South Africa vs West Indies test Series

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Well, not much spoken of it here, and I suppose with good reason. The Windies are a shadow of their former selves. At full strength, it would be hard to make a case for them winning a game, but with both Bravos out, and Gayle out, I assume they're on a hiding to nothing.

Still though, Taylor and Roach should fancy themselves in the friendliest country for fast bowling, and Braithwaite and Chandepaul should at times provide resistance.

From a South African standpoint, Duminy is out, which gives Stiaan van Zyl a long awaited chance to prove his mettle.

South Africa likely XI
Elgar
Petersen
Amla
Du Plessis
AB de Villiers
De Kock
van Zyl
R. Peterson
Philander
Steyn
Morkel

Oh right, forgot we had a world cup last year. These things fly through

Funny enough the previous highest was also at the Wanderers, when West Indies 217 played South Africa 218. Gayle scored the first ever international T20 hundred... I was there. Gayle was a riot.

Ooh Gayle just took the West Indian selectors to task for not selecting Bravo and Pollard for non cricketing reasons.

To be fair, I don't think Pollard is too hot a One day cricketer in any case. Good for a quick fire 20, and five or six overs at run a ball. Fine at T20, but never been worth a damn in 50 overs.

If Jason Holder can be kept away from the mercenary aspect of cricket, I think he's gonna be the best bowler in the world once he tightens up his game

Chris Gayle is on rare form. He stays this hot, and the rest chip in and around... I think the West Indies become very lively dark horses. Whereas if he isn't firing, they are dark horses in the way Arsenal are dark horses for the Champions league

Good day of cricket for the Durban natives. Hashim Amla scores yet another ODI 50, but most importantly passed 5000 ODIs - the fastest in the history of ODI cricket. David Miller played perhaps his best innings in Proteas colours and looked at home batting at #5. Adopted Durban son Imran Tahir also bowled nicely.

Holy crap AB De Villiers

This is genuinely ridiculous

He needs to be banned from cricket. This is just unfair! Ridiculous!

That was awesome

The classic nervous 140's. What an innings.

Definition of miraculous... There was a 100 run disparity in the partnership contribution between Abbas and Amla... and Amla was batting at a strike rate of 150 in that partnership!!

Altitude is a bitch...

West Indies are favourites for me. No-one's ever defended 430+ at the Wanderers. Stats.

JDizzle wrote:West Indies are favourites for me. No-one's ever defended 430+ at the Wanderers. Stats.

SA scored 190 runs in the last 11.5 overs, that is some incredible batting.

Just to emphasise AB's innings.

The partnership between Amla and AB.

Amla faced 30 balls for 33 runs and AB faced 44 balls for 149.

AB absoutely amazing.... however Roussow and Amla set it up beautfiully for him!!!

Windies 262-7 need 178 from 7 overs

I think today we've seen the furthest human beings can go in One day cricket. There's absolutely no way that 31 ball ton can be matched. AB needed his fair share of rubbish bowling and altitude to get there, I refuse to believe the perfect storm can happen again

absoutely amazing, it really was...stunned that the windies actually managed to bat 50 overs, and get somewhere near 300!!

Absolutely love it that the record now belongs to AB de Villiers, one of my alltime favorite cricketers. AB has this gift of making the most difficult of things make ridiculously easy.

Yet another ODI game that helps the likes of me being driven away from the game though. Just don't like these rubbish situations where the bowlers have absolutely no say whatsoever in the game. Might as well play with 11 batsmen, any tom dick and harry can turn their arm over and get smashed around the park just like that, you don't need to waste specialist batting position for someone who is just to serve up some hit me stuff to the batsmen.......
Ridiculous. And this stupid track is getting a pretty pathetic reputation.......
It was fun when there was a 400+ total and it was thrilling when it was chased down. But if 350 is the par score, then there has to be a better and far more productive way to spend your time.......
Stopped closely watching ODIs in India after Rohit Sharma's 264, don't think I would be following anything on this pitch any more, cricinfo scorecard of 559-2 being chased down with 3 overs and 6 wickets remaining will be plenty!.

When it's all said and done AB de Villiers just be the best of all time(of the mere morals as Bradman has no equal). He's truly a freak of nature. Hash and Rilee played superbly as well.

Excellent post from msp that I couldn't agree with more.

I just can't get excited about this record for the reasons msp mentions. I think its a shame afridi's record was ever beaten, that was a true one in a million innings, yet we see it beaten twice in the last 12 months and then rohits 268 things are just so far in favour of the batsman at times now its ridiculous!

Don't agree with either msp or VTR, there've been plenty of sub-200 scores at the Wanderers in the last 5/6 years, and Pakistan made 49 all out albeit in a test. Steyn didn't struggle and Morkel did ok against the king of the "road" in Chris Gayle. These records are happening because T20 cricket is making batsmen rethink how an innings can be paced and played. If every match had similar scores perhaps they'd have a point and I do prefer lower scoring games myself but ODI cricket needs variety if it's to compete with T20.

