**Official** New Zealand in England

[Richard]

Easily forgotten in this frenzied current time, but 48 for 0 at Lunch is an excellent start.

 

[Richard]

You've also got Denly, who has admittedly had a terrible start to the season, and the likes of Finn and Harris in the bowling ranks, but all of them are still very young and relatively unproven. Denly hasn't done particularly well in the England A games that he's played which suggests it was a step too soon for him.

Yep, and I hope they might've learnt their lessons with Denly and applied them to Godleman. Never like to see someone playing for England A after their first season.

With any luck, Denly's 2008 might go in contrast to his 2007, where he started exceptionally then ran-out of steam towards the end.

He remains one of the more promising batsmen at the current time. I have still yet to watch him, however.

 

[Goughy]

Easily forgotten in this frenzied current time, but 48 for 0 at Lunch is an excellent start.

Its an ok start. Neither side has an advantage (ie 1 bad over and Lions are in a mess) so I couldnt term it excellent.

 

[GIMH]

Aye, a RR of 1.65 you really have to back yourself to stay in if you're going to score that slowly

 

[Richard]

Its an ok start. Neither side has an advantage (ie 1 bad over and Lions are in a mess) so I couldnt term it excellent.

Yeah, true, maybe not excellent, but too many people would dismiss it as not fast enough scoring.

 

[Richard]

Carberry just struck two fours off Jeeves.

This upped the run rate by 25 %.

Oram's 5 overs for 0 is ruined, also, by 6 coming from his 6th.

 

[gettingbetter]

Carberry reaches his ton...in balls faced, scoring 24 with that.

Can of the English domestic fans tell me why (Samit) Patel hasn't been given much press? Just older than Bopara, has averaged more than him (about 5 runs more), plays first division and has been through all the England junior teams. I'm not sure if he has been in a Lions/A team yet, but he certainly should be in amongst those who are there.

This is mainly in regards to the young batsmen talk. Patel > Goodleman/Denly and at least = with Bopara.

Shah falls.

 

[wpdavid]

Key, Shah & Bopara making life easier for the selectors over the next few weeks ...

 

[Goughy]

Easily forgotten in this frenzied current time, but 48 for 0 at Lunch is an excellent start.

Just to prove my point I mentioned. Being 68-3 is poor so I wouldnt say 48-0 is excellent as the position is still potentially dangerous.

 

[Richard]

Can of the English domestic fans tell me why (Samit) Patel hasn't been given much press? Just older than Bopara, has averaged more than him (about 5 runs more), plays first division and has been through all the England junior teams. I'm not sure if he has been in a Lions/A team yet, but he certainly should be in amongst those who are there.

This is mainly in regards to the young batsmen talk. Patel > Goodleman/Denly and at least = with Bopara.

Denly and Godleman are quite a bit younger in playing terms than Patel. Neither are players who should be anywhere remotely near the England team any time soon, just players of promise. Both have been around for barely more than a season. Patel has been around for ages and ages now - first played for Notts' second-team as far back as 1999. And while he did indeed have a good time in 2006, it was barely half a season. 2007 was the first time he'd had a full season of excellent performance. And he, like Ed Joyce, has started poorly this year.

He's obviously a better batsman than Luke Wright, but I don't think he even comes close to Joyce in "deserves selection" terms. Younger, obviously, by quite a bit, but not anywhere near with the case at the current time. Joyce has been rather unfortunate, just like his team-mate Shah. Bopara's usurping of both was exceptionally poor selection.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Hmm Hoggard hitting 28 off 38 balls and Wright getting a rapid century. NZ's innings should be interesting.

 

[Richard]

BTW, for some people it might be worth noting, when I say above "Wright is crap" this DOES NOT translate as "he won't be scoring any runs in this game"!!!!!

Probably worth reiterating. Wright remains crap despite this innings.

 

[andruid]

Probably worth reiterating. Wright remains crap despite this innings.

Just what would Wright have to do to cease being crap?

 

[Richard]

I doubt it's possible. Certainly I won't be changing my thoughts until the next time I see him bat.

And when I do, I shall be very surprised if anything has changed. If it has, full credit to him, but he has never looked to me to be a player who could go from lacking class to having it. Virtually no-one can.

 

[Prince EWS]

Just what would Wright have to do to cease being crap?

