The start of the new zealand one day series has began with south africa winning the first 3 matches.

The last match took place in port elizabeth today where SA won by 4 wickets with 4 balls too spare. SA needed 9 runs off the last over and Justin Kemp hit a massive 6 off the first ball of the over that sailed out of the stadium (flew into the duck pond
The next ball was pulled for a 4...
The bowler was Shane Bond who went for over 70 in his 10 overs!
South Africa main contributer was Hershelle Gibbs with 81 off 94 balls

If South Africa win one of the next 2 one dayers and India beat Sri Lanka, SA will move to 2nd in the one day rankings behind Australia!

Kemp is the next Klusener.

yay for SA... but seriously now do you really think SA is better than the others? This is New Zeland we talking about here

I wish I could watch the matches.

DocterMoo downloads them afterwards, but it's kinda not worth it or exciting afterwards in my opinion.

toasted why can't yo uwatch mah?

I'm in the UK atm, so I can't get it here. But I'm coming home in 15 days!

In the one day game we are pretty good trout. Hopefully they can keep going from strength to strength.

I think Shaun Pollock deserves a lot of credit for his contributions in the last game. I mean he did well himself. Yes he didn't get 30 off 19 balls, but if it were not for him, Kemp wouldn't have got the chance to do it. Go POLLY!!! I still think he should be captain.

I love Polly - they could even push him up the order in ODI's, he has an awesome eye.

Not too long ago he opened for the dolphins and scored 130+ in a 45 over game!

Hs bowling isn't too sharp atm though. Ntini is kicking down however!

erm... Polly was economical as ever. He may not take the wickets, but he is definately involved in it somehow. Yeah I saw that game. If I recall he wasn't bowling at that stage, so they put him in to open the batting.

Polly has bowled better though, and Ntini was even more economical 10 overs 3/29... (yesterday or ODI 2)

yeah for sure. Ntinin is fast becoming an excellent bowler. Soon he will be in the top spot... (I hope)

polly should NOT be captain

My reasoning is that his form will slump like it did when he took over from Hansie.

Look at Brian Lara, Mike Atherton, Sachan Tendulka

all exceptional opening batsmen but give them the captaincy and they drown under pressure of both scoring runs and running a team.

In fact, it was so bad that when Atherton captained the touring England side to South Africa I think he went out for 4 ducks in 6 games.

The phone rings in the English Change room and someone answers it.

<Mrs Atherton> Helloo its Mrs Atherton, is my son Michael there?

<England Coach> Sorry Mrs Atherton, he has just gone out to open the batting for England

<Mrs Atherton> Thats ok, I'll hold.

And then he batted a whole day too piss every south african supporter off. When Polly was captain we were still 2nd in the test rankings... then Smith took over and look where we are now. sometimes one players form to be off is better if the team is performing better as a whole. Anyways that is just how I feel. whether Lara was captain or not, it would be hard for him to do well. I mean htf are you meant to score runs when there is nobody that will bat with you. Yes most captains will have a slump in personal form, but if they can have a winning team, then so be it. I mean when Steve Waugh was captaining Aus he went through a terrible run of form. Aus was winning everything, so they didn't get rid of him. When the team started to struggle, then they got rid of him.

ROFL

No I definatley agree that Polly should not be captaining the team, but he has heaps of experience that the team needs.

I think that they should use him in the background.

I cant fucking stand Smith.

I think he is a bully, a moron and he thinks he is too big for his boots.

He is the reason why Klusener doesn't play.

Imagined Klusener at his best on one end with Kemp firing away at the other...

~ drools ~

That would probably be the most brutal assault-like batting the world would ever see. I pray that some day we do, hopefully during the 2007 World Cup.

12 wins in a row takes some doing. If you take into account that England didnt win a single ODI against us earlier this year then, SA has been unbeaten in 15 games (if memory serves me correct).

Heres hoping the proteas go from strength to strength. OZ is lying in wait and the number 1 spot in the one-day rankings beckons....GO SA!

Our one day team is playing really well at the moment!!There would be no singles taken if kemp and klusener were too bat together!
But we will have to wait and see how we do against the aussies...

When are they coming here?
January/February?

Should be a brilliant series...hopefully as good as the ashes.

But wiil need kallis and others including smith to be in good form if we are too take the series.
Smith is very arrogant in my opinion...

Well we seem to be doing quite well so far...

AB de Villiers has been a bit dissapointing in this test, but that's hopefully just a form issue.

SA needs to find a way to get rid of Ponting and Gilchrist fast! They are really a thorn in our sides.

Racism against Nel

I wonder if they'll be able to stop such things?

S.A need to learn how to take there chances. I mean all the dropped catches have cost us over 600 runs. That is like 2 innings scores... If it wasn't for that we would most likely have won the last test, and not have lost it. We are doing a bit better in this test, but once again we don't know how to finish off a side. Hope we bat well tomorrow and then bowl really well.

A.B was unlucky today.

We are performing better than i thought though... but ordinarily we should take those catches etc...

Remember the days of SA vs Aus, and SA looking like a freaking club side

I think it is a mixture of the Aus side not being as good as they used to, and the SA side improving at the same time, although in the days of Rhodes, Cronje, Donald, Kirstens, McMillan we were a lot stronger than we are now. I am just glad that we are at the very least competing!! It only bodes well for the future.

Problem appears to be that there's not a lot of bowling coming through the ranks (world class). Yes, there are one or two talented guys, but look at the provincial bowlers, and you will see the problem. We have not produces a world class bowler in the last few years, the last probably being Ngam, pity he could not keep up.

