Is it weird that I'm actually much, much, much angrier about McCullum moving down the order than I was of Taylor being stripped of captaincy at the most ridiculous possible moment, leading him to withdraw from the hardest tour in the world at the moment and be replaced by a combination of James Franklin and Colin Munro?
McCullum moving down the order is just, so, soooo stupid. A lot of what Hesson has said and indeed the posts in this thread from some members remind me of Athlai's post about what the SA commentators were essentially suggesting - that every single player should bat 4-6 except Watling. Shuffling the deckchairs doesn't solve anything and, FFS, you can't just bat every **** in the middle order. Yes, it's probably easier to bat 4-6 for most players, especially in South African conditions for example, but that doesn't mean your best 8 batsmen should all be fighting over three or four spots and you nominate three designated shunts to average 20 in the top order while quality players miss out. People keep referencing the Bracewell era in which he employed fringe middle order options as openers unsuccessfully, and yes it was a bit dire at times, but since then numerous coaches have employed "genuine" openers from the country and you know what? That's been equally unsuccessful. New Zealand just aren't producing players that are suited to bat in the top three at Test level, and the solution lies in technical development at both grass roots and professional levels, not in looking for the magic selection combination.
McCullum has comfortably been New Zealand's best opener since Richardson. His performances with the bat as an opener have been better than what they were when he batted in the middle order, and that's without even taking into account how much more a top order player is worth to New Zealand at the moment than someone who can bat four or five. Moreover, in recent times he's actually seen out the new ball with ease and then got out to stupid shots against left arm spinners - how exactly is moving him further down the order meant to fix that? People have this weird idea in their heads that McCullum is actually a massive gun and should be averaging 45+, which is dangerous because it means they'll try anything and everything to try and make it happen. Fact is, he's not that good - he's not underperforming, being used in the wrong role or anything like that, he just is what he is. He's a decent batsman, definitely one of New Zealand's best six currently, but he's little more than that and if he can average 30-40 as an opener at the moment that's absolutely fantastic from a New Zealand perspective given how bad the top order depth in the country is
Shuffling decent players out of the side in order to have the chosen ones in the roles they think they might like to play this week in a false quest for true greatness and propping up the top order with absolute prank cricketers is not the answer. If New Zealand want to improve their batting lineup, the first step should be getting all their best batsmen available and in the side, and the second step should be working on the actual practicalities of batting. There's no magic batting order that is suddenly going to transform this team without technical work and improved management. Forcing all the best batsmen in the country into a massive dog fight for three spots and giving the other three spots to ****s who aren't actually deemed good enough for the much coveted "he should bat in the middle order" praise is only going to make things worse.
