Test Cricket Prediction and Discussion Thread [self - mod]

[SaShiRaJaVu]

Australia looking okay after stumps, i suppose. As usual Labuschagne and Smith are back to business.

Labuschagne was playing really well but it was an unfortunate dismisal as the ball hit his hands while leaving the ball and hit the stumps if not we would have seen another century from him and Steve Smith is closing into another century as he looks really settled for a long innings.

In other match, Eng opt to field first and it turns out it was sweet decision, Anderson already got the wicket of Elgar - First Ball of the series-  

Both the South African openers are back in the pavilion and du Plessis is in the crease and he needs to bat for a long time for South Africa to have a decent score on the board.

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[JSRAW]

Australia looking okay after stumps, i suppose. As usual Labuschagne and Smith are back to business.

Labuschagne was playing really well but it was an unfortunate dismisal as the ball hit his hands while leaving the ball and hit the stumps if not we would have seen another century from him and Steve Smith is closing into another century as he looks really settled for a long innings.

Yeah, but Australia is in balanced position so Labuschagne can make peace with it. Smith is ridiculously good batsman, hope he get to touch his next ton tomorrow. Kohli vs Smith fight is keep getting interesting in ICC ranking.

In other match, Eng opt to field first and it turns out it was sweet decision, Anderson already got the wicket of Elgar - First Ball of the series-  

Both the South African openers are back in the pavilion and du Plessis is the crease and he needs to bat for a long time for South Africa to have a decent score on the board.

England is in command from first ball now 12 overs 36 runs and 2 out both openers back now Zubayr and Du Plessis on for South Africa survival.

SA pitch did what it supposed to do. they are 3 down but Faf and debutant van der Dussen are good batsmen so expecting some resistance from them.

Edit : Bloody hell they are 5 down now

[onrise]

England after winning the toss seems to be taken the right decision of bowling as they have taken 4 wickets of SA for score of 111. England would like to get them all out quickly so that they can take good lead in first innings itself .

[SaShiRaJaVu]

England after winning the toss seems to be taken the right decision of bowling as they have taken 4 wickets of SA for score of 111. England would like to get them all out quickly so that they can take good lead in first innings itself .

South Africa is struggling as they lost 5 wickets for just 116 runs and Quinton de Kock is the only player who can rescue them from this position and i am not expecting South Africa to make a score above 250 runs as England is bowling really well and by the way things are going it will be an easy win for England but for that we need to see how the South African bowlers can trouble the English players.

[akhjob]

SA pitch did what it supposed to do. they are 3 down but Faf and debutant van der Dussen are good batsmen so expecting some resistance from them.

Edit : Bloody hell they are 5 down now

Yeah, SA are really in a pitiable situation without the likes of Amla and ABD I think this match is going to be an easy win for ENG.

[Vishnu.Reang]

It was heartening to watch Steve Smith batting against a bowling attack comprised of world class bowlers such as Trent Boult at Melbourne. After a few below par scores against Pakistan, he seems to have regained form. On the other hand, New Zealand wasted such a great start. They got Joe Burns out in the first over, but then allowed the middle order batsmen to score runs freely.

[SaShiRaJaVu]

Yeah, SA are really in a pitiable situation without the likes of Amla and ABD I think this match is going to be an easy win for ENG.

They are retired for good and South Africa need to find the right balance, i saw some performance in the warm up game but that did not happen in this match and Quinton de Kock is still in the crease and they are trying to build a partnership now along with Pretorius and hope they can bat for a longer period of time.

It was heartening to watch Steve Smith batting against a bowling attack comprised of world class bowlers such as Trent Boult at Melbourne. After a few below par scores against Pakistan, he seems to have regained form. On the other hand, New Zealand wasted such a great start. They got Joe Burns out in the first over, but then allowed the middle order batsmen to score runs freely.

Steve Smith always perform better when the team needs him and during the Pakistan series the openers were giving them a healthy start and Warner was in prime form throughout the series and Smith did not have a role to play and in this match the team needed him to perform and he did that exactly and i am really impressed with his subtle shuffles and finding the gaps easily and it was brilliant to watch.

