England Deceived!!!

The way England played their first innings of the fourth test match against South Africa at Johannesburg was as though the English players had taken a draw to be granted like it happened in the earlier tests against the Proteas. One has to just imagine as to how foolish one can get when they are found expecting a fortune to happen, when it is a known fact that fortune has to come by its own in case of lack of hard work and fortune is hunted down by hard working people. How could the English players expect South Africa to take just 9 wickets just because it happened on two earlier occasions?

If one can take trouble to go through the scorecard of England's batting, it would be clear that England had no plans to even sweat it out at the stadium. It is not a big task to bowl out some team like Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and even the West Indies (to a greater extent) on day one itself. But, if someone like England have lost all their 10 wickets on a single day and that too on two successive occasions, their test status needs to be questioned whatsoever. On the first day's play, England were all out for 180, that was followed with South Africa putting 29 runs for no loss of wickets.

Then on the fourth day, even before half of the scheduled time had elapsed, England lost 7 wickets, earlier to which England had lost 3 wickets at the end of the third day's play itself. With England winning the fourth test at Johannesburg or even a draw completely being out of question, at least, England could have avoided an innings defeat by scoring atleast 254 runs required for South Africa to bat again. But, England ended up their second innings putting up a score less than what they could in their first innings when they lost all their 10 wickets for 169.

The third and the first tests that ended in draws was not only a caution for the South African players but also for the English players. Finally, England who took the caution for granted had to pay the price for their half minded approach. Whatever be the result of the Johannesburg test, there was no chance of England losing the series and may be that England were more the less contended with that. Who cares when a loss can only see the trophy being shared! If South Africa had Kallis, Smith and Steyn, England had Peitersen and Broad an co..who could have given it back to the Proteas which didn't.

Finally, though no one expected England to win, or though there can be at the most one winner, both the teams are expected to put up a tough fight which can make the spectators keep their fingers crossed. But, England relied on things which were beyond their control and may be that home sick England just wanted to leave South Africa ASAP.

The Curse continues for the Proteas even in tests

Well until now, the South African team used to make fools of themselves only in the one day and the T20 formats of the game. But, in yesterday's third test match against England at Cape Town, it was as though that the Proteas were desperate to extend that to test cricket as well. For, South Africa did each and everything to snatch a test victory from England, first by taking a small margin lead of 18 runs in the first innings and later on put up a mammoth total of 447 before declaring by setting a target of 466 runs for England to chase. But at the end of the test match, it was England who came out smiling.

A chase of 466 is never easy for any team and England is no exception whatsoever. But, one has to indeed congratulate England for attempting to chase that mammoth total by putting up a 101 run 1st wicket partnership between Andrew Strauss and Alistair Cook. But, it should have been South Africa and only South Africa from there onwards. But that didn't happen. The last thing that any team would want had to be embraced by the Proteas. On the other side of cricket, Pakistan made a mess of their run chase by failing to chase a modest total of 176 imposed by Aussies and here, South Africans made a mess of their bowling to get rid of the English batsmen.

And this is the second time in the ongoing series that South Africa have let away an opportunity to win a test match. The first instance was in the first test at Centurion where South Africa still fell short of 1 wicket to claim a victory with England took to chase a decent 364 runs with a failed attempt. I wonder as to how come any team could be so stupid and that too repeating the same mistake in a span of one test match? And the match which the South Africa lost was lost by a mile when they were over thrown by an innings and 98 runs at Durban.

The only point to cherish for the South Africans this time was that the man of the match was awarded to the South African captain Greame Smith no matter for what reasons, unlike in the first test where the man of the match was handed to Greame Swann for his 5 wicket haul and 85 runs in the first innings. The only chance left for the Proteas is to win the fourth test scheduled at Johannesburg where in case South Africa manage to grab a win the series would be leveled 1-1. But, if superstitions are given a close look at, the Proteas have lost the 2^nd test and the 1^st & the 3^rd ended in draws with South Africa needing 1 wicket to win.

So, it would not be a surprise if England in the 4^th test to take a 2-0 lead to take home the series.