***Official*** India in New Zealand 2013/14

[Blocky]

I think pretty much every season since then they've put enough runs on the board, De Grandhomme had a very good season three years ago, Cachopa the year after, McIntosh had a couple of good seasons in 2008/2009 and 2009/2010 but the ability to put pressure on the opposition side and take wickets hasn't been there, It's been their inability to take wickets or build pressure in games that costs them.

Only a moron believes Guptill is in New Zealand's best six batsmen outside of T20 cricket. He deserves his spot in T20 based on performance but one day cricket? He had an outstanding series in England, but take away that 103* and 189* against them (coincedentally, his only two big scores in about 20 innings) and the only runs he's made have come against Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and the West Indies. But yes, lets continue thinking that a guy who scores big once per ten innings is a great player for NZ.

 

[Bahnz]

Guptill can defend reasonably well, the problem is that he doesn't have any ability to both defend the good balls while also looking to score off the bad ones, take a look at his strike rate in test cricket, it's almost comparable with Mark Richardson's. Teams don't fear Guptill because when he's defending, he's removed all ability to think about scoring any runs, and when he's attacking, he's not capable of choosing the right ball to hit. There is a reason he faced 66 dot balls against the Windies, the guy is a mess mentally when it comes to constructing an innings. This ultimately means that if he's not finding gaps early in his innings, he gets stuck, the other team builds pressure up on him and the players around him and eventually he gets dismissed, his last attempts as an opening batsman at test level showed this problem almost every single time, If he ever plays test cricket again, it'll be too soon - I don't even think he deserves to be in our ODI squad at present either.

While I disagree that Guptill can defend well (looking at almost any of his test dismissals over the past 18 months would suggest otherwise), I agree that Guptill also appears to have some real judgement issues as well. Maybe it's just partly a confidence thing - he's struggling to make runs so he shelves the more aggressive and productive shots from ODI cricket and looks to build an archetypal stodgy NZ opener innings. The only problem is he simply doesn't have the technical proficiency to play such an innings. That's the one respect in which I think Hamish Rutherford does well. He knows his scoring areas, he knows when the ball is in those areas, and he doesn't hesitate to pounce when he gets the chance.

 

[Blocky]

From 2008 to 2012 (before his heavy NZ workload) - the only bowler with anywhere near the same amount of wickets at first class as Wagner was Arnel. Wagner took more wickets in that period than any other first class bowler and wasn't doing it at the favorable Basin Reserve nor Seddon Park, both of which have become the easiest wickets in the country for seamers.

 

[KiWiNiNjA]

So he has a bad average once you take out all his big scores?

 

[Bahnz]

He had an outstanding series in England, but take away that 103* and 189* against them (coincedentally, his only two big scores in about 20 innings) and the only runs he's made have come against Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and the West Indies.

Haha, yeah and take away Taylor's hundreds against the Windies and he's had a ****e last 12 months. Take away Southee's 10fer at Lord's and his tests against WI and he's had a fairly average year too. Can't imagine why we keep them in the test squad.

 

[Bahnz]

From 2008 to 2012 (before his heavy NZ workload) - the only bowler with anywhere near the same amount of wickets at first class as Wagner was Arnel. Wagner took more wickets in that period than any other first class bowler and wasn't doing it at the favorable Basin Reserve nor Seddon Park, both of which have become the easiest wickets in the country for seamers.

Yeah, but he did most of his wicket taking from 2010/11 onwards. He certainly didn't just hope onto the New Zealand scene and start taking bucket loads of wickets straight from the get go.

 

[Blocky]

While I disagree that Guptill can defend well (looking at almost any of his test dismissals over the past 18 months would suggest otherwise), I agree that Guptill also appears to have some real judgement issues as well. Maybe it's just partly a confidence thing - he's struggling to make runs so he shelves the more aggressive and productive shots from ODI cricket and looks to build an archetypal stodgy NZ opener innings. The only problem is he simply doesn't have the technical proficiency to play such an innings. That's the one respect in which I think Hamish Rutherford does well. He knows his scoring areas, he knows when the ball is in those areas, and he doesn't hesitate to pounce when he gets the chance.

It's always going to be terribly hard for a player to do well if he doesn't have any idea how to structure an innings and relies solely on bludgeoning the ball without any real care or concern as to where it's going. I think he's an absolute headcase, because he obviously has a very good eye, can time the ball beautifully and knows how to play the ball late and underneath his eyes, we've seen it and when he's hitting the ball well, there are very few in world cricket who do it better. But he can't structure an innings for the life of himself and he has no idea how to hit soft into gaps and accumulate runs, he'll either bludgeon it into a gap, bludgeon it into a fielder or mindlessly defend half volleys thinking he's doing it right.

And in one day cricket for NZ, we simply don't need him anymore in my view. If we want two attacking openers, I'd much rather see his spot go to Rutherford or if we're willing to have another accumulator within the team to help Williamson feed the strike to the power hitters, bring Watling into the mix and have him open in ODI cricket. Guptill isn't consistent enough and when he's off, as he was against the Windies, he puts every other batsman under pressure until he comes right. I think it was luck rather than anything else that meant New Zealand didn't suffer from him not scoring against over a fifth of the deliveries bowled in the innings.

