***Official*** South Africa in New Zealand 2012

[Pothas]

Indeed but you just know he will be owned in England in the summer. If one of the quicks doesn't get him into trouble with the bouncer, Swann will take him out. Rudolph's place will now be in doubt but I think he would fair better in England than JP.

Yeah you are probably right, he was horrible against England in SA.

Would expect both to struggle though, along with a few others on both sides no doubt. If it was not at the Oval I would be getting rather worried at the fact I have tickets for day 4.

 

[Hurricane]

I would go as far to say that if Vettori can't hold a place batting in the top six (which he can and will if given the chance - he's a ****ing awesome batsman) then he shouldn't play.

As long as Guptil is opening then they are probably going to get an early break through. And as you have pointed out to me Flynn is untested in his reincarnation. We can't really afford to just have 5 batsman and Vettori when two of them are Flynn and Guptil. We pretty well have to bat deeper than other teams. So we need V at 7. And KVW at 8.

The only answers I see are the following to team balance:

1) Find a batting all rounder who's name is not Franklin and play him in the top 6 and not Vettori (With Dan at 7). Drop Guptil to make this happen and open with McCullum.
2) Tell Vettori to bowl better. Before this series he always turned up in the 1st inning and contributed 2-3 wickets and then dissapeared in the 2nd dig. Maybe SA have had a conversation about him and have figured him out.

 

[thierry henry]

2nd tier and under-20 rugby league is much more watchable than this tbh (and actually has a higher billing on Sky Sport 2)

 

[thierry henry]

NZ has a nasty climate.

tbh doesn't the NZ climate hover perfectly in the ideal range for humans? Never really too hot or too cold?

 

[Zinzan]

tbh doesn't the NZ climate hover perfectly in the ideal range for humans? Never really too hot or too cold?

Generally speaking yes, with the odd exception like Alexandra which can reach as high as 37 degrees in the summer & as low as -10 degrees in the winter.

 

[thierry henry]

McMillan just came up with a daring new plan- BOWL DA BOUNCERZZ!!

 

[straw man]

As long as Guptil is opening then they are probably going to get an early break through. We can't really afford to just have 5 batsman and Vettori when two of them are Flynn and Guptil. We pretty well have to bat deeper than other teams. So we need V at 7. And KVW at 8.

Like many you are viewing the team structure as pick the batting first and then the bowlers are an afterthought who round out the side. You could equally take the opposite approach, pick the bowling first with the batting an afterthought, and reason that:

As long as Gillespie and Martin are opening the bowling then we probably are often not going to get a set of early break-throughs. We can't really afford to just have 3 bowlers and Vettori when they are Martin, Bracewell and Gillespie. We pretty well have to bowl deeper than other teams. So we need V at 6. And KVW at 7.

This is just an example - neither is the right approach though the ex-players writing in the paper also seem to think you pick a batting side first and bowlers fit into the gaps. Batting and bowling need to be viewed as EQUALLY important when putting together a side. The tried and tested is to pick the 6 best batsmen, wicketkeeper and 4 best bowlers. This works for me. Vettori could fit in either category though he is borderline top-4 test bowlers in the country at best. ie. he's a batsman. He bats 6 with KVW at 7, batsmen above and bowlers below.

It also doesn't make sense to weaken a potential strength (bowling) to make up for inadequacies in other areas (i.e our opening batsmen).

 

[_Ed_]

That was a fairly dire no-ball call.

Edit: And the extra ball goes for four. Hooray.

 

[Prince EWS]

Tornado

 

[TT Boy]

Declare fairly early tomorrow after these two hit hundreds?

 

[Flem274*]

It also doesn't make sense to weaken a potential strength (bowling) to make up for inadequacies in other areas (i.e our opening batsmen).

This, this, a thousand times this.

We've bent over backwards to accommodate **** batting from our top order by stacking the middle order too often. If the openers aren't good enough to open, then **** them. We've reached the point where we aren't even picking the best Plunket Shield openers anymore, and merely drawing names from a hat (Nicol) or picking on potential (Guptill).

