***Official*** New Zealand in South Africa

[Fiery]

I'm taking up lawn bowls this summer.

Cheap booze and plenty of skirt for ya

 

[Perm]

I thankfully saw none of this series, but all I'll say is we waited this long for test cricket involving NZ and we get this load of rubbish?

Just watch the Australia-Sri Lanka series, makes for much better viewing.

I'm taking up lawn bowls this summer.

I'd reccommend golf. Gun sport.

 

[Smudge]

I am watching the Aussie-Sri Lanka series. Gotta love free-to-air cricket on TV in Aussie...

 

[sportychic33]

What I'd like to see picked for the ODI series, out of the current squad:

1. How
2. Vincent
3. Styris
4. Taylor
5. Hopkins
6. McCullum
7. Vettori
8. Mills
9. Patel
10. Gillespie
11. Mason

I'm not sure if Oram is available for the ODI series, otherwise he'd be a swap for Hopkins.

Have to agree with all your points in your post, however this ODI lineup looks a bit weak batting wise. Definitely missing Fulton coming in at 3.
Wouldn't be suprised to see Sinclair chucked in at 3 or McCullum opening.

1. How
2.Vincent
3. Sinclair
4. Styris
5. Taylor
6. Oram
7. McCullum
8. Vettori
9. Patel / Mills
10. Gillespie
11. Martin


or
1. Vincent
2. McCullum
3. Sinclair
4. Styris
5. Taylor
6. Oram
7. Vettori
8. Mills
9. Patel
10. Gillespie
11. Martin

Hopefully Oram is fit, however it is questionable if he does play how much he will be able to bowl.

 

[Athlai]

Worth their Salt

Daniel Vettori 39 with the bat and 67.66 with the ball. Terrible spinning conditions definitely hindered his efforts with the ball and his lower order batting gave him the second best batting figures from the entire Kiwi squad.

Stephen Fleming 154 runs at 38.50, easily our best batsman, could have done more yet no real complaints.

Craig Cumming 67 runs at 33.50, while his figures were boosted significantly till his jaw got smashed he looked set at a fantastic innings.

Shane Bond Didn't last a full match yet came away with figures of 5 wickets at 26.60. Our best bowler easily.

Mark Gillespie A little bit lucky yet did well in place of Bond, a 5fer at 27.20 is nothing to frown at.

Chris Martin Looked our second most dangerous bowler throughout, definitely earned his inclusion in the side with 6 wickets at 33.83. Suffered from a drop or two also.
Worth noting is his fantastic tail end batting, 4 innings 11 balls faced 0 runs and 1 not out. How does he keep it up!

Other than that, pure average performances from the team. O'Brien looked about as effective as someone trying to nail jelly to a wall. While Styris, Oram, Papps and Taylor couldn't hit water if they fell off a boat.

 

[Athlai]

Now I think I'll look at the whole tour.
Batting
Vettori 300 @ 50
Fleming 192 @ 32
Cumming 171 @ 28.5
McCullum 218 @ 27.25
Taylor 178 @ 22.25

Everyone else under 20 FFS.

Bowling
Oram 15 @ 11.06 remember how excited we all were when he took wickets in the FC matches? Sigh.
Martin 14 @ 26.50
Vettori 13 @ 29.23
Bond 11 @ 29.63

No one else worth mentioning.

Dire stuff TBH.

 

[TT Boy]

20/20 on Friday, hoping RSA rests everyone but Smith, AB and Gibbs. They need the batting time.

 

[Francis]

I don't mind New Zealand playing one-day cricket or 20/20 cricket, but I honestly think the time has come to relegate them to playing teams such as Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. New Zealand have played some awful cricket recently and they need to play against teams around their level.

Shane Bond is the only player who makes me think they should still be allowed to play fantastic cricket teams like South Africa.

 

[Natman20]

PG Fulton playing for Cantebury today. One has to question why he is not over there at the moment? I thought he was injured? I think we need some management changes. Its only one tour and its not the end of the world I guess. We never have performed in South Africa. Lets hope that this is just the case otherwise...

 

[sportychic33]

PG Fulton playing for Cantebury today. One has to question why he is not over there at the moment? I thought he was injured? I think we need some management changes. Its only one tour and its not the end of the world I guess. We never have performed in South Africa. Lets hope that this is just the case otherwise...

