Player scores for the series, South Africa

9.5 - Hashim Amla: Three innings. Three hundreds. High Score of 253*. 490 runs, average of 490 and dismissed only once. Phenomenal stats, and he was virtually undismissable. I docked half a point for exposing Morkel to Harbhajan too much in that last wicket stand.

8.5 - Dale Steyn: He took 11 wickets at 20.27, but 10 of those wickets came at Nagpur, where he put in a fearsome display of fast swing bowling to twice run through India. He was off the boil at Kolkata, though, after Sehwag attacked him at the start. Nevertheless, he's one of the few menacing quicks in world cricket.

7.5 - Alviro Peterson: A classy, nerveless hundred on debut bodes well for him and South Africa, but his dismissal, chasing a delivery that went across him, was the start of the collapse and he looked edgy in the second innings. Will get a decent run in the team, though.

6.5 - Jacques Kallis: 203 runs at 67.66 doesn't seem too bad, but after his great 173 at Nagpur he didn't really do much. Got out sweeping irresponsibly in the first innings at Kolkata, while a good legbreak accounted for him in the second innings. He's been around far too long to be batting nervously on a pitch that held no demons.

5.5 - Morne Morkel: Took 4 wickets at 59.5. He was very aggressive at Nagpur and created pressure for Steyn to feed off, but he was all over the place at Kolkata. Persisted with an outside off-stump line to Sehwag who repeatedly thrashed him around on the offside, and bowled too straight to Sachin who continually flicked him for boundaries. He deserves credit, though, for batting gutsily in both innings at Kolkata.

5 - Mark Boucher: Didn't have to bat too much at Nagpur when his team racked up a huge total, and was out with a back spasm for the second Test and deVilliers took over. He'll be welcomed back, both for his tidy keeping and lower-order batting experience.

4 - Wayne Parnell: Showed promise, especially when coming around the wicket and swinging it away from the right-hander, and with his batting talent. But 3 wickets at 64 with an economy of 4.8 would suggest he needs more time to develop his game for the longer format.

3.5 - AB deVilliers: He scored 68 runs at 22.66 which, for a batsman considered to have 'great' potential, is quite poor. After a composed fifty at Nagpur, he foolishly ran himself out and then failed to read a googly from his Delhi Daredevils teammate Amit Mishra. This is probably just an off-series, though - he'll be back to doing well.

3 - Paul Harris: 5 wickets at 59.4. He wasn't too rubbish at Nagpur, where all he had to do on the last couple of days was pitch it in the rough and wait for something to happen or the batsman to get himself out. At Kolkata, though, on a better pitch, he stuck to the same line and was repeatedly wided by the umpire for that negative crap. Sehwag reverse-swept him several times with success too. It's not from lack of trying, he just a bowler who doesn't turn the ball - he's a workhorse doing what the captain tells him to do. And who gets bullied and dismissed by Ishant Sharma twice?

2.5 - Graeme Smith: 30 runs at 10. Ahh, Zak had his number all right, and it was 1-800-INSWING. And the one time he played out Zak, Mishra got him with a normal legbreak. He was at sea at Kolkata when the great Indian runfest was on. But let's put that down to the batsmen, shall we?

0.5 - Ashwell Prince: 24 runs at 8 and he had no idea what was going on. His bad form at the top continued, even when he got a chance to bat at his natural position at number 5. He's probably going to be dropped, and for good reason.

0.5 - JP Duminy: 15 runs at 5 and just the one wicket at 114 caps a terrible series for JP. He dropped catches, too, and is no doubt on the chopping block. He'll be back, of course, because he's better than this. I hope this form doesn't continue in the IPL for the Mumbai Indians.

6 comments:

Rishi how can you give Sehwag and Amla the same rating. I must protest! If Sehwag gets 9.5, Amla deserves 9.8. At least :P

Nice analysis, they have a similar thing on Cricinfo but especially the lower ranks look a bit different (Ishant for instance), haven't had time though to compare carefully. Sry.

Canada explains something ;)

Pakistan break the chains!

Yeah that's an error... I did both reviews separately and I don't think they're coordinated! I shall fix that.

Yeah I knew Cricinfo would get one out, so I was racing against time to do it before they did... I somewhat succeeded!

I can't believe Paul Harris got 3 points ... he would be wrapt to see it!

I actually felt sorry for him :P
He's a man of limited bowling talent, just does what Graeme tells him to do! He can't really do much more with what he bowls :P

Hmm, not sure about that... I was actually going to do a post about ignoring the ODI's :P

Did not expect a humdinger either, but I'm still going to take a cricket break as the ODI's coincide with a few exams... the IPL posts begin soon :D

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