**Official** England in New Zealand

[_Ed_]

Southee is quite the legend.

 

[KiWiNiNjA]

Southee!!!!!!!!

You little beauty.

 

[Shaggy Alfresco]

Tim Southee: 400 test wickets?

 

[Retox]

Tim Southee: 400 test wickets?

WOAH Nellie slow down.

 

[_Ed_]

Nah, 800 IMO.

 

[Shaggy Alfresco]

Nah, 800 IMO.

I would agree, but I had to factor in the career-ending ankle injury he's bound to get at the age of 26.

 

[_Ed_]

Ah, but I expect that by that time he will have become such a national hero that there will be thousands of devoted fans offering to swap ankles with him in an elaborate surgical procedure.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

Tim Southee: 400 test wickets?

He'll be off to ICL before he makes 50

 

[Craig]

Ah, but I expect that by that time he will have become such a national hero that there will be thousands of devoted fans offering to swap ankles with him in an elaborate surgical procedure.

Are you putting your best ankle forward?

He'll be off to ICL before he makes 50

Your going to hell.

 

[Goughy]

I only saw the 1st session, so waking up to see that KP tonned up is great news.
Looks a top innings on paper given the circumstances. How well did he and Broad bat in reality?

 

[Bahnz]

Broad was pretty lucky, more than half his runs came off the edge of the bat. But he still batted comfortably better than any other English batsman besides Pietersen.

Southee really was very impressive. Felt bad for Martin though, he hasn't had a lot of luck this series, and he deserved at least 2 or 3 today.

 

[Flem274*]

Surprising days play. I think most of us expected (myself included) Napier to be a big fat draw. Hopefully with play going so fast we'll get a result.

Tim Southee has shown that he has it though Goughys post on his action terrified me (sounds like at some point we'll be getting Harmison/Anderson accuracy with Flintoff ankle durability). So management should keep that in mind (chuck that on a tui sign). At 19 I doubt he's fully grown either which is both good and bad. The good is he can get faster, the bad is growing athletes are generally more injury prone than those who are fully mature and in prime condition.

What I love so far is all the young players have contributed, the only failures are the old buggers in Sinclair and Bell.

Also when all our bowlers are fully fit (more tui sign material) we'll get to choose from:

Mills
Martin
Franklin
Southee
Vettori
Patel
Oram
Mason
Gillespie
Elliot
O'Brien

Thats decent depth.

So far this season all the punts based on pure potential have come off. McCullum opening, Ryder, Southee. At this rate we'll see Sherlock debut next summer.

Loved Pietersens hundy, about time. Regardless of the pitch it was an excellent knock under pressure.

Can't wait for play to start tommorrow. I want to see Sidebottom bowl and How and Fleming bat.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Something of a recovery from the depths of 4/3 I suppose. I got back from the pub with the score at about 56/4 & sort of watched/dozed until the noise for Collingwood's dismissal woke up and I ajourned to bed. It'll be interesting to see the highlights later, but thank god for KP.

What's more, how many other South Africans have qualified via residency full-stop for teams other than England? Kepler Wessels (Australia) is the only other 1 that comes immediately to my mind.

He's the only one I know of, although Eddo Brandes, Mark Burmester & Andy Flower are all SA-born, Zimbabwe/Rhodesia-raised.

 

[Goughy]

Tim Southee has shown that he has it though Goughys post on his action terrified me (sounds like at some point we'll be getting Harmison/Anderson accuracy with Flintoff ankle durability). So management should keep that in mind (chuck that on a tui sign). At 19 I doubt he's fully grown either which is both good and bad. The good is he can get faster, the bad is growing athletes are generally more injury prone than those who are fully mature and in prime condition.
.

I wouldnt be too worried. The ankle issue will be similar to Flintoff. But the potential accuracy issues are not the same as Harmison and Anderson. Harmison has to force the ball away from where his action wants to take it and Anderson doesnt look and drags his head down.

Southee has neither of these issues. His potential reason for inaccuracy , despite vastly different actions, is more like Malinga. Due to the body rotation, he only has a small window in which to release the ball for it to be accurate. Early and it will be full on leg and late it will be shortish out side off. When he doesnt release it at the perfect time he will lose both line and length. Compare that to a McGrath who is very straight in his action and when the release is early or late only varies in length.

