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**Official** Group D Discussion - Pakistan, New Zealand, Bangladesh
- Thread starter James
- Start date
benchmark00
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Yessssss, keep em coming!
Jono
Virat Kohli (c)
Exactly. Get a wide and make it 13 off 2 and you can tie.
LongHopCassidy
International Captain
Hafeez turned the match with his bowling and gave Ajmal a lot of gift wickets, really. Keeping a rampaging McCullum under a 100 strike rate for thirty balls turned it into an unwinnable game for NZ.
Yas
School Boy/Girl Cricketer
Well done Pakistan! Great batting display and good to see Hafeez/Jamshed in the runs. If we keep putting runs on the board we stand a great chance of going far in the tournament. Bowling was good especially Hafeez. Sohail and to a lesser extent Gul really need to up their game, far too many boundary balls and the game was a lot closer than it shouldve been. But overall glad we won :-)
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BeeGee
International Captain
It's been said that Hesson is the most strategic and tactical thinking coach NZ have ever had. Since I've never seen anything like this from NZ before I'm assuming these strange tactics are his. It's worked. NZ are through to the next round. But he needs to be a little careful. The tactics were so strange, he could almost be accused of match fixing.
Anyone with money on NZ to win may feel a little peeved.
Agent Nationaux
International Coach
Don't know why the selectors love Tanveer so much. **** player.
Days of Grace
International Captain
Left-hand, right-hand combinations are overrated.
If they really wanted a left-hander at no.4, why not Franklin? Vettori was never going to keep up with the run-rate.
Strange game from us. I was pissed off from the 3rd ball when another catch went down (can we not go through one game without grassing one, ffs?) and my mood didn't really improve.
If they really wanted a left-hander at no.4, why not Franklin? Vettori was never going to keep up with the run-rate.
Strange game from us. I was pissed off from the 3rd ball when another catch went down (can we not go through one game without grassing one, ffs?) and my mood didn't really improve.
Completely agree with all sentiments.
We're at a real risk of trying to be too smart for our own good. Last game, we promoted a left-hander (Franklin) to negate the threat of left-arm spinners turning it away from our right-handers. A right-hander scored 120 and was the only one to score at over a run a ball. Next game, the threat in the middle order was right-arm offies - but we promoted left-handers, for whom the ball turns away. And the guy we promoted in the first match, for his apparent talent against spin, was overtaken by another two left-handers, neither of which score quickly against a lack of pace.
That's before we go into putting our best or 2nd best (depending on opinion) batsman at No.6 when the rate was up to 12-13. Opening with an accumulator like Williamson in a chase of eights, when the powerplay overs needed to be cashed in on, etc.
And as for the fielding...what the hell has happened to us? I always felt that no matter how much we may have lulls with the bat in particular, our fielding standards would always ensure we stayed competitive. But we've dropped four sitters in two games, and haven't been much better of late.
straw man
Hall of Fame Member
I agree with sentiments above too.
Can only despair over the fielding while the bowling was rather mixed. For senior players, NcCullum, Oram & Mills really do get by with just being average – other teams would see them as easy 8-per-over and it’s very rare that any of them stamp their mark on a match with the ball.
But what a strange old innings with the bat. With the amount of ****ing around with the batting order and ‘tactics’ that went on it’s frankly a miracle we even went close – the bizarre irony is that Nicol, Williamson and Vettori all made a halfway decent stab at the new roles they’d been asked to play while McCullum’s strike rate was the lowest in our top-8
. I hope for everyone’s sake we can write this off as an ‘experiment’ and the alleged brains trust will go with Plan A from now on.
A left-hand/right-hand combination is merely a nice-to-have and no reason at all to promote Vettori or Oram up the order. Would prefer to think of it like this:
Threats – McCullum, Taylor, Guptill (to a lesser extent). We are sadly lacking threatening lower-order batsmen.
Accumulators - Franklin (is also a Threat to mediocre bowlers), Williamson
Defies classification - Nicol
The rest – None of these should bat in the first 15 overs
If they want a guiding principle for what the batting order should be, instead of stoopid L/R combination we should be aiming to always have at least one ‘Threat’ batsman in, who the opposition is scared of. Pakistan would have been very happy to see us open with Nicol and Williamson – no threats so what happened? They bowled their weaker bowlers as they knew we wouldn’t take advantage, and held back Afridi and Ajmal to make it hard for McCullum and Taylor.
Any order with Guptill & McCullum in the top 3 and Taylor at 4 or 5 should do the trick. (I’m fine with Taylor in at around 10 over mark rather than earlier like some of you would prefer). I’m not sure how the others best fit in – Franklin could be at the top as an accumulator and our only lefty, or at the end where he’s one of our better hitters. It’s a puzzle because it affects where Williamson and Nicol bat - they're our spare puzzle pieces.
