lemonbella | Australia v South Africa 1st Twenty20.

Herschelle 7

Oh....Herschelle. It will be okay, he'll get loads of runs in the other matches, and he was all perky and leapy in the field. Also, he's spent the last month hiking early in the mornings and being a Good Boy, so he's probably used to being in bed by this time.

Graeme 37

Kallis doesn’t get any points. If they're going to insist on using him to replace Graeme, I'm just going to give Graeme points for what I *imagine* he's doing instead of batting.

For this match he was sat on a sofa with his duvet, yelling at the TV. His Mum made him a sandwich and told him to keep the noise down. He left several messages on Botha's phone, and one to remind the umpires about the memo he sent instructing them to give Herschelle three goes at the wicket because they obviously forgot about that.

deVilliers 6

I can’t mark him low because that was an embarrassing way to get out. And apparently he had to be carried by the Large Morkel.

Duminy 10

Duminy continued to be fantastically excellent. It's hard because he's not a dork in any way and dorkiness is usually a pre-requisite for me being attached to someone. Coolness and pierced ears are totally new territory.

What I really like about Duminy is that nothing I do affects him. I can watch, I can not watch, I can sort of watch or I can go to the gym and watch on video later. He just bats. Other players are all temperamental and demand that I stay sitting cross legged on the sofa or only check the score every seventeen minutes or something.

Van Jaarsveld 5

He gets 5 for being called Van Jaarsveld, rather than for his actual batting. He's new, so I'll give him some more chances. I'm not panicking. Graeme told me not to.*

Older Morkel 8

I'm quite fond of the older Morkel, so we'll over look the getting out when he and Duminy were just starting to take the game away. He did some fantastic fielding and not once did the commentators feel compelled to compare him to a gangly animal. Also, there's several points in there because I secretly suspect that he's spent all of his childhood telling Morne that the reason he's so tall is because he's adopted: that's what older siblings do.

Boucher 7

Needed to be more Boucheresque. He gets points for offering to do the chatting to commentators thing, but was distracted. Geraint doesn’t get distracted. Geraint can chat on the microphone and make faces and gestures to his team mates at the same time.

Most of those points are because, when asked what their tactics were against the Horrible Little Australian, he replied: "Well, to get him out basically."

He got an extra two because

indian_skimmer said he should

Trotsky 1

That's Johan Botha for those of you who aren’t

indian_skimmer. There was some suspiciously authoritarian pointing and an arm around Herschelle. The captaincy is Graeme's, Johan, don’t get any ideas.

He gets that 1 point for the increasingly convoluted ways the commentators found to say "Botha"

Steyn 7

Pulled it back well at the end, and was all grown up and senior bowler-ish. Usually it's him who gets the reassuring pats but this time he gave a little encouraging chat with his arm around Lopsy's shoulder. Also, I suspect he refused to bowl at that horrible little Australian who did all the batting. That's his prerogative now he's a senior bowler.

Ntini 5

Not exactly his match, but it's all that horrible little Australian's fault, not Makhaya's.

Lopsy 8

It's nice that they've managed to find a number 11 batsman to replace Makhaya now that he's a senior batsman. It wouldn’t be the south African tail without someone falling over their feet. Those eight points are for having the best nickname *ever* and for looking suitably thrilled when he got his first wicket. I have high hopes for him.

* when I say that Graeme told me not to panic, he didn’t actually tell me personally. I do not hear Graeme's voice in my head telling me things. He told the world generally not to panic and to expect things to go a bit wonky for a while. I am remaining calm. I trust Graeme.

ETA: two more points for Boucher because

indian_skimmer said he deserved them