Aiming for Success Down Under!

 

The Tour to Australia is never an easy one. This is why only 3 teams have comeback with Test series wins in that part of the world in the last 20 years. West Indies(1992/1993) won 2-1 in a 5 Test series,  South Africa (2008/2009) won 2-1 in 3-Test series and England(2010/2011) won 3-1 in a 5-Test series.

South Africa goes to Australia as favourites for the 1^st time in over 100 years. They have a settled Test side.  Each member of the team knows their role. It is also a successful side being ranked number one in Test cricket. South Africa is unbeaten away from home since they lost 2-0 to Sri Lanka in 2006. They have not lost a Test match away since February 2010 in India. That is a very long time ago.

Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis, Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers, JP Duminy, Morne Morkel and Dale Steyn all played in that successful tour of Australia back in 2008/09. They know what it takes to win there.

Jacques Rudolph was not in that successful team of 2008 but he was there in 2006. South Africa lost that series 2-0 but Rudolph will remember it fondly as he constructed an all-important 102 not out on the last day of the Perth Test. This time around Perth will be the venue for the 3^rd and final Test in the series.

THE SAVIOUR: A happy Jacques Rudolph of South Africa leaves the field after playing a match-saving knock of 102 not out on the final day of the first Test against Australia in Perth

 

Leading the way with a rock-solid effort, adept while handling both spin and pace, and unfurling gorgeous cover-drives with a pendulum-smooth follow-through. Rudolph wasn't lured by the wide teasers from the faster men, and he was impressive in the way he used his bat, and not pad, to nullify Shane Warne's guile.

Take your catches, field well

If you play Australia the last thing you want to do is give any of their top batsmen a life-line. Gibbs knows this with Steve Waugh.  Batsmen like Ponting, Clarke and Hussey will make you pay for any dropped catch of their bat. Those 3 hold the key as they bat for a very long-time. If they give you a chance take it. The rest of the batting order is very weak and lacks experience.

Hope we do not see him bowl

 

Bat well

This might seem obvious but it is true. Coming up against Australian fast bowlers will be a tough challenge for any batting line-up. Smith, Alviro and Amla need to protect the rest of the batting order from the new ball. The last thing you want is to be 50/3. We also need to consolidate our position. If we get to 15 minutes before a break or end of the day’s play make sure we do not lose any wicket. Immediately after losing a wicket we also need to consolidate and bat cautiously. This is to avoid losing wickets in clusters like it happened in the Newlands Test last time.

If you want to beat Australia you are going to have to get big totals with the bat, 400-plus scores. This requires your batsmen to score centuries and big centuries. You will not achieve that by getting 30s and 40s. It also means getting batting partnerships. When England beat Australia 3-1 they scored over 500 runs 4 times during that Ashes series.

This is what we are defending

 

 Play for 90 overs

South Africa are very good Test side. They have a solid batting line-up and one of the best bowling attacks in world cricket. The only reason they are not totally dominating Test cricket right now is that they sometimes only play well 2 sessions out of 3 in the day. This is what keeps teams in the game against them. They can bowl well for 2 sessions, have a team at 150/7 but in the last session of the day bowl badly and concede 100 without taking a single wicket. End the day at 250/7. All that hard work for 2 sessions gets undone. Tahir needs to backup his fast bowlers well. He will be targeted just as England did. Right now he is the weak link in the attack. Play well the entire day.

If the Proteas can play good Test cricket for 15 days they will win this series comfortably. I predict 2-1 win for South Africa.  

South Africa Test squad to Australia back in 2005/2006 - Check how many are still in the team.

Graeme Smith (c)

Mark Boucher (wk)

Nicky Boje

Johan Botha

AB de Villiers

Herschelle Gibbs

Jacques Kallis

Justin Kemp

Garnett Kruger

Charl Langeveldt

André Nel

Makhaya Ntini

Shaun Pollock

Ashwell Prince

Jacques Rudolph

 

Top Football Cheaters, Divers, Con-artists

Best Dive Ever!!!

Zinedine Zidane and Materazzi in 2006 World Cup Final. Both men were guilty here but Materazzi walked away with a World Cup winners medal

Cristiano Ronaldo dives
 

Luis Suarez handball against Ghana

Luis Suarez diving
 

 The hand of God: on 22 June 1986, was a football match between Argentina and England in the quarter-finals of the 1986 Diego Maradona famously dribbled past six england players to score the 2nd goal. But it is the 1st goal that most people remember when he used his hand to score. Argentina won the game 2–1 and went on to win the 1986 World Cup. Maradona won the golden ball for player of the tournament.

France striker Thierry Henry admitted that he had intentionally handled the ball to set up William Gallas’s decisive goal against the Republic of Ireland in 2010 World Cup play-off in Paris.
 

Barcelona's Lionel Messi trying to emulate Maradona deflects the ball with his hand past Espanyol keeper

Didier Drogba one of the strongest men in football but he is famous for his dives

Arjen Robben - who tackled you?

