**Official** New Zealand in England

[BoyBrumby]

Fair play to Redmond; you'd have thought that's his test spot nailed-on. I've never seen the bloke play & his career figures are fairly ordinary but looks to have made a stride forward in 06/07 and backed it up in 07/08 (link).

If he works out as well as the last converted spinner to open for NZ he'll go ok.

 

[Richard]

Redmond has always been batsman much more than spinner, UIVMM. Certainly when he played over here in 1998 (18 months before his First-Class debut) he was so.

 

[Leslie1]

Flynn's best ever innings for NZ taking place at the moment - 7* (46)

Good man. Must have doubled his total number of runs for NZ in this knock.

Easy to forget Flynn's 39 for the century stand with Marshall's 128 in the previous Essex game.

Yes, now we have three batsmen up top who have scored some mean runs. Well played Redmond! Gotta say well picked to the selectors so far, seeing how they get sticks everytime a new team is named.

Good to see also Oram getting moderate scores of late (20s), just to show that he's not far from getting it all back. How and Taylor will come right in the tests. McCullum is a bit like Vettori at the moment, very reliable for certain scores with the odd one coming off, but more importantly, they are there to just bat to score runs quickly and also to put the bowlers off who otherwise might be having a great day bowling to batsmen who defends a lot. That seems to be their roles at the moment.

260 isn't a good score, but then again Lions' bowling attack isn't to be sneezed at with Hoggard and Tremlett.

 

[Athlai]

Good English bowling attack, add Sidebottom and you'd have one arguably better than what they toured here with. Really excellent to see Redmond secure his place and grind out a hundred, hopefully he can score a few more runs before Martin gets knocked over. Pretty happy with this effort as without Wrights lucky hundred we'd still be well on top.

 

[Bahnz]

Pity about McCullum's run out. It would've been nice for him to have a chance to build a really big, potentially match winning score, before he returned to test cricket. But given how he bats it was probably only a matter of time anyway. Great stuff from Redmond too. Now all of the new boys save Flynn (who looks certain to be selected anyway, given that he's played in all the matches ahead of Fulton) have managed some runs. Lets hope they can get some runs up for the tests.

 

[NZTailender]

Yesss! Redmond! Otago boy does good


Seriously, Flynn? I hope he doesn't play in the first test; but if he doesn't, Fulton probably will (which is overall good) but is bad because Fulton hasn't had a chance to get in form on this tour.

 

[Blakey]

260 isn't a good score, but then again Lions' bowling attack isn't to be sneezed at with Hoggard and Tremlett.

It's a crap score. If they scored that in a test match innings you would be pissed. Why not now? Really this gives greater vindication to slam their batting performance.

 

[_Ed_]

Only having 2 guys get past 30 is extremely disappointing. If it hadn't been for Redmond we'd be screwed.

 

[Leslie1]

Yesss! Redmond! Otago boy does good


Seriously, Flynn? I hope he doesn't play in the first test; but if he doesn't, Fulton probably will (which is overall good) but is bad because Fulton hasn't had a chance to get in form on this tour.

Fulton needs to play to sure up that order, if anything so that we don't end up with 2 debutants. Redmond has come right and ready, so Flynn should probably take a backseat. Having said that, I won't be surprised if the selectors let Flynn keep his spot if he can muster up some mid-range under par score (20s) in the 2nd turn at bat in this game.

How crucial is Vettori's injury coming right? The lower order batting doesn't quite have the same stickability without him there.

How true is this statement?

Blunting the ball with 'controlled aggression' batting at the top so the middle order can prosper. As opposed to stagnating to 1 per over run rate.

 

[superkingdave]

So it looks like the side for England might be

Strauss
Cook
Vaughan
Pieterson
Shah/Collingwood
Bell
Ambrose
Flintoff
Broad
Sidebottom
Panesar/Anderson

Nice batting depth, Panesar probably will play but we should really just decide once we see the pitch. Hoggard was apparently(despite late enhancement to his figures) outbowled by Onions, and if thats the case he shouldn't be involved. All 4 of the seamers have had decent starts to the season (Broad 9@24.33, Sidebottom 8@22.62, Flintoff 10@16.70, Anderson 15@10.33 ) whilst Panesar has been approaching dire. Many won't want Anderson in the side, and i probably wouldn't vehemently disagree, but the fact he was the incumbent and has had a very good start to the season means he will surely be in the squad.

Collingwood is doubtful due to injury last i hear, and the form he's in I'm not going to be unduly perturbed if he misses out. Shah would be much better batting higher up but then 5 is probably the highest he can expect to bat...but don't be overly surprised if in the even of Collingwood missing out we see Ravinder Bopara recalled

 

[gettingbetter]

Colly is injured? Well if he is, it will interesting to see who will be selected. Shah has in his favour the fact that Bopara failed, but thus far, Bopara has had the better season (probably the best bat in CC), I think he has passed 50 in all his innings bar 2.

 

[Flem274*]

Don't want Flynn debuting at Lords. I'd quite like a line up of:

Redmond
How
Marshall *winces*
Fulton
Taylor
Oram
McCullum
Vettori
Southee
Mills
Martin

That line up could collapse in a heap quite rapidly. However, comprimising Taylor by moving him up and playing another debutant (and an unproven FC cricketer at that) is suicide.

