Just got back from the UK...Well done to the Saffa's. The Poms were outplayed in every department. No excuses - just outplayed. Enjoyed Morkels bowling (or would have done if it was not against England !) even @ Lords he looked the one class bowling act in both sides...

Fair enough Ed, that's a deal. I am however somewhat surprised as to why people supposedly surprised at England's demise. One only needs to look at the recent stats of the teams and individuals in general to come to realise that this result is nothing more than what should've been expected. I'm not being arrogant in victory, not at all, nor am I saying SA is a great team (not yet anyways), but come on, when was the last time England did anything meaningful against meaningful competition? 2005? You get my point.

Not a bad session for India. Glad to see Sanga out of the way.

I think if Andre Nel played England would have gotten an even bigger hiding

Saman I've already congratulated SA but I still don't think they're in top form; they definitely have room for improvement. While their batting was at times dour, it's mischievous for anyone to link that to a possible demise of test cricket. True cricket followers love all the twists and turns of five day format cricket even if it means we'll get periods of relatively dull cricket. To concentrate for hours on end is no mean feat and sometimes it's interesting to see if a batsman can maintain his focus in order to help carve a victory for his team. Prince and AB carried this out to perfection while Amla and McKenzie also did it at Lord's.

Great idea prophet...

Rain Rain go away, Come again another day! Hope the match gets under way soon.....

Paki- come on now! The oke, K.P, is still the best you have. I thiknk 90% of the people on this forum suffer from the same illness, whether they'r Saffers, Aussies or Poms. How do you call for someone's head based on one perfomance!?

Great idea Prophet. Umpiring will be like a sport all on its own .

Finally we'll have a viable way to quantify umpiring performance. I think the ICC should maintain a running score of successful referrals that go against the umpire. Umpire rankings might be based on this score with weights added for other attributes as well. It is high time ICC had a transparent system to gauge umpiring performance. If such a system does come into force, I cannot see Bucknor lasting very long.

No offense to "canotfindserver", but I wouldnt want to play in any ICC trophy or World Cup that Australia doesn't play in. You would never feel like true champions if you had to win one of those tournaments. Was listening to Cricket commentary on Radio 2000 and that Geoffrey Boycott really irritates me, I have never heard anyone so full of himself. For instance they had been tellinghim how it had been proved that no one can concentrate for more than 10 hours and that it was impossible. Geoffrey however dismissed the notion and said he could do it easily, then they all start talking about Pie and Tea and toilets and nonsense like that while the cricket is on. I did enjoy when Pieterson was smacking the fours and the commentator was gargling and saying how Pieterson was going to save the game just to go out the next ball. All in all I thin Geoffrey Boycott sucks. South Africa can pride themselves knowing that they have defeated a side who I personally think did not play so badly but are just outclasses in every department.

Hey saman... Did you get to met Pom_in_PTA?? Will be interesting to hear his excuses, he had no doubt that England would win the first 2 tests, it was just a formality according to him... hahaha! I agree with you about Tim Ellis' piece, what bollocks. But that is the pommy way, find some other way to run the opposition down when they beat you. And another thing... I realise that this is an English website, but is every single article about Eng vs SA test series about flippen England?? Every article speaking about what England did wrong and not one about what SA did right... come on chaps a bit of objectivity please

listen i think its time for vaughan to go. secondly i think pieterson should get dropped for a little while so he knows hes not the biggest and the best. i think owais shah desrves a chance. as for the bowlers, they should go with flintoff/broad, jones, anderson, sidebottom and panesar/adil rashid

India 1-0.

A message to Tim Ellis : accusing the Proteas of going slow and calling it "dull", and then proceeding to imply that we are a part of the show that is endangering Test cricket is a bit rich. If England hadn't folded so easily, we wouldn't have batted for 2 days, and if England had a half-decent pace attack, we wouldn't be able to! (in theory). Our ability to grind a team down and save a game or win it in this manner is a credit to the Proteas' hard work and to Test cricket as a whole. I bet England and a whole lot of other Test teams would be sitting in their couch wishing they could play like we did. In any event, I enjoyed both games thoroughly ; I was at the ground all 9 days, and I was not alone.

Drop Broad and Ambrose, bring back Colly and Nixon.

Here we go on the AB-keeper thing again. Guys, THINK. Look at previous examples, such as Sangakkara. Compare averages with gloves and without. 1/ Boucher is the best out and out keeper in the world (as his world record amount of catches and his 9 in the last test show, along with all the other saves to people like Donald, Ntini, and Steyn) 2/ He is our most senior player (perhaps behind Kallis) and brings a helluva lot to the team with his chirp and his spirit. 3/ He is a largely underrated batsman (averages 30.. name another keeper averaging 30 over 115 tests save Gilly please) 4/ AB is finally settling into a spot in the team (after being shuffled around the order), and is getting big runs.. 217*, now 174. He doesn't need additional pressure, especially stepping into the boots of a legend such as Boucher. 5/ Why fix what ain't broken? 6/ Our team at the mo' is superbly balanced, something only Aussies and to a lesser extent the Indians can rival and that the rest can only dream about. Need I say more? Anyhow, I for one would not like KP in the saffer line up, class act though he is.. there are already too many big egos in the Saffer dressing room. Hows that egg, Pom? And yours, Tuesday? I know this is early days, but it's hard to see England recovering from a blow like that, especially seeing that 5 of our top 6 have scored centuries in 4 innings (and the one that hasn't has a test average of 57), and our pace attack is being compared to the WI of yesteryear. Cricket is a funny game though, but I'll stick behind my 2-1 prediction. One more thing : I personally feel that the best thing about this so far is that we have been able to get out of tight spots and get into winning positions without Kallis' backup with the bat. It is something we've practically NEVER been able to do! Go Proteas!

It is going to be pretty interesting to see the pecking order in the team when the referral system comes into place. And I bet there would be tantrums when the prima donnas are going to be denied a referral. But I hope lot of this dubious appeals and pouting would go down because if you cant back that with an appeal, the team will look like douchebags. Importantly, what is the chicken dance routine for the umpires? And do the umpires carry a hulahoop with them when they give the "safe decision", will "YMCA" blare from the speakers?

Khiladi, How many # 7 batsman do you know with an average of over 30?

Did you see how AB baating led to SAs victory? He was brilliant. Now imagine if he was the keeper and Duminy took the place of Boucher. Would'nt the SA team be much stronger? Even if Boucher is replaced by Wayne Parnell, Monde Zondeki, Albie Morkel Would'nt the SA team be much stronger? We have a performer with the bat who is an excellent keeper as well and we have a mediorce batsmen who is the SA keeper. Does is not make sense to replace the latter?

Prophet, as far as I know each team is allowed 3 unsuccessful referrals per innings (ie. a successful referral doesn't count).

We want CHAMPIONS TROPHY in PAKISTAN , We dont want ORAM, PONTING , SYMONDS , .......... . They can sit in front of TV to enjoy C-Trophy live on TV.

Sunith " Karma - no its not a lie. Id bet most south africans would not want pietersen in the team. The public wouldnt want him. The selectors wouldnt want him. The team wouldnt want him and Smith wouldnt want him. Sometimes i feel sorry for him. He will never be seen as english and never as a true south african. He has no home. " Well Said Pieterson is a Nomad

Does this new referral system allow the fielding team to appeal against decisions not given in their favour or is it just a privilege of the batting team? Any idea?

fred batted for 90 odd balls!!!