State of SA

[Tinah09]

My biggest question marks with Ngidi is his fitness. When he first came about he looked absolutely sensational like next rabada level but he has seemingly packed on more weight and its caused him plenty of durability issues and his pace seems to have dropped considerably

This is a common thread amongst bowlers, they debut slender and fit and show great promise, good pace, line and length...them an injury or two, they pack on the pounds. Auatralias front-line seamers typically stay in shape from debut to retirement...Glen Johnson, Brett Lee, Starc, Cummings etc. Its really something coaches need to look into. I am convinced that Panyangara was the next big international seam bowler....then he goes out and packs a bunch of weight and ends up resembling a Zim politician than an athlete. Luke Jongwe captured the fans imagination when he debuted as a fiery pace bowling allrounder...he dissapears and returns with a pot belly. Rotund world class pace bowlers are rare, the great Endo Brandes is the only one that comes to mind. The coaching staff need to be brutal and uncompromising about fitness esp from pace bowlers..a chubby pace bowler is a misnomer. Given that Ray Jennings and the late Kevin Curran were fitness-obsessed coaches who were ousted by player revolts, maybe that explains African coaches tolerating unfit pace bolwers

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Proteas Squad

[sloandog]

Marco Jansen is going to be a gun. Honestly, he needs the new ball

[sam_ahm]

I actually like Hamza, but he doesn't seem to score when he needs to.

Nonetheless a good squad, great to see Olivier in there and I hope he plays.

I think this will be a tough tour for India, even though we are in such good form, no. 1 test team in the world yet I'll put RSA as favts for this test series.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Strong Squad but Ravi Jadeja / Axar missing the series due to injury is a big loss

[sam_ahm]

Jadeja will be missed. I think with Rohit and KL back India won't miss Gill as much neither Axar as there won't be scope to play 2 spinners.

Very solid Indian team, should be a cracker of a series.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Graeme Smith, Mark Boucher and AB de Villiers had all engaged in prejudicial conduct

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/sjn- ... ce-1293419

[Googly]

How does that enquiry cost half a million dollars?
Were people paid to testify or was someone else getting the loot or was it just catering?. If the enquiry took 4 months and assume they met and deliberated once a week, whoever is benefitting is getting $30k a session. They should have investigated misappropriation of funds at the same time.

Nobody disputes some really inappropriate, shameful and unsavoury stuff happened, and is still happening on both sides of the fence, but plenty would dispute whether certain selection omissions were justifiable or not.
Their solution to past injustices ( either real, perceived or invented for personal gain) is to have a selection policy whereby 6 players of colour have to be selected, of which 3 must be pure black for domestic cricket, and 2 for international cricket. Why is Abbott's ommission not getting the same sympathy as any of the black players'?
Only a bitterly prejudiced racist c#$& can justify that. How long will CSA implement this racist apartheid policy before they decide the playing field is now level? You can't tilt the field to make it level unless you have a real skewed version of right and wrong.
Will it be until all schools and kids across the nation have the same cricketing facilities and opportunities as Maritzburg, Rondebosch, Kersney, Hilton, until all the clubs have 80/20 representation (they'll collapse way before then)? Hell will freeze over first. 30 years ago there were 10 million disenfranchised people, now there are 40 million and 20 years from now there will be 80 million and not one new club or cricketing school will have been built. Everyone will be squabbling over existing failing infrastructure and be hoping fairies maintain them at night. Cricket has all but imploded here and SA are copying what we did and expecting a different outcome.
Also bear in mind they are dredging up what happened a while back to attempt to justify current serious discriminatory policies that should get them banned. I'm not sure why they'd bother going through that charade, just take the 500k straight out of the account, get stuck into a green label and cream soda, buy some hookers and say we're doing what we're doing and to hell with you and we don't have to justify anything. If they wanted a smidgen of respect this would earn more than this nonsense.

I'd be really pissed off if I was mostly black and shooting for one of the 2 guaranteed spots. How do the selectors decide your actual blackness? Is it a DNA test, a family tree, or do they put you up against a paint chart?
What if you want to use skin lightener, or hair straightener, will you be discriminated against? If that were reversed some c@# would be spewing about cultural appropriation They should have to make an official statement on Aryan Blackness so we know exactly where everyone stands. ICC should demand to know. These CSA kretins are actively and openly practicing racism whilst accusing others of the same thing and nobody blinks an eye. It's f$%king bizarre.
I saw this journalist's self congratulatory tweet about how long she's been at ESPN cricket and how inclusive her team was- all 25 Asians in that photo, not a black or a white to be seen She's going to be sitting in that Trojan horse until the wood borers get it. If there's a group that black South Africans like less than the whites, its the Indians, if ever an Indian player loses out to a black one there will be a deafening silence from her, she knows where her bread is buttered.

