***Official*** New Zealand in Australia 2011

[Prince EWS]

I was trolling. But carry on.

fair enough. I'm legitimately surprised he wasn't picked tbh. Not that I would have picked him.

 

[Spikey]

Marsh isn't bowling right now. Neither is Moz for that matter. Christian and McDonald were about the only options. eg so why pick an all rounder

 

[Top_Cat]

Think the rationale will be that the Aussies are missing a bloke who can bowl dry when the shine's off the ball. Until the ban on picking Vic batsmen is lifted, Christian was it, really.

 

[Riggins]

"We suck against pace and bounce -> bring in T Mac."

Um...

Also, he's not scoring any runs this season. Would be a poor pick.

Who cares he's a legend. The team's **** anyway may as well bring in someone to get gassed with fatty ryder.

Bringing back TMac is so crazy it just might work.

Crazy like a fox.

 

[Ruckus]

We'll see.

What I think should be done with him is bat him at 4 and bowl him as much as the team needs. Without the bowling he's done enough to hold his place in the short term, but how long that is so will depend entirely on how many runs he makes compared to the alternatives. As Spark said, it would need to be a lot more than he has this year.

If you assume Watson won't be able to really hold his own as a batsman, and his injury problems aren't going to get worse with heaps of bowling (I doubt either of those things will be true though tbh), it would actually be pretty awesome if he could be the 3rd pace option and you could play another batsman. You could have bowlers like Cummins and Pattinson taking the new ball, with Watson bowling the middle overs and keeping things nice and tight + have the added benefit of knowing your gonna have proper batsmen all the way up to 8.

A mere pipe dream, but it would be kind of cool.

 

[DIRK-NANNES]

the nz selectors said prior to the series they were always going to be adding an extra seamer to the squad, mckay was pinned to be that seamer but average performances probably squeezed arnel in ahead.
imo, nothing to be getting worked up about.

 

[adub]

If you assume Watson won't be able to really hold his own as a batsman, and his injury problems aren't going to get worse with heaps of bowling (I doubt either of those things will be true though tbh), it would actually be pretty awesome if he could be the 3rd pace option and you could play another batsman. You could have bowlers like Cummins and Pattinson taking the new ball, with Watson bowling the middle overs and keeping things nice and tight + have the added benefit of knowing your gonna have proper batsmen all the way up to 8.

A mere pipe dream, but it would be kind of cool.

Yeah if both assumptions hold true. Big if though.

For mine though I think you'd try and have him no lower than 7 even in the case that his batting can't justify a top 6 spot and your have a keeper good enough to hold down 6 (I think Wade could do it). Would still look a very thin to me with the two real youngsters and no 5th option. I don't think it would come to that. Even averaging mid 30s you'd persevere with Watson in the top 6 so long as his bowling is anything like the quality he's produced since he's dropped the pace back and let it swing.

My fantasy attack for the next Ashes would be Cummins, Pattinson, Hazelwood, Watson, Lyon/O'Keefe. If the young ones come up like the good judges hope then that will be very exciting to watch. Doubly so if they can get the Dukes to talk.

 

[Days of Grace]

No I don't believe Southee's in danger either. I could only listen on the radio when he was bowling early in the first innings but the commentators were saying he bowled fairly well. Bowled decently on the third morning and then dished up a bit of rubbish later in the day.

I think the rubbish was due to him being stiff and sore from his efforts earlier in the day. Let's not forget that he is coming back from injury.

 

[straw man]

I think the rubbish was due to him being stiff and sore from his efforts earlier in the day. Let's not forget that he is coming back from injury.

Yes it certainly seemed like fitness was letting him down - whether that's due to the injury layoff or not I don't know. Anyway our bowlers were not the problem. Barring that incredibly costly Bracewell no-ball they performed creditably and if we could catch, our perceptions today might even be that they had performed well.

It's all so familiar. I can't resist quoting me from page 2 of this thread.

On paper our batting looks stronger than it has for a while and bowling looks weaker. However my pick is that we will revert to the regular pattern; batsmen will flatter to deceive while bowlers will toil away and perform better than expected.

 

[SteveNZ]

He is a wicket taker. He has taken wickets.

That said he won't play.

He's a domestic wicket-taker. We've had a preview of how Arnel would go - he played Australia two seasons ago. He was passable. Nothing more.

It's absolutely unneccesary to take him over there. If he plays, it's a nonsense. We have to play our most likely wicket-takers. He is not ahead of Martin/Southee or Bracewell in that regard, and that rubbish batting effort in Brisbane means we can't afford to drop a batsman (unless McCullum took the gloves, and we know that isn't happening).