PG Fulton is on the comeback trail from his injury. Probably needs a bit of game time before he rejoins the squad ( hopefully he'll be back for the Chappell Hadlee as he adds a decent batsman to the line up). Definitely need management changes, O'Neill the current batting coach should have a role reversal with Wright, therefore having Wright within the team environment not coaching solely the future players but instead coaching where it counts which is in the present. Would also like to see Martin Crowe into the mix with Wright in the batting coach role with Wright coaching the openers and Martin Crowe being in charge of numbers 4 - 7. I think that a 3/4 pronged coaching line up similar to the defunct All Blacks coaching line up of the past 4 years would be quite effective within the New Zealand Cricket team as we can plainly see that Bracewell is INEPT! and there needs to be a greater influence from other high profile coaches such as Wright who have a proven track record unlike O'Neill. I also think Dayle Hadlee should step away from the bowlers and a new bowling coach implemented as the same coach does not always mean continual development and a change of perspective may be what is necessary for the Bowlers to continual to develop and possibly to decrease the amount of injuries occuring. Would love to see New Zealand Cricket use some the money gained out of the latest Television Rights go to head hunting a bowling coach from Australia who has a proven record of success ( which he likely will have due to the continual success of the Australian team).

 

[Natman20]

PG Fulton is on the comeback trail from his injury. Probably needs a bit of game time before he rejoins the squad ( hopefully he'll be back for the Chappell Hadlee as he adds a decent batsman to the line up). Definitely need management changes, O'Neill the current batting coach should have a role reversal with Wright, therefore having Wright within the team environment not coaching solely the future players but instead coaching where it counts which is in the present. Would also like to see Martin Crowe into the mix with Wright in the batting coach role with Wright coaching the openers and Martin Crowe being in charge of numbers 4 - 7. I think that a 3/4 pronged coaching line up similar to the defunct All Blacks coaching line up of the past 4 years would be quite effective within the New Zealand Cricket team as we can plainly see that Bracewell is INEPT! and there needs to be a greater influence from other high profile coaches such as Wright who have a proven track record unlike O'Neill. I also think Dayle Hadlee should step away from the bowlers and a new bowling coach implemented as the same coach does not always mean continual development and a change of perspective may be what is necessary for the Bowlers to continual to develop and possibly to decrease the amount of injuries occuring. Would love to see New Zealand Cricket use some the money gained out of the latest Television Rights go to head hunting a bowling coach from Australia who has a proven record of success ( which he likely will have due to the continual success of the Australian team).

Completely agree. I wonder why wright got a role at the high performance centre when he could right now be making a difference coaching our squads, particularly tests.

 

[armchairumpire]

Sorry to say this but you have to have the faith of Jesus or Buddha to believe in the Blackcaps

 

[Dick Rockett]

I don't mind New Zealand playing one-day cricket or 20/20 cricket, but I honestly think the time has come to relegate them to playing teams such as Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. New Zealand have played some awful cricket recently and they need to play against teams around their level.

It's pretty hard to gauge what "their level" is when they've only played, what, eight tests in two years?

 

[Fiery]

It's pretty hard to gauge what "their level" is when they've only played, what, eight tests in two years?

Welcome back 16 tins

 

[Macka]

I don't mind New Zealand playing one-day cricket or 20/20 cricket, but I honestly think the time has come to relegate them to playing teams such as Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. New Zealand have played some awful cricket recently and they need to play against teams around their level.

Shane Bond is the only player who makes me think they should still be allowed to play fantastic cricket teams like South Africa.

Relegate implies we'd actually play Tests. We've now played two Tests in 12 months. How is playing even worse teams going to help us rebuild our squad?

 

[TT Boy]

RSA 20/20 and ODI Squad...

Graeme Smith, Herschelle Gibbs, Jacques Kallis, AB de Villiers, JP Duminy, Mark Boucher, Shaun Pollock, Albie Mørkel, Vernon Philander, Johan Botha, Andre Nel, Charl Langeveldt, Makhaya Ntini, Dale Steyn and Morne van Wyk.

van Wyk is on standby for Gibbs, who suffered a knee injury in the second test. Justin Kemp has been dropped (for Dale Steyn) and JP Duminy will now be given his number five slot. Kempie is likely to be signing a Kolpak contract in the not to distant future and was a surprise inclusion for the Pakistan tour, where he was named vice-captain but unfortunately struggled with the bat.

And as yet no one knows why Johan Botha has been selected.