Guess which one the selectors would like to pick?

 

[Natman20]

Redmond has always been batsman much more than spinner, UIVMM. Certainly when he played over here in 1998 (18 months before his First-Class debut) he was so.

I disagree. I remember a certain period where his spinning was very highly valued and his batting was not that great, he was a definate all-rounder. I remember one season recently where his bowling had improved a lot. Now it seems to have taken the back stage and his batting is more important. I think he may turn out to be like another Cumming but he has shown some sort of form coming into the next match. Lets hope he goes on to score big runs and take many wickets at the same time. A part time spinner never hurt anyone. The new Smith, Gayle or Jayasaria.

EDIT: After checking the stats I am mistaken. It has been about the same number of balls and wickets over the period since 1999. His average rarely went below 40 in any of those seasons but I guess that is understandable in NZ conditions. I did seriously think though that he was used more than what he has been in first class cricket. Maybe its list a that I am thinking of .... will check.

 

[Richard]

It's a crap score. If they scored that in a test match innings you would be pissed. Why not now? Really this gives greater vindication to slam their batting performance.

Depending on how the wicket's playing - not neccessarily. 260 can be a decent score on a seam-friendly wicket, which it does seem we have here.

It's just at the current time with the relative dearth of seaming wickets recently we've forgotten this and expect 400 every time.

 

[Richard]

So it looks like the side for England might be

Strauss
Cook
Vaughan
Pieterson
Shah/Collingwood
Bell
Ambrose
Flintoff
Broad
Sidebottom
Panesar/Anderson

Nice batting depth, Panesar probably will play but we should really just decide once we see the pitch. Hoggard was apparently(despite late enhancement to his figures) outbowled by Onions, and if thats the case he shouldn't be involved. All 4 of the seamers have had decent starts to the season (Broad 9@24.33, Sidebottom 8@22.62, Flintoff 10@16.70, Anderson 15@10.33 ) whilst Panesar has been approaching dire. Many won't want Anderson in the side, and i probably wouldn't vehemently disagree, but the fact he was the incumbent and has had a very good start to the season means he will surely be in the squad.

Collingwood is doubtful due to injury last i hear, and the form he's in I'm not going to be unduly perturbed if he misses out. Shah would be much better batting higher up but then 5 is probably the highest he can expect to bat...but don't be overly surprised if in the even of Collingwood missing out we see Ravinder Bopara recalled

If Bopara plays ahead of Shah again I really will very seriously consider firebombing ECB offices (aiming of course for the selection committee rooms). That'd be beyond stupidity.

I agree with what you say about Anderson, incidentally - have said since the last Test in NZ that it'd take a poor start to the season for him to even be considered to be left-out. Nonetheless, even as much as I expect MSP to be totally ineffective, provided NZ play him properly, I'd still prefer MSP to Anderson. Unless the pitch is an out-and-out greentop, which recent Lord's history suggests is something fairly close to unthinkable.

Don't know whether I'd really suggest Hoggard should be left-out on the basis of being (marginally, at best) outbowled by Graham Onions in a single innings, however. Let's see what happens in the second dig at the very least.

 

[_Ed_]

Depending on how the wicket's playing - not neccessarily. 260 can be a decent score on a seam-friendly wicket, which it does seem we have here.

But we are still likely to face a deficit against what is essentially England's second XI.

 

[Richard]

Yep - because you dropped Luke Wright.

If you'd caught your catches, you'd now have a big first-innings lead (in all likelihood).

 

[_Ed_]

Maybe so, but apparently Redmond was put down on 97 as well.

 

[GIMH]

So it looks like the side for England might be

Strauss
Cook
Vaughan
Pieterson
Shah/Collingwood
Bell
Ambrose
Flintoff
Broad
Sidebottom
Panesar/Anderson

Nice batting depth, Panesar probably will play but we should really just decide once we see the pitch. Hoggard was apparently(despite late enhancement to his figures) outbowled by Onions, and if thats the case he shouldn't be involved. All 4 of the seamers have had decent starts to the season (Broad 9@24.33, Sidebottom 8@22.62, Flintoff 10@16.70, Anderson 15@10.33 ) whilst Panesar has been approaching dire. Many won't want Anderson in the side, and i probably wouldn't vehemently disagree, but the fact he was the incumbent and has had a very good start to the season means he will surely be in the squad.

Collingwood is doubtful due to injury last i hear, and the form he's in I'm not going to be unduly perturbed if he misses out. Shah would be much better batting higher up but then 5 is probably the highest he can expect to bat...but don't be overly surprised if in the even of Collingwood missing out we see Ravinder Bopara recalled

Yeah I agree pretty much with that side, except I imagine Bell would bat at 5 and Colly or whoever replaces him at 6, and Flintoff ahead of Ambrose. Anderson is in some good form domestically, if Flintoff wasn't coming back I think he would keep his place.

 

[Richard]

Maybe so, but apparently Redmond was put down on 97 as well.

Indeed, and that'll make a difference, but his innings was still a damn sight better than Wright's (whose let-offs came early, did they not?)