We need to pick the best eleven players in the country (within reason i.e. India can't have nine batsmen, Dhoni and Zaheer) and find a way to accommodate them in the team. Despite our middle order not showing up and our bowling having a howler in this test match, we have a lot of middle order batsmen and seam bowlers who are all of a similar quality and have made cases for their inclusion. Not all the batsmen can play in the middle order, but all of them definitely want to play, so we ask them who wants to open.

Our best opener since Richardson, and our only test standard one, is a wicket-keeper. McCullum wanted to open, and he's got the quality to be good enough at it to be more than a filler. This makes the decision to bat him at number three, when we already have Williamson, Flynn and Brownlie (who has done it once or twice), utterly absurd. Hell, even Vettori has opened the batting on occassion for Northern Districts, and he is a much better batsman than Rob Nicol or Martin Guptill.

Get McCullum back up the top, find someone who wants to partner him, and put the best available number three at number three. If Vettori plays, he either starts taking wickets or bats at number six or higher. We select the bowlers based on who are the best and the structure of the bowling attack, fielding unit and lower order i.e. if it's a straight shoot out between two bowlers of similar quality for the last spot, pick the better batsman or fielder.

 

[Cam7]

What an utterly crap day of test cricket. Who would actually pay to come and sit here in this old, cold, pox-ridden, wind-blown venue on a day like today and watch such boring cricket as this? What a snore-fest.

 

[Kippax]

****ing Proteas....just so much, straight-ahead sort of virtue! It just, complicates it..

We're Bugs Bunny dressing up in the girl disguise in this match, but the Proteas are never aroused nor amused.

 

[Briony]

Everything was just utterly miserable about the day.

Wellington's miserable.

The bowling was miserable.

The batting was miserly.

Felt like shooting Williamson for stuttering in his run-up so much.

 

[Briony]

tbh doesn't the NZ climate hover perfectly in the ideal range for humans? Never really too hot or too cold?

Everyone at the ground looked freezing today.

I met a kiwi the other day who said that Dunedin rarely gets warm enough to call it summer.

 

[thierry henry]

Everyone at the ground looked freezing today.

I met a kiwi the other day who said that Dunedin rarely gets warm enough to call it summer.

Places like Wellington and Dunedin could no way be called cold by international standards, certainly not in summer. It was like 18-20C today, certainly not a hot day by the standards of many cricket playing countries (who at times could be described as oppressively hot) but a fairly ideal temperature for human's taking part in outdoor athletic endeavour.

Don't want to rant on this but it's amazing how much NZ cops for its temperature when tbh it's pretty much ideal. A bit too much rain and the weather is a bit too variable for sure, but it's very rarely genuinely too hot or too cold.

 

[Bahnz]

Have to say, I think that for both days play, the decisions to end play for bad light have been ridiculous.

 

[wellAlbidarned]

I just cannot get over how ****ing ******** going back to three bowlers is. Barely following this match now, such a borefest.

 

[Hurricane]

Like many you are viewing the team structure as pick the batting first and then the bowlers are an afterthought who round out the side. You could equally take the opposite approach, pick the bowling first with the batting an afterthought, and reason that:

This is just an example - neither is the right approach though the ex-players writing in the paper also seem to think you pick a batting side first and bowlers fit into the gaps. Batting and bowling need to be viewed as EQUALLY important when putting together a side. The tried and tested is to pick the 6 best batsmen, wicketkeeper and 4 best bowlers. This works for me. Vettori could fit in either category though he is borderline top-4 test bowlers in the country at best. ie. he's a batsman. He bats 6 with KVW at 7, batsmen above and bowlers below.

It also doesn't make sense to weaken a potential strength (bowling) to make up for inadequacies in other areas (i.e our opening batsmen).

I wrote a long response but will try again to be briefer. Our batting looks better in this game. But in the previous games unless we had've rolled SA for a score less than 100 we weren't going to win such were the totals our batsman were putting up.

I do agree with you a balanced approach is needed which is why I said I would bring in another all rounder instead of Guptil. I have been reading your posts and I agree that our 3 seamers would do better if they had someone else to lighten the load. Who that all rounder would be I don't know. Just pick the best all rounder in the country (except Franko).

 

[DingDong]

this match has been just a joke