 

[Bahnz]

And in one day cricket for NZ, we simply don't need him anymore in my view. If we want two attacking openers, I'd much rather see his spot go to Rutherford

...the same Hamish Rutherford who averages 17 in List A cricket?

 

[Flem274*]

Only a moron believes Guptill is in New Zealand's best six batsmen outside of T20 cricket. He deserves his spot in T20 based on performance but one day cricket? He had an outstanding series in England, but take away that 103* and 189* against them (coincedentally, his only two big scores in about 20 innings) and the only runs he's made have come against Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and the West Indies. But yes, lets continue thinking that a guy who scores big once per ten innings is a great player for NZ.

 

[hendrix]

Guptill can defend reasonably well, the problem is that he doesn't have any ability to both defend the good balls while also looking to score off the bad ones, take a look at his strike rate in test cricket, it's almost comparable with Mark Richardson's. Teams don't fear Guptill because when he's defending, he's removed all ability to think about scoring any runs, and when he's attacking, he's not capable of choosing the right ball to hit. There is a reason he faced 66 dot balls against the Windies, the guy is a mess mentally when it comes to constructing an innings. This ultimately means that if he's not finding gaps early in his innings, he gets stuck, the other team builds pressure up on him and the players around him and eventually he gets dismissed, his last attempts as an opening batsman at test level showed this problem almost every single time, If he ever plays test cricket again, it'll be too soon - I don't even think he deserves to be in our ODI squad at present either.

Whatever you want to say about Mark Richardson's strike rate, he was by far our most successful opener for the last 20 years. If Guptill could be half the player he was in test cricket he'd be an overwhelming success.

But strike rate isn't the big problem. Getting bogged down isn't the big problem. It's a problem, yes, but not the main one.

 

[Blocky]

Yeah, but he did most of his wicket taking from 2010/11 onwards. He certainly didn't just hope onto the New Zealand scene and start taking bucket loads of wickets straight from the get go.

So let me get this right, in one and a half seasons for Otago - he learnt his craft and become the best domestic bowler in New Zealand... all of this despite the fact that Otago hasn't produced any fast bowling talent that made the Black Caps since possibly Shayne O'Connor? It wasn't that he'd been playing in a much harder competition, got his bearings here early and became the most consistent and dominant bowler in NZ for several seasons straight?

Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

 

[BackFootPunch]

Wasn't sure whether or not to take this guy seriously but now that he's saying we replace Guptill with Rutherford I'm certain he's taking the piss.

 

[KiWiNiNjA]

I'd much rather see his spot go to Rutherford

Now I know you're taking the piss.

 

[Blocky]

...the same Hamish Rutherford who averages 17 in List A cricket?

He's had about twenty innings total in that format, but yes, lets assess him as a failure from that and ignore the fact that he's piled on runs at first class level at a decent strike rate and that he represents a potential future talent for NZ if he learns to temper his innings better.

 

[Flem274*]

Your posts have been ****ing awful today mate. Everytime we show you hard evidence to the contrary (Boult outswinger, Wagner's slow start) you just pretend it isn't there and say the same thing over and over until you're blue in the face.

 

[BackFootPunch]

So let me get this right, in one and a half seasons for Otago - he learnt his craft and become the best domestic bowler in New Zealand... all of this despite the fact that Otago hasn't produced any fast bowling talent that made the Black Caps since possibly Shayne O'Connor? It wasn't that he'd been playing in a much harder competition, got his bearings here early and became the most consistent and dominant bowler in NZ for several seasons straight?

Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

He actually didn't get his bearings here early. Took him a couple of seasons to work out what he needed to do to be effective. You're dreaming if you think he turned up and dominated from the word go.

 

[Blocky]

Whatever you want to say about Mark Richardson's strike rate, he was by far our most successful opener for the last 20 years. If Guptill could be half the player he was in test cricket he'd be an overwhelming success.

But strike rate isn't the big problem. Getting bogged down isn't the big problem. It's a problem, yes, but not the main one.

The difference is, Richardson built his game around being able to soak up pressure, leave the ball and have three scoring shots that he looked to play. Richardson's strike rate came from the fact that he simply refused to attack beyond his off drive, leg glance and cut shot. Guptill's strike rate comes from the fact that he's generally either boundary or bust.

 

[Bahnz]

Your posts have been ****ing awful today mate. Everytime we show you hard evidence to the contrary (Boult outswinger, Wagner's slow start) you just pretend it isn't there and say the same thing over and over until you're blue in the face.

Yeah I've been trying to give him the benefit of the doubt but this is getting pretty poor now. It's the sheer refusal to accept that he might be wrong about some things (e.g. Boult's outswinger, the average standard of 2nd division SA domestix) that undermines the interesting points he makes in other areas.

 

[Blocky]

He actually didn't get his bearings here early. Took him a couple of seasons to work out what he needed to do to be effective. You're dreaming if you think he turned up and dominated from the word go.

He was domestic player of the year two years after arriving here, you're trying to indicate to me that he learnt his bowling here in New Zealand in two seasons, and not the 10-12 he had spent in South Africa in age group and first class cricket? OK. Sure.

 

[Flem274*]

So this is what it's like to see radio callers post on forums.