Scoring more runs consistently would do it. He had several poor seasons in a row to start his career and then finally put it together to justify his selection for Sussex. There's a large gap between justifying your CC selection and making the England A team though - or at least there should be.

The worst part of all this is the fact that he doesn't even look good at the crease. It's one thing to look a technical mess at the crease if you churn out the runs by the bucketload, but he has a poor technique and a poor record. All he's shown so far is an somewhat extended purple patch with the bat - let's not even start with his bowling.

It feels slightly wrong to be so scathing on the guy on the day he scores a quickfire century against an international attack after coming in with his team having just bought prime real estate on Struggle Street, but the fact that he's seemingly so close to the England side makes no sense to me at all. It's not like they needed him as a fifth bowling option either (which would be slightly more understandable, albeit still very much insane) with Rashid in the team at #7 and Bopara in the top order.

Well done on what appears to have been a top innings, Luke, but you had less of a case for selection in the game than half the batsmen in the CC.

 

[Bahnz]

Something really needs to be done about our fielding. Three simple chances put down (one by Jamie How of all people) in three games, all costing us big runs. This team is so inexperienced and (for a large part) mediocre that all chances simply must be taken if we're to have a hope of doing something in this series.

It's funny, everyone bemoaned the loss of Fleming, Astle and Styris for the damage it caused to our batting lineup, yet only now is it becoming clear that even greater harm my have been done to our fielding stocks.

 

[Leslie1]

Harsh words on Wright considering he just saved his side's beacon.

Who gets the feeling that this series will be a lot closer than what the pundits think? I think it'll be similar to the test series in New Zealand, a 2-1 to England. The batting hasn't changed much, New Zealand still has jury out on the batting spots occupied by their predecessors, Redmond for Bell and Marshall for Sinclair. Fleming replaced effectively by Taylor with Taylor's spot by the 'hasn't proven anything' Flynn.

Redmond and Flynn test debuts on foreign soil = Bell and Sinclair's form in the last series

Martin and Mills, who won us the first test and if it weren't for Gillespie's costly fumbles in the 2nd test and Mills' absence in the 3rd, we could have done well to win. Gillespie replaced by "great test debut" Southee, which is completely offset by the arrival of Flintoff settling back into the English lineup.

Sidebottom won't have lost his purple patch, been only a short time between playing the same opposition again.

Needless to say, England will be expected to win handsomely (the press will ensure this turns into a heavy burden), and NZ bolstered by the fact that they have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Hoping like hell we do NOT collapse in the second innings batting, or second innings full stop after bowling well to get the opposition out in the first.

English batsmen haven't been setting any huge totals for us to chase unless it's second time batting, in which case we still make a relatively good fist of it. We have to stop conceding the lack of batting applications to the English bowlers.

 

[Blakey]

Leslie,

Whenever, I read people’s posts and come across yours, my peripheral vision leads me to think there is a strange pink brain helmet sitting to the left of screen. Quite disturbing.

Also care to spell “gitis” out phonetically. If there was no “g” there then I may understand the suffix a little better, and thus not be so put off by your attempt to coin a phrase for a symptom which has been prevalent in NZ test teams for years.

 

[gettingbetter]

Denly and Godleman are quite a bit younger in playing terms than Patel. Neither are players who should be anywhere remotely near the England team any time soon, just players of promise. Both have been around for barely more than a season. Patel has been around for ages and ages now - first played for Notts' second-team as far back as 1999. And while he did indeed have a good time in 2006, it was barely half a season. 2007 was the first time he'd had a full season of excellent performance. And he, like Ed Joyce, has started poorly this year.

He's obviously a better batsman than Luke Wright, but I don't think he even comes close to Joyce in "deserves selection" terms. Younger, obviously, by quite a bit, but not anywhere near with the case at the current time. Joyce has been rather unfortunate, just like his team-mate Shah. Bopara's usurping of both was exceptionally poor selection.

Sure Goodleman is a fair biit younger, but Denly is probably just 18 months younger than Patel. I don't know how you can blame him for having half a good season, what else can he do? Either way, you must admit, he is taking steps in the right direction. This just leads me to Watson, who for the last two seasons hasn't done anything of note, averaging less than 40 in both and 3 seasons ago, he only played 3 games, one including the final on a road of a pitch where he scored 200. And you still champion him?

 

[Flem274*]

Hope we score big runs tonight.