#2 vs South Africa [Hard]

Tough one....

1. Gondlir (n)
2. Pinkus (a)
3. Newman (n)
4. van Noord (n)
5. Reardon (n)
6. Currie / Hard (n)
7. Pyke (a)
8. Sellers (n)
9. Crane (n)
10. Stewart (n)
11. Shea (d) / Westbrook

Stewart (n), Pyke (d)
Crane (n), Sellers (d)
Shea (n), Sellers (d)
Pyke (d), Crane (n)
Stewart (n), Shea (n)


Pinkus gets a chance to earn his keep by blasting us away early. Being Hard I'd expect almost all seam - SA have at least 2-3 good seamers in Percy, McShane & Polzin.... should they save them for us.... so Gondlir on a more anchor role would be good - seam spec lasts the whole innings. Newman promoted because I think it's important to have your front man at #3. van Noord is fresh so he gets a role where he can make a difference. Reardon is fresh, and then we didn't take Kelly to the WC - on the idea that we could use our older experienced guys as closer batsmen instead of the Finisher.... so Currie or Hard (probs whichever didn't score big in game #1) can slot in there. With Pyke, Sellers, Crane, Stewart, I really hope we don't get bowled out!

Bowling is so defensive. Sellers is just to "get him out of the way"... and maybe Shea could be someone else... not sure if we'd consider Westy there instead....
Crane's our best bet at economy figures I guess, and Stewart is the best guy to close with here.

I think we want to chase here, as our batting is quite long and as long as one of our big names hang around, there should be oodles of tail support to help out here.
Batting first isn't too bad either, so long as Stewart/Shea/Westy close... as I think they're our most potent bowlers for the death.


Then we can go from here using the Scotland match (which by then I suspect the Scots will have to throw), to set up for the two crumblers against IND & WI... so we rest our two spinners and give Newman/Gondlir a rest too.

Ok, strayed from that a bit:


1. Hard(n)
2. Pinkus (a)
3. Newman (n)
4. van Noord (n)
5. Numa (d)
6. Reardon (n)
7. Pyke (d)
8. Crane (n)
9. Sellers (n)
10. Stewart (n)
11. Westbrook (n)

Stewart (n), Westbrook (n)
Crane (d), Sellers (n)
Pyke (n), Sellers (d)
Crane (n), Pyke (d)
Westbrook (d), Stewart (n)

With Currie & Newman making big scores, I want to rest one of them, so next game we have one and in game 4 we have the other!
Hard didn't bat (1 ball doesn't count!) so he can go up and give Gondlir a spell.... on the Hard deck, our two openers should be able to get a great start, and with Newman at 3 we should really be able to get a roll on. Numa's down the order to cover us and try keep Reardon & Pyke from batting too much - this also might mean Numa doesn't bat as much and can back up for 1-2 more matches.

With the ball I want Westy in - more pace on this deck. Our next match is Uneven, but we can play Swain & Pyke and maybe even stretch Westy or Stewart... but this game is more important really.

Sellers gets a go to help share the fatigue around, and also being windy, having a spinner might upset the balance. As you can see, we're overall aiming to out-gun them in batting and defend with the ball, so a spinner into the breeze might mix things up a little.

I really want to bat first and have at them.