[Tinah09]

Social Justice and Nation-Building (SJN) commission's final report says CSA discriminated against players on the basis of race.
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/sjn- ... ce-1293419

This commission report or at least the summary doing rounds is full of holes like Swiss cheese. Boucher might get suspended/fined for his conduct towards Paul Adams, calling him b**** s***, but that's as far as any credible charges go imho. I call bullshit on Thami Tsolekile and Khaya Zondo's cases..

Thami Tsolekile emerged early/mid-2000 to mid-2010 when the Proteas were consistently ranked no. 1 test and ODI team in the world, 4-5 of the worlds top 10-20 batsmen during that period were South Africans. They had a formidable line-up of batsmen and wicketkeeper/batsmen including

Smith
Gibbs
Alvaro Peterson
Amla
AB Devilliers
Prince
Boucher
with a young Q de Kok captaining the U19 & getting rave reviews (early/mid-2010s)

Where exactly did Thami Tsolekile think he was going to fit in? Cant he just accept that he just wasn't good enough to make it into the team then??

Khaya Zondo alleges that then-capt AB de Villiers conspired to get him dropped from the ODI team. Okay, for arguments sake, lets say that true. Khaya is currently 31 years old, an age when batsmen largely are at their peak, hell, he is a few months older than Joe Root, Kane Williamson, same age as Steve Smith and younger than Virat Kohli. The "big bad racist" AB de Villiers hasn't been SA capt for over 5 years, the Proteas isn't as solid as it was a decade ago.....bro, why aren't you in the team now?????...please tell, why isn't he in contention for a spot in the proteas team now??? if he is as good as he believes he is...did I mention that he is only still 31 years old!!!

I think its fair to say ALL cricketers during their careers have a game or two and/or a period during which they feel hard done by, selection-wise, by umpires or captain/coaches but to "conclude" that its racial prejudice in the case of Zondo and Tsolekile, is the nuclear option. With quota systems, well-funded SA A tours, good corporate sponsorship, Zondo and Tsolekile were afforded every opportunity to strive, for them to attribute their failure to make it at international level to racism and for this commission to reach such an asinine conclusion is just sad

[Tinah09]

Social Justice and Nation-Building (SJN) commission's final report says CSA discriminated against players on the basis of race.
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/sjn- ... ce-1293419

This commission report or at least the summary doing rounds is full of holes like Swiss cheese. Boucher might get suspended/fined for his conduct towards Paul Adams, calling him b**** s***, but that's as far as any credible charges go imho. I call bullshit on Thami Tsolekile and Khaya Zondo's cases..

Thami Tsolekile emerged early/mid-2000 to mid-2010 when the Proteas were consistently ranked no. 1 test and ODI team in the world, 4-5 of the worlds top 10-20 batsmen during that period were South Africans. They had a formidable line-up of batsmen and wicketkeeper/batsmen including

Smith
Gibbs
Alvaro Peterson
Amla
AB Devilliers
Prince
Boucher
with a young Q de Kok captaining the U19 & getting rave reviews (early/mid-2010s)

Where exactly did Thami Tsolekile think he was going to fit in? Cant he just accept that he just wasn't good enough to make it into the team then??

Khaya Zondo alleges that then-capt AB de Villiers conspired to get him dropped from the ODI team. Okay, for arguments sake, lets say that true. Khaya is currently 31 years old, an age when batsmen largely are at their peak, hell, he is a few months older than Joe Root, Kane Williamson, same age as Steve Smith and younger than Virat Kohli. The "big bad racist" AB de Villiers hasn't been SA capt for over 5 years, the Proteas isn't as solid as it was a decade ago.....bro, why aren't you in the team now?????...please tell, why isn't he in contention for a spot in the proteas team now??? if he is as good as he believes he is...did I mention that he is only still 31 years old!!!

I think its fair to say ALL cricketers during their careers have a game or two and/or a period during which they feel hard done by, selection-wise, by umpires or captain/coaches but to "conclude" that its racial prejudice in the case of Zondo and Tsolekile, is the nuclear option. With quota systems, well-funded SA A tours, good corporate sponsorship, Zondo and Tsolekile were afforded every opportunity to strive, for them to attribute their failure to make it at international level to racism and for this commission to reach such an asinine conclusion is just sad

I forgot to add Jacques Kallis to the list of formidable SA batsmen at the time Tsolekile allegedly could have/should have been in the team. I can't believe these guys are getting away with such obvious history revisionism