[JSRAW]

SA pitch did what it supposed to do. they are 3 down but Faf and debutant van der Dussen are good batsmen so expecting some resistance from them.

Edit : Bloody hell they are 5 down now

Yeah, SA are really in a pitiable situation without the likes of Amla and ABD I think this match is going to be an easy win for ENG.

Its early to say "easy win for Eng". this game is wide open and English batting line up is not great as well when ball moves. lets wait for their inning, only benefit for English batsmen is 2 new test bowlers of SA ( Dwaine Pretorius and Anrich Nortje).

[Vishnu.Reang]

They are retired for good and South Africa need to find the right balance, i saw some performance in the warm up game but that did not happen in this match and Quinton de Kock is still in the crease and they are trying to build a partnership now along with Pretorius and hope they can bat for a longer period of time.

They are inching closer to 200, with 5 wickets in hand. On his test debut, Dwaine Pretorius is giving good support to Quinton de Kock (the latter is having a strike rate of 93 now). Jofra Archer has gone for almost 5 runs per over and has failed to take any wickets. He had a really bad series against New Zealand (in two tests, he took 2 wickets after conceding 209 runs) and it looks like his bad form is continuing.

[7788bitcoin]

Jofra Archer has gone for almost 5 runs per over and has failed to take any wickets. He had a really bad series against New Zealand (in two tests, he took 2 wickets after conceding 209 runs) and it looks like his bad form is continuing.

The South African players have attacked Jofra Archer the moment he came into the attack and he was leaking runs in his first spell too, England is still in a dominating position and if they are able to pick a wicket here then they can expose the tail and they could finish the innings early, South Africa too have a good pace attack and considering this is the last series for Vernon Philander i think he will be bowling really well and hopefully it will be a closely contested match.

[mersal]

They are retired for good and South Africa need to find the right balance, i saw some performance in the warm up game but that did not happen in this match and Quinton de Kock is still in the crease and they are trying to build a partnership now along with Pretorius and hope they can bat for a longer period of time.

They are inching closer to 200, with 5 wickets in hand. On his test debut, Dwaine Pretorius is giving good support to Quinton de Kock (the latter is having a strike rate of 93 now). Jofra Archer has gone for almost 5 runs per over and has failed to take any wickets. He had a really bad series against New Zealand (in two tests, he took 2 wickets after conceding 209 runs) and it looks like his bad form is continuing.

208 for 6 and de kock is still in the crease so reaching anywhere near 300 would be a fighting total from now on to RSA,hope they could play at least for entire today to achieve it and need much help from tails too.Its too early to say this match will be easy win for ENG because the pitch will remain same nearly for second day as well so same scenarios might happen to them as well.

[Vishnu.Reang]

208 for 6 and de kock is still in the crease so reaching anywhere near 300 would be a fighting total from now on to RSA,hope they could play at least for entire today to achieve it and need much help from tails too.Its too early to say this match will be easy win for ENG because the pitch will remain same nearly for second day as well so same scenarios might happen to them as well.

With just 4 wickets in hand, do you really think that they can score another 90 plus runs? I don't think so. Sam Curran just got Dwaine Pretorius out and the tail has started for South Africa with the entry of Vernon Philander. Now I have to state here that the South African lower order is not considered very strong in batting (especially Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje). I guess they may end up with somewhere around 240-250.

[akhjob]

Yeah, SA are really in a pitiable situation without the likes of Amla and ABD I think this match is going to be an easy win for ENG.

Its early to say "easy win for Eng". this game is wide open and English batting line up is not great as well when ball moves. lets wait for their inning, only benefit for English batsmen is 2 new test bowlers of SA ( Dwaine Pretorius and Anrich Nortje).

Valid point there. Let's hope Philander and Rabada give there best and give a win for the team and ME  

Anyways, a good partnership between de Kock and Pretorius had helped SA cross the 200 mark. Now that de Kock is gone, it'll be a hard task for SA to touch 300 runs with just three wickets in hand. But I kind of trust the SA lower-order batsmen that the top-order.

