CHOKERS AGAIN

Sorry Andre, I think what you fail to understand is that tailenders are called that for a reason; if the 'better' batsmen were struggling , the tailenders would have found it 10 times more difficult

Credit to Pakistan..they were the better side on the day and as far as I'm concerned, losing last night had very little to do with choking...

Frodo,

You are right about the "better" batsmen were struggling.
Hence, when the captain went out, he must have realized that Pakistan was bowling to perfection....better to feed these bowlers with "tail-enders" to create some confusion...

Cricket is about ability, sums and strategic thinking...
ability they have...sums and strategic thinking....must be done by people in the boardroom...

It's like our bowling...
Watched a game 50 overs...300 balls bowled..
on the computerised follow thru of the balls bowled, only 37 balls would have hit the stumps if no batsman was present...

Always thought that the idea was :
1. to bowl the batsman out
2. lbw the batsman
3 lastly ....catch him out...
.....but with 37 balls on the stumps....sums...sums...sums...

20 Overs? No strategy...

Andre

Don't really want to argue; and your suggestion of sending someone from the lower order in earlier, might have worked, but it might not .....I myself would have preferred to see vd Merwe in when Gibbs went out, but in the end I think it's all swings and roundabouts.

Also just to point out that in the limited over game, containment is also important and if you bowl at the stumps all the time, you are going to be fetching balls at 'cow corner'.

I also agree with Perpetual that the loss had little to do with choking, we were outplayed by Pakistan in general and Afridi in particular.

In fairness to Smithy, Roelof was given a shot to go higher up earlier in the tournament and it did not work, Andre...What South Africans generally do when our team loses is to crucify that team! And what is your point about the 37 balls hitting the stumps...there's a saying the best man is usually on the sidelines or on the couch.
Bowling on the off or directing a ball at the legstump drifting away is usually very effective in this form of the game UNLESS you are able to bowl the yorker really consistently like GUL, Parnell AND Slinga.
I've seen everything already...from chokers to Smith being a fat-ass and to Jacques having batted too slowly...yes Duminy did not set the world alight but hell...he and Jacques had to steady the ship after 3 quick wickets AND try to keep up with a rate of almost 10 to the over against some great bowling.
Tell you this...if Kallis managed to get a metre more distance on the shot that he played getting out...we probably would have gotten home...but we did not and that's that. Big ups to the team for playing really well...