South Africa v Australia 2014

Honeymoon is over
Australia thrashed England 5-0
I'm tipping South Africa will beat Australia 3-0 [or 2-1]

The bowling is good enough to pinch a Test for a 2-1 loss
The batting is still suspect and you simply cant go to SA with one genuine batsman [Clarke] and expect to win the series

How can Australia win the series ?
If they play on bowling decks
SA batting is superior , bowling decks would negate this pre- series advantage
Stating the obvious but Clarke will have to make lots runs, Johnson will have to take lots of wickets
Australia must keep reminding South Africa , No Kallis , No South Africa

How will Australia lose this series ?
Top order batting collapses
The tail may embarrass the top order at times

Jacques Kallis is a big loss for SA
But so is Shane Watson , injured and ruled out of the First Test

If our bowling attack stays healthy then we can equal the Saffer's. I think Lyon is clearly better then any SA spinner and losing Kallis will unsettle them.

Our batting is the problem, if we are 5 for 120'ish we will not make too many 300+ scores as we did against the Poms. We need at least 3 of the top 5 to make 50+ scores each innings to be a chance.
Hughes should bat 3, the worst thing we could do is play Marsh there. If he can only average 30 in Shield cricket he isn't going to average 50 against the Saffers. We should have learnt that T20 or 50 over sloggers rarely make consistently good test batsmen by now, but sadly we haven't as we load our team up with a couple every test and wonder why the top order rarely make 200.

Amla to be the series winner

When it comes to our batting, I reckon it will come down to whether Brad Haddin can continue his spectacular form against the quality South African attack.

He was a brick wall during the Ashes, and as long as he found 1 capable partner at some point in each innings Australia went on to post a competitive total.

Same goes in this series I reckon. Whatever happens, basically I won't be worried until Brad Haddin gets out!   

It would be nice to see a series played in a good spirit without the crap that some players think is compulsory.

And no, I don't think it makes them play better.

I don't think it's about making them play better, but rather making the other mob play worse.

I don't mind a bit of back and forth, as long as some level of respect for each other is preserved.

Yes, I'm talking about the in-your-face abuse type of behaviour.

Normal sledging no problem.

Aust 1/15 Warner out bowled Steyn 12

Doolan
Marsh
Clarke

i can not believe Clarke will bat after Doolan & Marsh, to me it shows no leadership

bayman wrote:Aust 1/15 Warner out bowled Steyn 12

Doolan
Marsh
Clarke

i can not believe Clarke will bat after Doolan & Marsh, to me it shows no leadership

It seems a good call now after Marsh's efforts last night! What a way to answer the critics! Smith is really coming on with his batting now too.

I wasn't a Smith fan to start with, but I was very wrong.

His performances have been top class for a long time now.

I'm not against Clarke at 5. He made his name in that position.

Smith is so calm and calculated at the crease, nothing seems to really phase him. Something that we haven't seen in a young batsman since Michael Clarke IMO.

Australia all out 397.

SA 6/140

Johnson 4/51

de Villiers 52*

Johnson does it again! Hopefully the rain clears and he can rip through the tail tonight.

Watched the highlights this morning and he was throwing down some vicious thunderbolts.

Whoever coached him after the England Ashes series has worked one of the biggest turnarounds in cricket history.

MJ is scary
I have not seen anything as scary form an Australian bowler since Jeffrey Thomson in the 1970s

Watching a genuine fast bowler terrorise a batting line up is awesome, particularly when he's on your side.

The only tragedy out of all of this is that it's taken him until his early 30's to find his mo jo, meaning we might potentially only see 2 or 3 years of him in full flight.

Scrappy wrote:MJ is scary
I have not seen anything as scary form an Australian bowler since Jeffrey Thomson in the 1970s

`

Agreed, Scrappy.

Thommo had Lillee at the other end, too   

redandblack wrote:Whoever coached him after the England Ashes series has worked one of the biggest turnarounds in cricket history.

i'm sure i read it was the great Dennis Keith Lillie...his instructions as he had to get fit first included going for 10km runs with a cricket ball in his hands, MJ embarrassed about doing that decided to do these runs very late at night when no one would see him

bayman wrote:

redandblack wrote:Whoever coached him after the England Ashes series has worked one of the biggest turnarounds in cricket history.

i'm sure i read it was the great Dennis Keith Lillie...his instructions as he had to get fit first included going for 10km runs with a cricket ball in his hands, MJ embarrassed about doing that decided to do these runs very late at night when no one would see him

.......off the long run then?   

Around the donut van and the southern stand, under the scoreboard, up the players race, a lap around the oval and steams in from the northern sight screen.

.......collapses on the popping crease!   

(Friday Night after a couple of reds   )

Good read from The Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2014/feb/25/australia-south-africa-test-series

Pretty much on the ball about our batting.

3/331

Good to see Warner let his bat do the talking.
Good to see Clarke get runs at last.
Great to see Smith do his job once again.

Smith our next captain?

Clarke rose in my estimation watching him last night, this on top of a brilliant post match press conference last week, he stood up & took everything from the bowlers especially Morkel last night

Gees, crushing them at the moment.

Can't believe this summer's form reversal.