Why did South Africa defeat England?

By Adrian Meredith

VICTORIA, Australia (TheSportsNext) July, 24, 2012: South Africa shocked England, who are ranked 1 versus South Africa, who were just downgraded to 3, at home in England! They didn't just lose, but they were beaten by an innings! So how did this happen?

Mark Boucher's absence inspires South Africa

AB de Villiers is actually a specialist wicket keeper who, early in his career, dreamed of taking over from Mark Boucher in the team. He is nowhere as good as Boucher as a keeper but he is nonetheless a specialist keeper so him playing didn't hurt too much. It also meant extra batsmen (not that they needed it) so the team overall wasn't missing too much. Boucher missing, though, certainly inspired Jacques Kallis, probably also A B de Villiers but it may have inspired the whole team.

Vernon Philander NOT taking wickets

Philander is actually an all-rounder but he has probably the best test bowling record in the world right now. Seeing England target him and negate him meant that the other quality bowlers, who recently have been overshadowed by Philander, able to shine. Morne Morkel and Dale Steyn were once ranked 1st and 2nd in the world and are hardly weak bowlers. Jacques Kallis is pretty good too and Imran Tahir, in his debut series, in the ODI World Cup, was amazing. These are not weak bowlers!

England playing deathly boring cricket inspired South Africa's bowlers

There was absolutely zero flair in England's approach to the game. They just tried to annoy the opposition to death, like they had done with great success against Australia. Enter day 2 and this inspired the South African bowlers, with Steyn, Morkel and Kallis finding something extra to prize out their wickets.

 

South Africa are far more boring than England

How dare England think that they can out-bore South Africa? South Africa are the kings of boring cricket! Graeme Smith is known as Mr. Boring and he repeated the dose again, as did possibly the most boring batsman of the past 20 years in Jacques Kallis. They were joined with the occasionally exciting Hashim Amla, who acted like the whole thing was batting practice as the 3 of them bored the living daylights out of England, easily winning the borefest.

The Duke ball wasn't swinging

As has been reported regularly, since 2007, England's home ball, the Duke ball, has been modified to make it more able to swing, reverse swing, bounce, and fly off edges. It carries more quickly, especially off fast bowlers. This doesn't necessarily mean more wickets - as it can mean more runs too - but it tends to mean that England are virtually unbeatable at home, which is a major reason for their rise up the rankings. Except that in this match the Duke ball wasn't able to do what it usually can. The conditions were low and slow, meaning that the Duke ball wasn't able to swing. That is okay for South Africa, who have menacing fast bowlers that can make something out of nothing, but England don't have such bowlers. England have irritating bowlers without a single one of them being quality, and rely on the ball to do everything for them. When the conditions meant that the ball wasn't doing what they expected, they had no Plan B.

England are nowhere near as good as they claim to be

If you look at the batting order, you have a few serviceable but not great batsmen, with Kevin Pietersen the only one that would be considered in any of the top batting line ups (South Africa, India, Sri Lanka or Australia). Their bowling features 3 all-rounders in Bresnan, Broad and Swann, who, while good for their batting (batting down to 10) and good for irritating batsmen, isn't much good at delivering quality when needed. They do have Anderson, as their sole specialist bowler, but he isn't anywhere near as good as the better bowlers going around and would not make any of the top bowling line ups (Pakistan, South Africa, Australia or Sri Lanka). Top teams tend, naturally, to have top players amongst them but England don't, with the exception of Kevin Pietersen. Until fairly recently they had another quality player in Andrew Flintoff but now they are down to 1 and he is being marginalised too.

England rely on irritating their oppositions out - they can't beat them in a fair fight

It is shameful that so many teams have lost to England when all they do is to annoy them out. They bat slowly and annoyingly, without any flair or skill at all, and bowl conservatively, without remotely going for wickets. They wait for batsmen to get themselves out and, stupidly, it works. It is all tactics and, of course, other teams should be able to combat that. All it takes is some clever captaincy, to put it back to a fair fight, and England are no chance. Head to head, South Africa have a far superior side and it seems that they were able to out think England to capitalise on the difference in skill.

South Africa are a lot better than they are given credit for

Since returning to international cricket, South Africa have been outstanding in all formats of the game, both home and away. They have missed out on the number 1 spot and major trophies because of "choking", perhaps bad luck, perhaps bad tactics, or perhaps something other than raw skill. If raw skill was the consideration, they would have been number 1 a long time ago and stayed there. If they win this test series 3-0 I think that they will get the number 1 test status, which makes a mockery of England's claims just a month ago.

A month ago, England foolishly claimed to be the best team in the world by miles

As soon as you start praising yourselves too much, it tends to fall apart around you. England were going around saying that "if not for rain" they would have been the number 1 team in all 3 formats. Did they mention that it was because it was being played in England or because Australia were treating it as a set of warm up matches? England don't deserve top spot any more than Bangladesh deserve to be ranked number 4 in T20Is. By bragging about it, they were just asking to be flogged, to wipe the smile off their faces.

It was, ultimately, very nearly a draw

You can look at the margin of victory (by an innings, with South Africa declaring just 2 wickets down) but in terms of time it was relatively close. If England had just managed to get a lead, then South Africa may have run out of time. South Africa pushed it a fair bit. If this had been a draw, it would have effectively been a huge victory for England, who would have escaped without losing. Were South Africa ultimately going for the victory, or were they just trying to annoy England, and prepared to leave with a draw?