@Vishnu.Reang 300 seems achievable even at this point, Sam Curran is the one who is taking wickets and breaking partnerships. SA lower-order is better than Indian lower-order batsmen 


The other game between AUS and NZ went nicely, it didn't go as NZ would have planned. But if NZ somehow manage to get them all out around 350 tomorrow and drag the match a little bit for a draw, I'll be happy once again  
 

[SaShiRaJaVu]

I guess they may end up with somewhere around 240-250.

Sam Curran broke the South African dream of having a good first innings score as Quinton de Kock got out 5 short of his century and now the tail is exposed and the maximum they can add is 50 more runs and they have reached 252 runs and there is plenty of overs left in the day to finish them and start the English innings. Pakistan was also in a similar situation recently and then came back from behind and won the match and lets see whether the South African bowlers can bowl well to restrict them.

[7788bitcoin]

the maximum they can add is 50 more runs and they have reached 252 runs and there is plenty of overs left in the day to finish them and start the English innings. Pakistan was also in a similar situation recently and then came back from behind and won the match and lets see whether the South African bowlers can bowl well to restrict them.

South Africa lost their 8th wicket and yet they somehow reached 261 runs and Philander is somehow timing the ball and if he can smash a few boundaries and take the score close to 300 then it would a good for the bowlers to aim at something and put pressure back to the England batsman, plenty of time and  they need to stay on the crease as long as possible rather than throwing the wicket away.

[Vishnu.Reang]

8 overs remaining for today. If South Africa manages to survive, then it will be a huge moral booster for them. A total of somewhere around 300 is going to put a lot of pressure on England. The poor form of Jofra Archer seriously affected the English bowling prospects. And it was surprising to see the English captain (Joe Root) sticking with him. I believe that Root should have given more overs to in form bowlers such as Sam Curran.

Edit: South Africa just lost their 9th wicket. Kagiso Rabada cleaned up by Stuart Broad. South Africa need to survive another 7.2 overs with one wicket remaining (Vernon Philander / Anrich Nortje at crease).

[JSRAW]

Not sure, if anyone noticing slow over rate. for quite some time teams keep repeating this. every team delaying overs, same thing happened today in SA vs Eng. first day stump and 7 overs short. ICC need to do something about it. % of fees is not affecting captains at all and teams are not taking this seriously.

[ene1980]

Really surprised to see that South Africa managed to score 277 runs despite having a really poor start and at one point lost half their side when the scores reached a Nelson and then they were able to build a partnership with the debut player Pretorius and de Kock which saved the face of South Africa and now they have lost 9 wickets and Philander is still in the crease and anything from this score in the morning is a bonus for South Africa and the problem with England is that Ben Stokes is not feeling well and we might not even see come out to back because of sickness.

[Vishnu.Reang]

Not sure, if anyone noticing slow over rate. for quite some time teams keep repeating this. every team delaying overs, same thing happened today in SA vs Eng. first day stump and 7 overs short. ICC need to do something about it. % of fees is not affecting captains at all and teams are not taking this seriously.

10% or 20% fine from the match fees is a joke. If the ICC wants to make sure that the over rate is maintained, then they should penalize by either deducting runs from the side that is responsible for the delay, or award extra runs for the opposite side. Financial penalties have a disproportionately negative impact on smaller teams such as West Indies, while the bigger teams may chose to ignore it.

[Clement Kaliyar]

10% or 20% fine from the match fees is a joke. If the ICC wants to make sure that the over rate is maintained, then they should penalize by either deducting runs from the side that is responsible for the delay, or award extra runs for the opposite side. Financial penalties have a disproportionately negative impact on smaller teams such as West Indies, while the bigger teams may chose to ignore it.

How do you even calculate how much runs should be penalized and it is not the proper way, if the captain is purposely slowing down the over rate then he will get suspended for a few games and that is the rules and they will get penalized and i do not want to see a change in that decision as it will create another mysterious rule that confuses people, less confusion more enjoyable it will be.