 

Ashley Young Best Pool Diver

 

2012 ICC T20 World Cup: Preview

 

The ICC T20 World Cup is starting next week in Sri Lanka. It promises to be exciting and filled with surprise results. Here are my predictions followed by the tournament schedule.

The Favourites

England – With or without Kevin Pietersen they are still the defending champions and the Number 1 ranked T20 side so you have to make them favourites. They have a very young side led by Stuart Broad. Batsmen like Alex Hales, Joss Buttler and Jonny Bairstow are still relatively unknown in the cricketing world. They might struggle against spin though.

Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni

 

India – The IPL gives them a huge pool of T20 talent to choose from.  The return of big-hitting Yuvraj Singh from cancer is a huge boost to the team. They still have the explosive World cup winning batsmen like Virender Sehwag, MS Dhoni, Raina and Kohli. The conditions should suit India very nicely as they recently toured Sri Lanka. Oh I almost forgot! They are the current 50-over World cup champs and won the 1^st T20 World Cup ever held.

Sri Lanka – The hosts. This alone gives them a huge advantage on everyone else in the competition. What counts against them though is that no host country has won this cup or even reached the final. Their team still has the experience of Jayawardena and Sangakkara to guide them. They also have some young players like Chandimal and Thirimanne in the side. Captain: Mahela Jayawardena



Chris Gayle
 

 

West Indies – The dark horses. Chris Gayle! Chris Gayle! Chris Gayle! His return adds 50% to the team effort. If he has a good tournament then expects West Indies to reach the last 4. They also have the likes of Pollard, Narine,  Dwayne Bravo and Marlon Samuels who can be match winners on their own. They are my pick to win the whole thing. Captain: Darren Sammy

 

 

The Surprise Packages

Pakistan – Their players do not play IPL cricket, they also do not play international games in their own country. They have a team capable of beating everyone at this tournament and winning it. The only question is do they want to? They have a very experience squad who have played in many ICC World Cup events before. Imran Nazir, Abdur Razzaq and Shahid Afridi seem to have been around forever. They also have a trump card in spinner Saeed Ajmal. I do not see them reaching Super 8s  Captain: Mohammed Hafeez

South Africa – They have new captain in AB de Villiers. He will feel the pressure of leading this team at a big event for the 1^st time. A team that is quietly confident of doing well. Their main goal is the 2015 World Cup. That is their main focus. They have a balanced bowling attack with lots of spinners to complement the fire from Steyn and Morkel. They will crash out in the Super 8s. It is too early to expect the Kirsten experiment to bear fruits.

Hashim Amla

 I do not see Australia, New Zealand and Bangladesh doing anything special during this T20 World Cup. I just hope the rain stays away. Click here to see tournament schedule and SA times.

Reasons not to miss 2012-13 PSL season

1. Can Orlando Pirates win yet another treble?
The past 2 seasons they have dominated South African football by winning 6 major Cups. The only key player that has left is striker Tokelo Rantie. They have added Zambian striker Collins Mbesuma to their ammunition. Augusto Palacios is already under pressure from fans.

2. Battle for top goalscorer award
Last season Siyabonga Nomvethe took this award with his 20 goals. Can he do it again? The likes of Benni McCarthy, Edward Manqele and Majoro will be challenging for this award.

Edward Manqele is the new striker at Sundowns

3. Q-Innovation
It will be interesting to see which teams win the 4 Quarters. Will it be the same team winning them? Can one of the smaller less fancied teams turn the tables and win one of the Quarters?

4. Stuart Baxter new Chiefs
Following a horrible season last season where they failed to win any silverware, can Stuart Baxter bring back some pride to the team? How will the new signings (Nkhatha, Nkosi) perform?

Jessica Motaung trying to bring back the glory days

5. Moroka Swallows - Life after Gordon Igesund
They have never won the league before and last season they came within 2 points of being crowned as league champions. How will they survive without the man who took them that close?

6. PSL newcomers - Will they sink or swim?
We have been waiting for a very long-time to see Pretoria University playing in the PSL. Finally they have arrived. Can they live up to the expectations or will they be fighting relegation? Chippa United are also in unfamiliar territory. Survival will be the goal for these 2 newcomers.

Proteas : Undisputed Number 1!

On Monday we witnessed South Africa jump ahead of England in the rankings after their 51-run win at the home of cricket Lord's.

What makes this achievement so sweet is that the Proteas had to work so hard for it. England fought from the 1st Day of the 1st Test till the last wicket was taken on the last day of the Test series. The media gave this team no chance before the series. They said the Proteas had not played enough cricket before this Test series. Beating England at home 2-0 in a Test series is an incredible feat.  The win ended England's impressive streak of seven consecutive Test series wins at home and extended the Proteas' run of six years without defeat in Test series overseas.

For the 1st time in a long time all the pieces of the puzzle came together for this talented team. South Africa has always produced wonderful Test cricketers but they just could not dominate the world of Test cricket.

Great Coach
Gary Kirsten has been planning for this series from the moment he signed his contract as national coach and his preparation should not go unappreciated, despite his greatest efforts to avoid the limelight. He got the team mentally ready for battle by taking the team to Switzerland for a team building session with adventurer and motivational speaker Mike Horn. This is the one area that the Proteas have struggled with in the past. When times got tough in this series our players did not buckle under pressure.

