England in South Africa

Well after the Christmas period was over all attention turned to South Africa vs England and Australia vs Pakistan with the traditional Boxing Day test matches. With England holding on to a draw in the first test just about everyone was waiting to see how they would react and what sort of team they would play when the 2 teams took to the pitch at Durban for the second test.

Graeme Smith won the toss and decided to have a bat and scored a decent 343 all out although when you win the toss and bat first then you should be expecting to make a few more than that although good bowling by Graeme Swann, Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad (who shared 8 wickets between them) ensured that England stood a good chance of getting a first innings lead.

Coming in to the game many people were wary of the form of Alistair Cook and Ian Bell and as of writing this they have both scored hundreds in our first innings and we are getting ever closer to a lead of 150. However if you look back at the history of test matches in Durban then you will see that generally on the 4th or 5th day the pitch is a batting pitch and therefore many people are already saying that a draw is on the cards here and without a doubt even with a lead of 200 it probably isn't going to favour England too much.

However saying that there are signs that the pitch is turning and without a doubt Graeme Swann will have a good chance to rip through the South Africans on the 5th day of the test match and maybe just maybe if we can get 250-300 ahead then maybe we could use Graeme Swann from one end and rotating the seamers from the other then possibly they could try and get a win on the last day.

Australia on the other hand have Shane Watson to thank because in their test match against Pakistan he has scored over 200 runs in his 2 innings and this has put Australia firmly on top and looking as though they are going to win that game, however there is a young 19 year old Pakistani batsman called Umar Akmal who looks a very good player and without a doubt is a talent to look out for in the future.

It has not been all good news in the world of cricket though as there was some bad scenes in the final One Day International between India and Sri Lanka when the game had to be abandoned after quite a few of the Sri Lankan batsmen were hit by balls that bounced sharply from nowhere and it was definitely a dangerous proposition playing against an Indian attack like that on a pitch that was trying to take your head off.

So with 5 sessions left in the England test match all eyes will be waiting to see if we can get a lead and then bowl them out before the time runs out.