 

[Francis]

Relegate implies we'd actually play Tests. We've now played two Tests in 12 months. How is playing even worse teams going to help us rebuild our squad?

It's pretty hard to gauge what "their level" is when they've only played, what, eight tests in two years?

You both write about playing too few Tests. But by playing Tests against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe you can get more Tests and start to improve.

I don't think New Zealanders appreciate how terrible their team is to watch either. It's one thing to lose badly, which NZ do, but in order for countries to want to play you, they have to be convinced of your entertainment value. Aside from Shane Bond, there's not a lot that's enticing about watching NZ play cricket. I can't go half an hour watching an NZ game these days.

I mean what NZ are saying is no different to what Bangladesh players say in regard to teams like Australia and South Africa, they say "We need to play these teams to improve", but they don't improve. Right now New Zealand are no better a cricket side than Bangladesh. In order to have some entertaining competitive cricket it's best they start playing them.

 

[Athlai]

You both write about playing too few Tests. But by playing Tests against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe you can get more Tests and start to improve.

I don't think New Zealanders appreciate how terrible their team is to watch either. It's one thing to lose badly, which NZ do, but in order for countries to want to play you, they have to be convinced of your entertainment value. Aside from Shane Bond, there's not a lot that's enticing about watching NZ play cricket. I can't go half an hour watching an NZ game these days.

I mean what NZ are saying is no different to what Bangladesh players say in regard to teams like Australia and South Africa, they say "We need to play these teams to improve", but they don't improve. Right now New Zealand are no better a cricket side than Bangladesh. In order to have some entertaining competitive cricket it's best they start playing them.

I don't get all this, yeah we played **** but was SA that much better? Besides Amla and Kallis their batting was pretty much on par with the Kiwi's while if Bond remained uninjured and catches were held he would have been every bit as useful as Steyn. Martin also bowled superbly. Other than the complete utter garbage selection of O'Brien there was nothing that crap about the team. Of course we weren't favourites going into it, yet we actually had SA on the ropes for a while which is more than teams such as Bangladesh can say (usually).

This is a transition period and 2 Tests is hardly enough to judge how **** the team is, particularly considering all the injuries we unluckily have suffered.

 

[TT Boy]

I don't get all this, yeah we played **** but was SA that much better? Besides Amla and Kallis their batting was pretty much on par with the Kiwi's while if Bond remained uninjured and catches were held he would have been every bit as useful as Steyn. Martin also bowled superbly. Other than the complete utter garbage selection of O'Brien there was nothing that crap about the team. Of course we weren't favourites going into it, yet we actually had SA on the ropes for a while which is more than teams such as Bangladesh can say (usually).

This is a transition period and 2 Tests is hardly enough to judge how **** the team is, particularly considering all the injuries we unluckily have suffered.

RSA beat New Zealand in little over 180 overs, just more than two days worth of cricket. And the comment regarding the South African batsman is rather equivocal for RSA only needed their lower order to perform once (first innings of the first test), the rest of the time they went out to the crease for a glorified net and hit around. AB de Villiers had two hits all series, scored more runs than the majority of New Zealand batsman (who had four hits) and looked a different class throughout his innings whilst the Ross Taylor’s of this world struggled to score more runs than Andre Nel, who like AB only batted twice all series.

South Africa had one disappointing day all test series and yet they still managed to score 100 runs more than the New Zealanders did, who then had the better of the batting conditions. Suggesting New Zealand had them on the ropes aside from that first day is absurd, the test series was beyond one sided and it was laughable how much difference in class there was between the two sides.

 

[TT Boy]

RSA 20/20 and ODI Squad...

Graeme Smith, Herschelle Gibbs, Jacques Kallis, AB de Villiers, JP Duminy, Mark Boucher, Shaun Pollock, Albie Mørkel, Vernon Philander, Johan Botha, Andre Nel, Charl Langeveldt, Makhaya Ntini, Dale Steyn and Morne van Wyk.

van Wyk is on standby for Gibbs, who suffered a knee injury in the second test. Justin Kemp has been dropped (for Dale Steyn) and JP Duminy will now be given his number five slot. Kempie is likely to be signing a Kolpak contractin the not to distant future and was a surprise inclusion for the Pakistan tour, where he was named vice-captain but unfortunately struggled with the bat.

And as yet no one knows why Johan Botha has been selected.

Correction- Kempie has asked for his release from his national contract thus was unavailable for selection.