Obviously the key is how oftten will this happen. He could have his action near perfect and have the release point groomed to hardly ever stray out of it. Or this inconsistency of release point maybe common. Ive not seen enough of him to know. However, when he hits some bad form he will spray it around and the release point will be the reason. Patience is all thats needed. He will just need to get his groove back.

There are things that could be improved, but it may be getting greedy. Id hate to change much with him now as there is always a risk of completely ****ing a bowler up by making changes. He is capable og swinging the ball around at 135 with decent accuracy when on form. Im not sure it would be worth risking losing all that for small gains here and there.

 

[Manee]

Compare that to a McGrath who is very straight in his action and when the release is early or late only varies in length.

I have noticed that Mcgrath's loose ball (especially in ODIs) used to be a half volley quite far outside off, what caused this? Is it the dropping of the bowling arm to a rounder position due to fatigue?

 

[tooextracool]

Is Strauss to be 2007\08's Ramprakash (circa 2001\02)?

Surely unless he gets 150 in the second-innings he should never play Test-cricket again?

Surely too provided Vaughan doesn't, Key must come in for the opening Test of the summer to open the batting?

Except that Mark Ramprakash was a player who always had the potential to succeed at the test match level, but simply lacked the temperament(for the most part). Strauss is simply rubbish in every aspect you can think off and his dismissal today highlighted his new mission of 'driving at deliveries at the start of his innings' despite his shoddy technique. Finally Owais Shah will get an extended run this summer. One does hope that whether or not Strauss scores 50, 100 or 200 in the next innings, that it is still his final innings at the test match level.
Key or some other opener needs to come in for the summer, that is a given IMO. Vaughan, the way he has been batting should probably not bat anywhere above 4 IMO, given that he has found ways to make every delivery hes been dismissed to look like they came out of Curtley Ambrose's hand.
As far as the rest of the other is concerned, Cook has some serious technical issues. While I dont think he should be dropped, he really needs to work his technique seriously because one cant see him scoring runs based solely on concentration at the test match level. Hes had problems against the inswinger/playing around his front pad in the past and he also plays away from his body and with hard hands.
Im convinced that one of Ian Bell or Paul Collingwood(probably the former) need to be given a bit of time on the sidelines as well. Both players have been incapable of getting to 100s in recent times, Bell in particular is notorious for this, having only scored one test match 100 against a capable test match attack and at some point one has to realize that it is unacceptable at the test match level.
My batting order for the summer would be something along these lines:

Key
Cook
Shah
Vaughan
Pietersen
Ramprakash/Collingwood
Ambrose

 

[tooextracool]

I am quite worried. I think NZ have problems cleaning up the tail quite often. They either have to strike or else i think 350 - 400 is a real possibility.

I really doubt that Anderson, Panesar and Sidebottom are going to put up too much of a struggle. If they manage to put up another 150 between them I'll be quite happy to have egg on my face.

 

[Richard]

Except that Mark Ramprakash was a player who always had the potential to succeed at the test match level, but simply lacked the temperament(for the most part). Strauss is simply rubbish in every aspect you can think off and his dismissal today highlighted his new mission of 'driving at deliveries at the start of his innings' despite his shoddy technique. Finally Owais Shah will get an extended run this summer. One does hope that whether or not Strauss scores 50, 100 or 200 in the next innings, that it is still his final innings at the test match level.

Only comparison I was making, TBH, was that they were players who'd had lengthy-ish spells in the side (Ramprakash 1997-2002, even though he'd been dropped twice in that time; Strauss 2004-2008) but are now appearing set to make a sad exit after a tour of New Zealand.

 

[chalky]

Interesting to listen to David Gower discussing England's next batsmen in line for selection & that he would go with Key ahead of Shah. He thought Shah had technical issues scoring on the off side & would be worked out at test level.

 

[Richard]

Tim Southee: 400 test wickets?

Nah, 800 IMO.

We all know no-one wise makes serious predictions along those lines, but there's no question this has so far been one hell of an impressive debut for a 19-year-old seam-bowler. I can't remember seeing one so young come in and bowl so well on debut. Other signs are all promising so far too (17 wickets at 6 in the u19 WC or whatever it was; good start to the First-Class career) so with any look he will indeed have a long, highly prosperous career.

Just has to avoid injury and ICLs now, methinks. Bad form-slumps can hit anyone at any time, of course, but barring that he's in for a hell of a career.