You can go on the about altitude, incredibly flat pitch etc. but the bloke has just made 100 off 31 balls! Same with Rohit Sharma, he made 260 in a 50 over game! You can put whatever caveats you like on these things, but the fact remains that they are ridiculous achievements. They are enjoyable to watch. It's not like they are like clockwork, but they are going to become more common with the advances in bat technology and in particular the things that T20 is showing are possible, that no-one thought were. It is, whilst there are troubles and negatives, an exciting time to be watching cricket.

The one bloke I do feel sorry for is Jason Holder. In his second (?) game as skipper, he has to deal with that. Poor bloke.

The pitch must have been a Patta for WI also scored 300ish.
And WI one of the most disjointed sides in the world.
BUT
Give credit where due.
The guy stretched the know human limits significantly and wasn't a freak one off, he has a track record of playing such blazing innings.

A 70off 49 deliveries would have been deemed good' within the limits, giving a team total of 350 and a 50odd win.... all within limits of a patta pitch.

Give credit where due......the guy stretched the limit to an insane proportion, even if it was a Patta, even if it was against WI

Altitude is real. That's all I'm saying. Combined with smallish boundaries, and it's clear why this becomes possible. The modern rules don't help either, AB carried an aerial assault because he knew there'd always be one gap on the field somewhere. Still unbelievable though. He hit one ball over backward of point from leg stump for half a dozen. That's at the very limits of what I thought was a plausible in cricket, indeed it's incredibly close. Like the consensus, I don't like games where bowlers are reduced to mere also rans, and I'd probably have been quite annoyed with the match had it been a 350ish total and Amla and Russow played the star hands, but I'm a cricket fan first and foremost, and I can't even pretend to not have gone into shock when I saw that inning. I'm not actually AB's biggest fan, I mean I like him, but he isn't my cuppa. But this was outlier hitting, it wasn't just bang bang, it was like Mozart with a cricket bat. Watch Corey Anderson's knock and watch Abba's and tell me they have the same artistic merit.

Records are made to be broken, this was the same pitch as the 438 game, but it doesn't happen all that often that teams score at this rate, for me it was welcome entertainment on a Sunday.

There has only been 6 innings at the Wanderers above 320
10 innings between 30 and 320
13 innings between 250 and 300
21 innings between 200 and 250

WHen you consider Wanderers are one of the most difficult grounds to bat in tests it tells you the versatility of their pitches.

As I said, what makes this less incredible is that its AB de Villiers who has gone and done it. That guy is an absolute genius. Guys who can give nightmares to Dale Steyn, someone who can reverse sweep him in his sleep has to be one for sure. AB certainly is a huge favorite for me, and after Kevin Pietersen was finished by the ECB, he's the one cricketer who can really really produce some real incredible stuff that is original.
But this pitch, and these types of games, they are a different thing altogether.
The only thing that makes it special is AB stretching the limits of possibilities.......

If you consider the pitch then Steyn conceding just 29 runs off his ten overs and Morkel with only 43 runs off his ten overs that is simply incredible.

But in this there is a big message, we don't have good bowlers. I am not sure that we can win the world cup with only two class bowlers.

Biltong wrote:If you consider the pitch then Steyn conceding just 29 runs off his ten overs and Morkel with only 43 runs off his ten overs that is simply incredible.

But in this there is a big message, we don't have good bowlers. I am not sure that we can win the world cup with only two class bowlers.

well you have 2 more than reigning champions India

msp83 wrote:Yet another ODI game that helps the likes of me being driven away from the game though. Just don't like these rubbish situations where the bowlers have absolutely no say whatsoever in the game. Might as well play with 11 batsmen, any tom dick and harry can turn their arm over and get smashed around the park just like that, you don't need to waste specialist batting position for someone who is just to serve up some hit me stuff to the batsmen.......
Ridiculous. And this stupid track is getting a pretty pathetic reputation.......
It was fun when there was a 400+ total and it was thrilling when it was chased down. But if 350 is the par score, then there has to be a better and far more productive way to spend your time.......
Stopped closely watching ODIs in India after Rohit Sharma's 264, don't think I would be following anything on this pitch any more, cricinfo scorecard of 559-2 being chased down with 3 overs and 6 wickets remaining will be plenty!.

I don't agree with you, the last time something like this happened in SA was almost 10 years ago. That doesn't scream par score to me. The last time something like this happened the batsman had to be drunk, so that he didn't have the inhibitions that he would normally have. And Ponting had his best game, a few others also had a good game. And no team had there best bowlers in.

I know since it happened, that there have been more 400+ run innings, but there has only ever been 12, 5 by India, 3 SA, 2 SL, Aus and NZ 1 each. Australia just showed the world what was possible.