Great Team
The formula for success is a simple one for the Proteas. It is based on a very strong batting line-up with seven specialist batsmen which has been made possible by AB de Villiers keeping. Our top 4 got BIG 100s. This balances up the test team perfectly.
On top of that South Africa have the best pace attack by far in world cricket at the moment. Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Vernon Philander have been just awesome. Jacques Kallis has also chipped in with the odd crucial wicket. Imran Tahir, although not quite the best spinner around, gives variation to the attack. The South African fielding unit is rock-solid as well. There is no chink in the South African armour. They held onto their catches when it mattered most. England dropped 8!


Hashim Amla: Man of the Series

Next Challenge
The toughest challenge now will be staying as the number 1 Test team. Everyone will lift their game against us. The next challenge for this Proteas Test squad is a trip to Australia who are ranked 3rd in the ICC Test Rankings. Becoming number 1 was tough, staying number will be even tougher.

The team went on a lap of honour around Lord's

Shaun Pollock finally got a chance to ring the bell at Lord's

Great Captain: Most capped captain ever!

Johan Botha leaves SA cricket

Botha will be released from his national contract with Cricket South Africa after the ICC World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka in September.

“Johan has been an excellent servant of South African cricket for a lengthy period of time and we will never forget the manner in which he captained the Proteas to success in the absence of Graeme Smith in the away ODI series in Australia in 2009,” said CSA’s acting chief executive, Jacques Faul, in a statement.



“He has fully committed himself to the Proteas for the next five months which includes the away series in Zimbabwe and England as well as the World Twenty20 and is, at the moment, our first choice spinner in the T20 format.

“However, he has had an offer to captain South Australia over the next two seasons and this will provide valuable opportunities in broadening his experience in a leadership role.
“I must stress that Johan remains fully committed to South African cricket in the long run and is by no means bringing down the curtain on his international career for the Proteas.”
In line with the above statement from Faul, Botha reiterated his desire to grow as a leader and have no regrets, and said it was a cricketing decision entirely.

This is just bad news for our cricket. Johan Botha is a current Protea player. It is not like he is out the team. How many more players are we going to lose?? This is very strange. There was talk of increasing the number of franchise teams but if top players are leaving who will play in them??

Johan Botha came through the ranks in SA cricket. He played in our development teams before making it into the national side. A lot of money has been invested in his cricket. Time will tell.

Has Old Trafford Lost The Fear Factor

Opposition teams used to fear visiting Old Trafford. It was a Theatre of Nightmares for away managers who would go there and just park the bus in front of their goalposts. But this season something has changed. For some reason teams are no longer scared to take on Sir Alex Ferguson’s boys in front of their fans.

Some years ago Roy Keane complained about the atmosphere, or lack of it, created by the home fans with his infamous “prawn sandwiches” outburst. Maybe the United fans are too comfortable, or even too quiet, but certainly the atmosphere is no longer intimidating enough for away players.

This season Manchester United have lost only two league matches at home. Bottom of the table Blackburn Rovers won 3-2 and Manchester City thrashed them 6-1. In the Champions League, of their three home games United won only one – with a 2-2 draw against Benfica and a 3-3 tie with Basel, ultimately leading to them getting knocked out. In the Europa League, Ajax Amsterdam won 2-1 and last week Spain’s Athletic Bilbao outplayed United and came away 3-2 winners.

Despite this, United have shown that on their day they can still hurt teams big time at Old Trafford. This is clear in the 8-2 annihilation of Arsenal, while Wigan succumbed to a 5-0 defeat, Bolton and Tottenham lost 3-0, while Chelsea were disposed of with a 3-1 victory.

Looking at that home record, it doesn’t appear too bad. The thing is, teams now think they have a chance when they go to Old Trafford – especially, it seems, European teams. Now that is a worry for United’s future UEFA Champions League aspirations.

The History

When I look at the past 20 years I can recall only a few famous results by teams at Old Trafford.
In 1997, a young AS Monaco side led by Thierry Henry and David Trezeguet got the 1-1 draw they needed at Old Trafford to qualify on away goals after the first leg in France had ended 0-0.
Four years later, a goal from Paulo Di Canio was enough to send West Ham through to the fifth round of the FA Cup. The Italian rounded Fabien Barthez after latching on to Frederic Kanoute’s through ball for a famous win, with the Frenchman’s attempts to psyche him out of shooting coming in vain.
The next season, 2002′s double-winning Arsenal clinched the league at Old Trafford with a 1-0 victory, thanks to a strike from Sylvain Wiltord. The Gunners celebrated winning the Premier League at the home of their bitter rivals.

The Future

Manchester United need to remind teams just how unstoppable they can be in front of their home fans. They need to instil a sense of fear back into the Old Trafford atmosphere so that visiting European teams go there trembling in their boots. In next season’s Champions League United must be more convincing if they are to have any hopes of success.