Can only despair over the fielding while the bowling was rather mixed. For senior players, NcCullum, Oram & Mills really do get by with just being average – other teams would see them as easy 8-per-over and it’s very rare that any of them stamp their mark on a match with the ball.
But what a strange old innings with the bat. With the amount of ****ing around with the batting order and ‘tactics’ that went on it’s frankly a miracle we even went close – the bizarre irony is that Nicol, Williamson and Vettori all made a halfway decent stab at the new roles they’d been asked to play while McCullum’s strike rate was the lowest in our top-8
. I hope for everyone’s sake we can write this off as an ‘experiment’ and the alleged brains trust will go with Plan A from now on.A left-hand/right-hand combination is merely a nice-to-have and no reason at all to promote Vettori or Oram up the order. Would prefer to think of it like this:
Threats – McCullum, Taylor, Guptill (to a lesser extent). We are sadly lacking threatening lower-order batsmen.
Accumulators - Franklin (is also a Threat to mediocre bowlers), Williamson
Defies classification - Nicol
The rest – None of these should bat in the first 15 overs
If they want a guiding principle for what the batting order should be, instead of stoopid L/R combination we should be aiming to always have at least one ‘Threat’ batsman in, who the opposition is scared of. Pakistan would have been very happy to see us open with Nicol and Williamson – no threats so what happened? They bowled their weaker bowlers as they knew we wouldn’t take advantage, and held back Afridi and Ajmal to make it hard for McCullum and Taylor.
Any order with Guptill & McCullum in the top 3 and Taylor at 4 or 5 should do the trick. (I’m fine with Taylor in at around 10 over mark rather than earlier like some of you would prefer). I’m not sure how the others best fit in – Franklin could be at the top as an accumulator and our only lefty, or at the end where he’s one of our better hitters. It’s a puzzle because it affects where Williamson and Nicol bat - they're our spare puzzle pieces.
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smash84
The Tiger King
lol....well said
Mike5181
International Captain
Maybe he doesn't run through batting line ups like some other bowlers, but Nathan McCullum has been more than useful so far in his T20I career. I certainly wouldn't group him with Mills and Oram, who have been largely ineffective in the format with the ball.
Bahnz
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
I also think people are being very hard on Mills. New Zealand's awful fielding directly cost him 9 runs and 2 wickets, not to mention the opportunity to bowl at Jamshed and co while the ball was still hard and swinging. If he'd finished with 2/26 I don't think people would really have too much to complain about. Mills' problem is that he can't bowl at the death, which is always going to be an issue in T20 cricket, where that constitutes roughly 50% of every batting innings. Nonetheless, he's still a good new ball bowler. Unless he gets smacked about, he should always bowl 3 overs straight up, to make use of early conditions, and always be bowled out by the 12th over at the latest.
All and all, a shambolic effort from the kiwis in the field that probably cost us the match. Had we held our chances and avoided overthrows and misfields, we would've kept Pakistan to under 170, which we probably would've chased.
Also, what on earth was up with picking Milne and then not bowling him? Yeah he got hit for a six in his over, but it's hardly like Oram and NcCullum were applying the squeeze. And, I know Watling isn't a top T20 batsman, but surely he's still a better bet than Adam Milne.
Awful captaincy and coaching and a deserved loss. Hoping for more in future, as the team looks decent (at least if Guptill is fit), but not expecting much.
straw man
Hall of Fame Member
Mills and NcCullum, last two years in T20Is vs top-8 sides:
Mills: 28 overs, average of 41.5, econ of 8.89
NcCullum: 27 overs, average of 20.4, econ of 6.81
So I'll give you NcCullum but not Mills - of course NcCullum doesn't tend to bowl at the death so that's helpful to him, but a difference in econ rates of 2 is very large.
Yes Mills was unlucky yesterday but his effectiveness has been reducing for some time now (in ODIs too) and it's difficult when Oram is also in the side and not good at bowling at the death either. Guessing Oram will probably retire after this tournament though, so Mills place in the side should be safe for now.
Mills: 28 overs, average of 41.5, econ of 8.89
NcCullum: 27 overs, average of 20.4, econ of 6.81
So I'll give you NcCullum but not Mills - of course NcCullum doesn't tend to bowl at the death so that's helpful to him, but a difference in econ rates of 2 is very large.
Yes Mills was unlucky yesterday but his effectiveness has been reducing for some time now (in ODIs too) and it's difficult when Oram is also in the side and not good at bowling at the death either. Guessing Oram will probably retire after this tournament though, so Mills place in the side should be safe for now.