I know they said they were going to add a pace bowler but I expected that to be McKay or Milne. Either would have a legitimate reason behind it.

 

[Bahnz]

I dunno, I'm starting to get a bit worried about Southee. He's played **** all first class cricket in the last two years and probably got the least swing of all three bowlers at Brisbane. I'm concerned that his steady diet of odi and t20 cricket has made him too focused on accuracy at the expense of swing.

 

[Days of Grace]

You see, I wouldn't actually mind Boult being preferred to Southee in Hobart.

Southee won't offer much on a road based on his current fitness, IMO, and Boult is untried, and hence will be unknown to the Australian batsmen, and he is a left-hander, which if nothing else would mix it up. Three right-handed fast-medium bowlers at 135km/h on a road might get dire.

 

[SteveNZ]

I would hope Southee will be better for the run. I wouldn't be making this Boult's first Test - not the right time.

 

[African Monkey]

He's a domestic wicket-taker. We've had a preview of how Arnel would go - he played Australia two seasons ago. He was passable. Nothing more.

It's absolutely unneccesary to take him over there. If he plays, it's a nonsense. We have to play our most likely wicket-takers. He is not ahead of Martin/Southee or Bracewell in that regard, and that rubbish batting effort in Brisbane means we can't afford to drop a batsman (unless McCullum took the gloves, and we know that isn't happening).

I know they said they were going to add a pace bowler but I expected that to be McKay or Milne. Either would have a legitimate reason behind it.

Agreed. I don't see this Arnel selection as anything more than a waste of an airfare.

 

[benchmark00]

Doesn't matter who NZ select itbt.

 

[SilentOne]

I wouldn't be making this Boult's first Test - not the right time.

Well when is the right time? Against some piss weak Zimbabwe side? Our bowlers are far to often making their debut against a bottom 8 ranked country.

Our bowlers need to be tested against the best batsmen in the world.

 

[diteras aka.]

And then he clubbed some seals over the head, dragged them back to his man cave, and used them as practice balls to bowl bouncers at his wife and kids.

Back in my day...



.

hmmmm...............

I say such ridiculous things - of course these young bowlers can all be better, they'll never pull up lame with a bit of a sore toe and miss a test series will they?

I guess if you need kids to do men work you better not be too alarmed when they run back to mummy for a cuddle once they've been away from the tit for a bit eh?

 

[SteveNZ]

Well when is the right time? Against some piss weak Zimbabwe side? Our bowlers are far to often making their debut against a bottom 8 ranked country.

Our bowlers need to be tested against the best batsmen in the world.

Seeing you mentioned it, yeah. I would suggest Zimbabwe is the perfect time. One Test, see how he fares, perfect time to get it over and done with, then onto South Africa.

He'll definitely have debuted by the time the tour to the West Indies is done, you'd suggest.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Why are Australia having to bowl the part timers? If they don't have confidence that their 3rd choice seamer can keep it tight then why are they playing him? England are successful because their 3 seamers are fit and can keep it tight, so can therefore bowl a lot of overs.

Lol and Hussey get Vettori just as I start to write

Same reason why the Poms picked Bopara ahead of others. And throw the ball occassionally to Trott. Pad out for a few extra overs, and make sure that the guy is completely ready to bowl at 100%.

 

[Hurricane]

He's a domestic wicket-taker. We've had a preview of how Arnel would go - he played Australia two seasons ago. He was passable. Nothing more.

It's absolutely unneccesary to take him over there. If he plays, it's a nonsense. We have to play our most likely wicket-takers. He is not ahead of Martin/Southee or Bracewell in that regard, and that rubbish batting effort in Brisbane means we can't afford to drop a batsman (unless McCullum took the gloves, and we know that isn't happening).

I know they said they were going to add a pace bowler but I expected that to be McKay or Milne. Either would have a legitimate reason behind it.

We may not agree about Colin Munro but we are agreed on this. Arnel has managed 9 wickets in nine innings at an average of 55.

From watching Arnel at length when he was with the black caps. He is a seam up bowler who relies on seaming it both ways just by letting the ball randomly hit the seam. He does not have an off cutter or leg cutter up his sleeve and he can't swing it. In the words of my Strategy prof during my MBA Southee is "an order of magnitude" better than Arnel.

(Thanks for your post Dirk Nannes I was not aware of that background).