Val is right... we are struggling at the moment, Langeveldt, Nel, Ntini and Pollock... they should be performing better.

The days of Rhodes, Cronje etc... those were the days! I remember the day Hansie got a ton against the Aussies at the Wanderers in an ODI! That was awesome!

Val, Ngam is actually on his way to Aus, or is it another young bowler... I forget now.

EDIT: It is Zondeki that is on his way there. He also had injury problems, but is now back.

Yeah, great news actually. He's bowled very well the last game he played. Also a lot faster, up to the 150s even, and also a bit of movement. But how long before he is injured again? I hope it does not happen. We could really use him as an extra bullet in the seam cupboard along with Ntini, Nel, Pollock and Langevelt. We should have what we had in the good old days of De Villiers, Matthews and Donald. THAT is a seam attack.

I don't think that Matthews can be compared to Pollock for stinginess... so we have that part of the attack right, now we need a hard hitter (Zondeki) and a grafter (Nel)... along with an in-form Kallis (swinging), we could actually be a massive bowling threat.

and don't forget a healthy Ntini in there. that would be ideal. Then we would really be a force. We would then have someone to speed/scare the tail of opponents out. /me gets shivers.

Would be nice if we can have Pollock back to his old self. He's not 100% if you ask me. They also might consider giving Tshabalala a chance, he did extremely well in the Pro20 last year.

OMG Ponting owned us

I think it was better this way. We had a chane of winning the game, so we went for it (we could have squared the series), but it backfired.

I hate Hayden... what a wanker he is

Go Polly!!! 3 top-order wickets for him in a 3/30 (10 overs) performance which netted him the man of the match award!

Kemp also showed us just how far a cricket ball can travel... let's see this type of performance on tuesday again please guys

We need this type of performance for the remainder of the series. We must make the finals and then WIN IT. Not like we normally do...

Pity Boucher dropped that catch. Polly deserved the wicket of Ponting as well. WELL DONE BOYS

and what a whooping we got today. I mean WTF was missus smith thinking putting SL in to bat when we win the toss. WHAT A FOOL!!!

Go Bouchie... some form from him is needed!

Polly was his usual stingy self, but Kruger was BAD!

Kumar Sangakkara is really a thorn in the SA squad's side!

We never really got started... because of Vaas, but the other opening bowler got pasted!

Altogether a poor performance by SA... incosistency at it's best

Funny thing is Smith has never beaten SL as captain... 0 from 6 or something stupid.

that is cause he is gay

Hey... he's not that bad

I think he has massive potential, but perhaps not as captain.

He has not performed at all this tour. Not as an opening batsman, or as a captain. As much as I dislike him, I do believe he has the talent to be a world class opener, but he needs to change his attitude slightly. I do also think that he should not be captain at the moment. Anyways, heres hoping that we will improve in the remaining games and win this thing.

His bowling wasn't too bad last time out

I rate Smith Stinks as captain

not half as goog as cronje

I like smith.
Not Hansie, but I still like him.

pish Hansie > * for captain!

I don't really watch the interviews etc. so I don't know much about Smith's attitude, but he's very talented and I think they shouldn't have given him captaincy so young. He should have first been given a proper intoduction to international cricket... just imagine how much better his record would be?

He will never be like Hansie, and i don't think he should try to. His no nonsense attitude might actually end up working in our favour. I will agree that his performance of late has been lacking, but just give it time in stead of calling for his head.

We as South Africans should stop blaming everybody for poor performances. The rugby is doing kak, fire the coach & captain. Soccer not up to par, fire the coach. Support him, he's still the captain, and we would not ANY difference at all by compaining about it because ure jelous that he's boning the most eligible models in SA.

Agreed. Just thinking it was a bad decision in retrospect. He was too young and he never got prove himself before being thrown in the deep end.

I hope they don't fire him from captaincy...

I call for his captiancy cos he's no good at it he should go back to play just plain cricket and work in his game rather try control the other 11 players... that needs exp from int cricket

But that will just upset everthing in the team, and rebuilding will have to occur

LOL. IF we need to rebuild we should start now. We just got thrashed by the Aussies. Where should we start... a New captain. I am not saying that we should get rid of Smith. I am just saying that he shouldn't be captain. Heck make Polly captain again (why was he sacked... because management didn't do there job correctly). Smith and Boucher/Kallis can both be vice captains. Why did we sack our last cricket coach? hmm... he was doing pretty well...

A few changes that I would make are.

1. Drop Kallis from the one day side. He bats far too slow.
2. if you don't drop Kallis, then drop Boetta even though he has done well now) and put AB in to open. He is most likely the most talented player this country and we leave him out of the squad.

There are a few more, but will get in to that some other time.

we always get beaten by the Aussies

Unfortunately you cannot drop a player like Kallis... he's a machine... he just needs to change his focus from surviving to getting runs ASAP... because he can, we've seen it before!

Boeta suxxor IMHO... way too slow and his record in null in comparison to JK's.

The whole Polly removed from captaincy was rather weird, but I cannot see him taking the position again.

Kallis is a machine in the Test arena. Yes he has a good average in one day cricket, but he must either be dropped, or told to get a move on when batting. As you said, he has done it before. He must forget about his average, and play for the team. He can even bat faster in the test matches as well. I mean the commentators even said that he should score faster because he has the ability to. His PROBLEM is that he wants to only play PERFECT shots. "I am good! I hit that one just as the text book said I should. Let me wait another 100 balls before I do that again. Have to wait for the really bad ball to come before I try a PERFECT shot again." This applies to both formats of the game.