He was at 195 when play was stopped due to bad light, I think. Then the next day was washed out.
By the morning of day 4, every minute was vital in forcing a win, and any further runs irrelevant from a match perspective. So Australia declared “overnight” and South Africa had to start their defense right away.
Different teams and different captains have different views on the balance between match result and individual landmarks. But I think pretty much every Test team and captain would have made the same decision in this circumstance.
If the fourth day had been rained out as well, there would be almost no chance of a result. Then Usman would have come out on day 5 to try to get his double, maybe even go for a triple.
I would concur with @Mighty_Mouse that every Test captain would have declared in those circumstances.
Usman had 368 deliveries to get those 5 extra runs, so sorry it would have been merited but who wants to have scored 200 in a draw vs 195 and the team wins?
By the time they got to play on Day4 there were about 120 overs left to play.
If Usman had taken 2-3 overs to get the double ton then there would be a further 10 minute break so you are down to 115 overs plus the pitch would have been rolled again which would have helped additionally. Now SA have struggled to bat 60 overs this series but there were few terrors in the pitch. Marharaj and Harmer batted soundly and their 85 run partnership off 26 overs steered the team into a safer harbour.
The pitch (which wasn’t a good deck, in fact was poor) only had 1 1/2 days wear in it.
Without Starc in the team the bowlers footmarks from the two RH seamers Cummins & Hazelwood were less pronounced and further outside a RH batters’s off stump than if they’d have been produced by the LH Starc.
While Lyon got some sharp turn from the footmarks to the RHers, the ball was needing to pitch well outside off stump so all the SA batters needed to do was ensure they got forward sufficiently that the ball struck the pads outside the line and they were immune to LBW.
In hindsight and arguably foreseeably AUS got the team balance wrong. By selecting two spinners AUS were banking on a deteriorating pitch and they didn’t get one. The four “spinners” got only 3 wickets between them.
Lyon works much more through topspin and bounce rather than side spin which is why he usually takes more and better wickets in the 1st innings than the 2nd. Agar barely created any chances with his bowling and his captain threw the ball to the part-timers in Head and Smith a couple of times which won’t do Agra’s prospects for the Indian tour much good.
If SA had been able to bat 100 overs in the 1st inning, a reasonable benchmark, there was too much time lost unless the surface broke up, or the ball was reverse swinging.
Since I never played cricket, I’m curious as to what batsmen feel are the 1) most embarrassing and 2) most disappointing way to get out. In terms of most embarrassing, I would think that getting straight bowled without even nicking the ball would be the worst. But perhaps it’s getting bamboozled by a spinner, missing the ball by a large margin, and getting lbw’d? For most disappointing, it would likely be due to a great fielding play at the rope, taking away 6 runs and your wicket at the same time.
The most embarrassing is when you have a massive heave outside off, miss everything, and get stumped.
Most disappointing? Probably depends entirely on the batsman, but probably when a bowler seems to have ‘worked you out’ and keeps getting you out the same way, however that may be.
I’ve seen quite a few of these types of mix-ups and, while there does seem to some understanding that the “better” batsman should survive, it always still seems like a confusing situation. Even today, if Kishan was going to sacrifice himself, why did he still run?
This is why I don’t think runouts should count in a batting average. It would be less painful (I think) if it didn’t affect your average. Especially because it’s not always the fault of the batter who was actually out.
Because, roughly once in a couple of life-times this can happen
You also need to be careful of the context of “sacrifice”. Self interest comes into play, not just taking one for the team.
The lesser batter has the conundrum that, even if they are not at fault, if they are involved in the greater batters/captains run out, much less the cause then they may never be selected in that team again.
A “good” run out when both batters run on the call and usually the fielder throws the stumps down is a clinical exercise to be appreciated by all but the guy who is out.
On the other hand, a butchered run out is comedy gold, and can now be seen with admirable regularity courtesy of the European Cricket League.
I once opened the innings in a 2nd eleven match where we needed 50 in 25. We won by 10 wickets having scored less than 10 off the bat. Mostly byes and wides.
Fair. But at these levels? I’d think that Kishan being involved in a few extra runouts wouldn’t be high up in the list of things for which to exclude him. I definitely would understand it for lesser quality leagues.
To fit with that flawed genius WG Grace’s pronouncement on being bowled for nowt in an exhibition match only to reset the stumps and say: “These people have not come to watch you bowl. They have come to watch me bat.”
The crowd didn’t pay good rupees and fill the stadium at Indore to watch Kishan bat, he’s not even a local. They came to see Kholi.
I remember a match in which on the morning of day 4 (I think) Tendulkar on 60-odd came out to bat with Laxman. Both were out in the first hour but some young chap called Ashwin came out with the follow-on looming, and smashed a run-a-ball hundred.
Nevertheless they were interviewing spectators at the close of play who were pissed because they came to see Tendulkar, Laxman and Dhoni bat, not Ashwin.
When I played indoor cricket, we did a lot of ‘stealing runs’. Because the distance to run was only 11 yeards instead of 22, the fieldsmen had to be on their toes the entire time - many runs were stolen if a bowler or fielder just turned their back for a moment - another fielder had to notice the batsmen running, shout ‘look out’, the bowler had to react and realise what it meant etc - by which time the batsmen had run their extra.
I played a lot with one particular partner and we could steal runs without calling - eye contact, subtle muscle movements etc were all that was needed. We actually called ‘Yes’, No’, etc loudly just to confuse the opposition and try to induce a wild throw.
(For those who haven’t seen indoor cricket, there are plenty of examples on Youtube. Fun game.)
Seems like an age since England played some cricket, so I’m more interested in the 3 match ODI series against SA than I normally might be. Archer is back!
An interesting point about England made on the Guardian live blog.
This is the team they are playing: England 1 Jason Roy, 2 Ben Duckett, 3 Dawid Malan, 4 Jos Buttler (capt, wkt), 5 Harry Brook, 6 Moeen Ali, 7 Sam Curran, 8 David Willey, 9 Adil Rashid, 10 Jofra Archer, 11 Olly Stone.
And this is the team they could field from the players left out:
1 Jonny Bairstow, 2 Alex Hales, 3 Joe Root, 4 Phil Salt (wkt), 5 Ben Stokes (capt), 6 Liam Livingstone, 7 Chris Woakes, 8 Liam Dawson, 9 Mark Wood, 10 Saqib Mahmood, 11 Reece Topley.