As Fleming said, we can't bat for ****.
How = rubbish
Redmond = rubbish
Ryder = dumb fat prick
Taylor = terrible umpiring decision...compounded by the fact he's the best player of spin in the team
McCullum = worst shot in the history of test cricket
Flynn = doesnt know what ball to play what shot to...rubbish
Oram = rubbish
Vettori = legend, best batsman in the team
Mills = TERRIBLE umpiring decision...missed the ball by about 6 inches and given caught behind
Patel = blinding catch...should have hit the ball along the ground
O'Brien = yet to bat...but in for some abuse if he doesnt last atleast 30 balls
You're a god damn joke. You and all the other Kiwi fans who give up when we perform poorly. I know this is ridiculous but come on. Voltman's rant was one of the worst as well.
We've performed extremely poorly, and we need to take a good hard look at ourselves. There's been various problems in NZ cricket for a while now, from the coach being a complete douchefag, ****ty selection policies, the handling of Bond and mismanagement of players in general.
Sometimes you can only genuinely make a change and improvement once you've hit rock bottom. I think we're hitting bottom in this tour, first losing the ODI, the generally **** batting efforts and this test.
It looked as though we were heading in the right direction in both England series. We lost them both but there were at least positives.
Our bowling is sorted, and not the problem. However our fielding has been declining for a while now, after we could claim to be one of the best in the world in that discipline.
The shot selection and technique of our batsman has been atrocious though, for some time. Nearly all the team can be guilty of that.
First change needs to be Bracewell. It's going to happen soon but I wish it was sooner. ****s been ****ing the team over for a while.
Get new/more/better batting coaches. Seems the Bracewell disease of concentrating on ODI cricket has spread and now we don't know how to bat in the long form.
Get a new fielding coach, or rehire the one we had a while ago. Disgraceful.
Re-organise the batting line up. it looks like a patchwork quilt with McCullum at 5, Flynn six, Ryder 3. McCullum's test batting has been a deadset bad joke and an embarrassment in world cricket - I currently rate him as the worst keeper-batsman in test cricket, which is reflected by him being (again, IMO) the second best ODI keeper-bat at the moment. He simply doesn't deserve to be as high up in the order as he is, until he learns how to bat properly in the long format.
Ryder still doesn't strike me as a number three. He's a talented stroke player and would be best suited to be in the more traditionally counter-attacking position of number 5. Plus he's a fat **** and we need someone coming in at 3 who can stay in there for a long period of time.
Flynn impressed me in England with a bit of grit, but he's surely lost any credit he had in the bank. Send him back to domestic cricket and give him more batting coaching. Simply not good enough IMO.
Redmond continues to unsettle me slightly. I really do rate him, and apart from Vettori I think he made the best effort of anyone in this innings to try and settle in and make some runs. I really hope he makes a big score in the second innings and second test, much better player than all his innings suggest, but it's getting harder and harder to justify that.
Think we should bring Fulton back at number 3 and try Ryder at 5 for Australia.
Imo:
Redmond
How
Fulton
Taylor
Ryder
Oram
McCullum
Vettori
Mills
Southee
Martin/O'Brien
And please, all you Kiwi's who are rubbishing the team and removing your support of the team gtfo of this thread if you're serious about it. We have the worst fans by far of all cricketing nations.