win..

But it isn't even the result that mattered. It was the attitude! We pride ourselves on never giving up, and that's exactly what we did today. We had the opportunity to chase down the highest total in history, and we gave up! We got so close, and we gave up! 1388 runs had been scored in the match when Dale came in and with a mere 16 left, we gave up!

I don't buy the story that Dale and Vernon made the call. You could see how annoyed they were about having to hold back. Vernon looked upset after every delivery and Steyn's face said it all when he hit the last ball for six. Like he was making a point.

Either way, i'd rather we lost knowing that we had tried than drawn knowing that we had given up. At least we could have proudly said that we tried. There would've been no shame in losing a match when chasing 458, nobody could've expected us to get it. Sadly, there's tons of shame in falling 8 runs short of the highest run chase in history when you still had three wickets in hand.

I have never before doubted Smith's role as captain. But if we wish to remain number one, we cannot do so with a wimp of a leader. The number one team in the world doesn't settle for a draw (at home) under those circumstances. At tea today, India could only have wished for a draw. Now they got it, and the momentum is on their side. They know that Smith is going to be under huge pressure if we lose the next match (and hence the series). This decision is going to come back to haunt us!
 
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