Somerset Vs. South Africa

The Saffers start their tour today with a two day fixture against the Cidermen at Taunton. After having Somerset 32-4, they are now 252-8 off 46 overs. James Hildreth 100 off 126, and Pirate Pete blasted 104 off 63 balls.

Morkel in particular has taken some clatter, going for 76 off 9 overs and going wicketless.

Somerset: Suppiah, Barrow, Compton, Hildreth (C), Buttler (W), Trego, Meschede, Leach, Hussain, Jones, C Overton, J Overton, Dockrell, Regan
South Africa: Smith (C), Amla, Kallis, de Villiers, Duminy, Rudolph, Boucher (W), Morkel, Peterson, Steyn, Tahir, Philander, Tsotsobe

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/hi/english/static/cricket/statistics/scorecards/2012/07/o34511/html/scorecard.stm

Does Morkel still open the bowling for The Saffers? If so, I have a feeling Cook and Strauss will enjoy some success from him.

liverbnz wrote:Does Morkel still open the bowling for The Saffers? If so, I have a feeling Cook and Strauss will enjoy some success from him.

No. Generally Philander will, as he gets exaggerated movement with the new ball. Steyn isn't always at his best in his first spell, so its important that England take the runscoring opportunities they're given at that stage.

Morkel believes Strauss to be his bunny, so that little battle will be interesting in itself.

Great to see Somerset battering the South Africans. Morkel's first over was hit for six fours :o

So we have arrived?

Give them a little time, new conditions and long lay off.

I said they will be rusty.

somerset are scoring runs at a very good rate, however lost wickets reguarly!

Boucher has suffered an eye injury which is reportedly serious. De Villiers has taken over the gloves. More news likely to come in shortly.

I was just about to post that, Boucher has received a blow to the eye and has left the field. Would SA dare start a Test match with AB with the gloves?

And I've got a feeling that Philander will give both our openers trouble with his little nibblers outside off stump, not giving them anything to cut and pull. Strauss and Cook would be more comfortable against Steyn and Morkel IMO.

JDizzle wrote:I was just about to post that, Boucher has received a blow to the eye and has left the field. Would SA dare start a Test match with AB with the gloves?

And I've got a feeling that Philander will give both our openers trouble with his little nibblers outside off stump, not giving them anything to cut and pull. Strauss and Cook would be more comfortable against Steyn and Morkel IMO.

AB has kept before - on Test debut, one Test in India when Boucher was injured and perhaps more. He is certainly very competent with the gloves, although he did miss an important stumping during that Test in India - having said that he wasn't keeping regularly in one-dayers/IPL then. Having said that the gloves are a big weight to put on one of your best batsmen, and it is conceivable that they would rather call up an equally good gloveman, but lesser batsman to bat 7 than play all seven main batsmen and give AB the gloves.

If it was up to me then I'd call another keeper in, particularly as with Boucher retiring after this series, and AB soon to assume the captaincy (perhaps also at the end of the series if SA lose), if he were given the gloves he could soon be performing three jobs. History suggests that that is too much for anybody but Andy Flower (Dhoni and others aren't amongst the very best batsmen in the world in Tests).

Somerset have declared on 312-8

In addition, I would say that England is one of the toughest places to keep especially if you don't do it regularly in Test matches. I've heard Matt Prior talk about the different challenges in keeping in different parts of the world, and there is a massive leap going from keeping in the sub continent (IPL) and England, where the ball will swing massively after the bat and if you are not a regular keeper in the 4 or 5 day matches that could be horrible. And the last thing SA want is AB not to feel comfortable keeping and take a blow on the finger in the first Test that puts him out for the series.

Boucher requires surgery, Morkel bowled 14 overs and finished 0/90. And South Africa have lost an early wicket. Ominous signs but it will take a while to settle in for the tourists.

Lacerated eyeball for Boucher. Having surgery this evening. Hope he's alright. You want to see the best players on the pitch for the match up between the best two teams in the world.

JDizzle wrote:Lacerated eyeball for Boucher. Having surgery this evening. Hope he's alright. You want to see the best players on the pitch for the match up between the best two teams in the world.

It would be a horrible way for his career to end (though he has hinted that if the team really needed him he might delay his retirement until after the Australian tour). I hope he recovers full fitness.

Lacerated eyeball - ouch, that had me wincing! Sounds like a bad injury, you'd have thought having eye surgery would put a player out for 2-3 weeks at least.

Not reading much into today's game, its a 2 day warm up and bowlers will be bowling within themselves to avoid injury. Or maybe we should read everything into it and bat Trego at 6 in the Tests

The way South Africa are treating the warm-ups is very similar to the way India did last year and England did in the pre-Flower era - get as many players as possible out on the park, don't prioritise winning.

I personally disagree with this way of going about it, although it is hard to do much else when you only have a 2 day fixture.

2 day fixtures are pointless!

Real blow for boucher, hope he has a speedy recovery!

Trego at six!! Haha

Joking aside, you can't help but feel if Peter Trego was around in the 90's he'd have some ODI and probably Test caps by now. Good County allrounder way short of international class - that's the 90's England selection criteria right there!

Woah! I won't have a bad word said against Pirate Pete! In this stint at Somerset he has been tremendous for us! Played some match winning knocks and picked up some valuable wickets for us, and he almost certainly would have picked up some ODI caps in the 90's! I still remember when he helped us chase down 400 plus against Yorkshire on the last day of a CC game where he got a record quick hundred!

We made light work of the Indians last year as well and see how that series ended up.

Saffers 282-8

Jamie Overton with 2 wickets, Craig Overton with 3 wickets, Leach with 1