**Official** New Zealand in England

[Leslie1]

Man IF only this tour match is the first test!

Especially because James Marshall and Daniel Flynn combined for the century partnership. And we are winning without relying heavily on our 5 IPL players to play out of their skins.

One can always wish.


EDIT: Athlai you get your wish, Taylor is in at 3 right now.

How bizarre is this, I keep hitting refresh to find that (what was previously stated as) AJ Redmond has suddenly become J Marshall who's opening and gone out for 12. Now I'm seeing McCullum at 4 playing like 20 20, and Taylor at 3. Where is Redmond?

 

[sportychic33]

Man IF only this tour match is the first test!

Especially because James Marshall and Daniel Flynn combined for the century partnership. And we are winning without relying heavily on our 5 IPL players to play out of their skins.

One can always wish.


EDIT: Athlai you get your wish, Taylor is in at 3 right now.

How bizarre is this, I keep hitting refresh to find that (what was previously stated as) AJ Redmond has suddenly become J Marshall who's opening and gone out for 12. Now I'm seeing McCullum at 4 playing like 20 20, and Taylor at 3. Where is Redmond?

Redmond, if you go to Blackcaps.co.nz and read his player diary didn't field yesterday thus he can not bat until number 7.
He spiked himself - clever.

 

[sportychic33]

Man IF only this tour match is the first test!

Especially because James Marshall and Daniel Flynn combined for the century partnership. And we are winning without relying heavily on our 5 IPL players to play out of their skins.

One can always wish.


EDIT: Athlai you get your wish, Taylor is in at 3 right now.

We are winning? You can not determine a team has won or not until the game is finished or in the closing stages.


How bizarre is this, I keep hitting refresh to find that (what was previously stated as) AJ Redmond has suddenly become J Marshall who's opening and gone out for 12. Now I'm seeing McCullum at 4 playing like 20 20, and Taylor at 3. Where is Redmond?

We are winning? You can not determine a team has won or not until the game is finished or in the closing stages.

 

[Flem274*]

Haha, Redmond avoiding the new ball, clever.

 

[Leslie1]

Or it could be a blessing in disguise with McCullum batting at 4. Going great guns at the moment. Has wicket keeping + number 4 batting ever been done before in tests? Actually Sanggakara might be doing that for Sri Lanka? (edit)

Judging by how they rotated the batting order, it seems like James Marshall might be the backup opener this series, leaving no room for Gareth Hopkins, unless McCullum decides to bat higher than 5. Hope Oram get some runs, please get some runs. At least don't get out until he's spent time in the middle. Fulton out of form is bad enough, we don't need another classy batsman out of touch.

Possible lineup for Lions:

J How
AJ Redmond
R Taylor
B McCullum
P Fulton
J Oram
G Hopkins (wk)
D Patel (Vettori injured)
T Southee
K Mills
C Martin

 

[Bahnz]

And Taylor goes! Silly really, he's not a number 3 (barely a number 4 at this stage), and shouldn't be mucked about with, but it's only a tour match I suppose. This situation is developing a distinctly sticky feel.

 

[Leslie1]

If Flynn goes out now without scoring a 50 I'm changing my avatar and clean out my signature about Vettori.

It's starting to get irritating, but we seem to have a knack of batting collapse in the 2nd innings. I'm hoping this is not one of them.

 

[_Ed_]

What's going to happen when RTD gets a bowl?

 

[Halfpast_Yellow]

Judging by how they rotated the batting order, it seems like James Marshall might be the backup opener this series, leaving no room for Gareth Hopkins, unless McCullum decides to bat higher than 5.

McCullum won't keep and open in the same test so the logical thing happened here. If Redmond (or how) went out injured in between tests then perhaps you would see Hopkins come in and McCullum up the order as backup opener.

 

[Leslie1]

If that's the case should Hopkins be playing in the Lions' game in the name of rotation? Or do we just play our strongest lineup, one that will feature in the first test?

And McCullum....

 

[_Ed_]

I hope we play our strongest lineup...looks like we need the practise. McCullum gone after a typical quick 30-odd, 63/4.

 

[Halfpast_Yellow]

Great job Brendon you sure showed a quick adjustment from T20 cricket. Nice to see that wonderful counter-attacking aggressive batting after a top order collapse worked so well again

 

[Leslie1]

He's either going to be absolutely brilliant in this test series or he will leave most of us shaking our heads by the end of it I'm sure. No room for hard graft for this man.

 

[Halfpast_Yellow]

If that's the case should Hopkins be playing in the Lions' game in the name of rotation? Or do we just play our strongest lineup, one that will feature in the first test?

And McCullum....

Don't know. I'm glad I'm not in charge of those decisions

TBH I wouldn't like to think on how effective McCullum opening in tests would be. If I were to hedge a bet I would say 'not very'.

 

[sportychic33]

Brendon McCullum has a lot to learn about his game before it can be justified for him to move up the order from number 7.

 

[Bahnz]

To be fair, none of us have the slightest clue about how he got out. If we went slashing at a wide one, or trying to hoik one over midwicket, then fair enough. But if he was undone by a beauty whilst playing a defensive shot, then it's kind of a different scenario.

EDIT: at a second glance, it turns out he was dismissed by Bopara, which kind of puts paid to my "dismissed by a beauty" theory.

 

[sportychic33]

To be fair, none of us have the slightest clue about how he got out. If we went slashing at a wide one, or trying to hoik one over midwicket, then fair enough. But if he was undone by a beauty whilst playing a defensive shot, then it's kind of a different scenario.

True, however based on how he played during the England Test Series, I am not keen on him moving up the order. He has to show application and be able to know when to attack and when to defend.

 

[_Ed_]

That's true. Where does Gallian usually field?

The fact that the bowler was Bopara doesn't fill me with confidence that it was a great ball.

 

[Halfpast_Yellow]

To be fair, none of us have the slightest clue about how he got out. If we went slashing at a wide one, or trying to hoik one over midwicket, then fair enough. But if he was undone by a beauty whilst playing a defensive shot, then it's kind of a different scenario.

True. Out in Bopara's first over.

 

[Richard]

Has wicket keeping + number 4 batting ever been done before in tests?

Many people have done it short-term (ie, the odd innings at a time). Not a great number have done it consistently over a lengthy-ish period of time (say, a year) though - not even Sangakkara, who preferred to bat three. And even though he kept more than he did not keep between 2000/01 and 2006, there were at least 3 spells where he discarded the gloves, though none lasted very long.

Alec Stewart is the only one who immediately comes to mind who's batted four and kept wicket over a lengthy period, but I'm sure he's not the only one.