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

[Immenso]

Yeah. I lean Blocky's way on Milne. While I know he can swing it both ways as per some of Kippaxs old clips, I don't think he has much consistency on when he can swing it (let alone swinging it the wrong way).

I personally think he can be a bit too hittable when he isn't swinging it, so I reckon another 2 or so years working on consistency would be better before elevation.

Where as Bennett, has less scope for error IMO (but also a lower potential ceiling). A better natural length, enormous inswing when he does pitch up, a heavy ball which is less hittable than Milne when not swinging.

Bennett > Milne. I reckon he would add great balance to Southee/Boult.

But I'm really looking forward to Milne developing over next few years. In the mean time, let's use Bennett.

 

[hendrix]

yeah, agree.

 

[Blocky]

Yeah, but Steyn is a once in a generation player who deserves to rank in the pantheon of greats. He’s always been in the top five with the new ball, finding swing and getting a good full length. Then when the ball stops swinging, he pulls his length back, starts extracting seam and cut and is probably top 5 in the world at that too.

Our issue is that we have two guys who are superb with the new ball, with Boult becoming increasingly better post new ball spell. Southee struggles between the 20th and 60th over because he has an over reliance on movement to generate threat. Wagner has bridged the gap a wee bit, because he’s been a threat in those middle overs and generally finds reverse earlier in the innings.
If anything we should be developing in Milne, it would be a relentless ability to extract bounce from a length to compliment Boult and Southee and an ability to summarise very quickly what the best length for the wicket he’s bowling on should be

Looking at the pace bowlers in our country capable of 150, none of them bowl the right length for me. Milne showed he can in that T20 but that’s only one performance.
Mathieson, Wheeler, Ferguson, Verma (uninjured), McKay and Milne have all possessed the ability to hit late 140s, but they do it with horrid length control and scrambled seam. That means all they offer is easy balls to hit to the boundary.

Instead of worrying about swing, they should go back to a straight up and down seam and length control first and foremost.

 

[hendrix]

yeah, that's pretty much what I said. It'd be nice if he has the ability to swing the ball as a back up plan, but what we need is a guy who's going to hit a good length at good pace and maybe get a hint of seam movement. That's what we saw from him in the t20 and that's the direction he should be hear heading.

Do you really think Verma hits late 140s? I mean he has a nice whippy action but he strikes me more of a 130s guy.

 

[Flem274*]

In the nets, I can bowl ripping leg breaks, top spin armballs, leg cutters, off cutters, inswing, outswing and even left arm orthodox.

Do I do it in the game? No. Does it therefore count? No.

Milne was straight up and down in the T20 match, he bowled a great length and had great pace. But swing? Not there.

Evidently not a Plunket Promise subscriber. I wouldn't be judging Milne's swing on one game, especially with the white ball in his hand. We've seen him bowl inswingers with the outswinger variation for both CD and NZ A. However I will grant you he appears to have temporarily lost it this season by the FC footage.

I think you're being harsh on Wheeler. Early this season he fell to pieces a bit but usually bowls a fantastic length and gets consistent inswing to the right hander. Neither he nor Mathieson are anywhere near the late 140s though. Mathieson can't bowl the same pace two balls in a row and the quickets I've seen from him is low 140s, which was achieved once or twice in four overs mixed in with 125kph long hops and Wheeler is consistently hovering either side of 135kph.

 

[Blocky]

He bowls within himself a lot, and he gets injured more often than even Bond did, but when he wants to he can bowl lightning fast. He was always quicker than Mathieson in club cricket, used to hate facing the Old Boys when those two were playing because they had less idea of where the ball was going than you did.

 

[Flem274*]

Mathieson usually sprays it around at medium pace though. Very talented bowler but he's even more raw than Scott Kugglejuggle.

 

[Blocky]

Evidently not a Plunket Promise subscriber. I wouldn't be judging Milne's swing on one game, especially with the white ball in his hand. We've seen him bowl inswingers with the outswinger variation for both CD and NZ A. However I will grant you he appears to have temporarily lost it this season by the FC footage.

I think you're being harsh on Wheeler. Early this season he fell to pieces a bit but usually bowls a fantastic length and gets consistent inswing to the right hander. Neither he nor Mathieson are anywhere near the late 140s though. Mathieson can't bowl the same pace two balls in a row and the quickets I've seen from him is low 140s, which was achieved once or twice in four overs mixed in with 125kph long hops and Wheeler is consistently hovering either side of 135kph.

Mathieson is a head case, and not suited to T20 cricket where you probably saw his radar speeds. He did hit 150 last year in a T20 game but got absolutely caned by Ryder a few innings later and never really recovered for the reason. Probably the guy in the country with the best physical build and action to generate extreme pace but poor grip, poor wrist snap and low body awareness means he struggles.

 

[Blocky]

Mathieson usually sprays it around at medium pace though. Very talented bowler but he's even more raw than Scott Kugglejuggle.

If Mathieson could take 80% of his net form into a game, he'd be lethal. Kuggs bowls pretty much the same, nets or game, 140KMH, short or too full, usually wide outside off.

 

[Blocky]

But then thats always been our dilemma in NZ. We've had a tonne of raw talent with real pace and never been able to convert them into international quality.

Bond probably did more conversion while out of the domestic cricket scene to being international class than he did in it.

 

[Flem274*]

The bloke just seems to have no rhythm to his bowling at all. He looks like he's trying to get it down the other end as fast as possible but I wonder if he's trying too hard and would bowl better areas and more consistent pace if he bowled at 90% and forgot about bowling 145+ for a while. With his build anything over 135kph is going to be scary to face, and low 140s would fire him up the wicket board.

 

[Blocky]

I played a few Hamilton matches with him and sat myself at mid off, just to try and get an idea for his thought process when bowling, I also asked him where on the wicket he looked when running into bowl, for a guy who has been in age group rep cricket for so long, it's frightening how little he thought of this, it's definitely a coaching thing in his case, he didn't attend a particularly good high school and he often won't train with intensity in the nets, although part of that is because most batsmen have no chance seeing him without a sight screen.

Tried to get him to think about a plan for batsmen, tried telling him that he was bowling too short too often, tried telling him that he should only bowl short if he was looking to hurt a batsman, in which case he asked why anyone would want to hurt a batsman, not a good thing for a fast bowler to ask.

 

[Jono]

Such terrible journalism really. Look at the three direct Bond quotes.

There needs to be a complaint made about that ****. That's disgraceful.

 

[NZTailender]

Bennett has to play a game in the India series for mine. Selectors obviously thought he had the stuff when he was first chosen, and at his age he's ripe to mature at international level. Plus he's been going great guns in the PS-though oddly not LO as you would've expected. Milne shouldn't get a Test ahead of him IMO

 

[Flem274*]

I played a few Hamilton matches with him and sat myself at mid off, just to try and get an idea for his thought process when bowling, I also asked him where on the wicket he looked when running into bowl, for a guy who has been in age group rep cricket for so long, it's frightening how little he thought of this, it's definitely a coaching thing in his case, he didn't attend a particularly good high school and he often won't train with intensity in the nets, although part of that is because most batsmen have no chance seeing him without a sight screen.

Tried to get him to think about a plan for batsmen, tried telling him that he was bowling too short too often, tried telling him that he should only bowl short if he was looking to hurt a batsman, in which case he asked why anyone would want to hurt a batsman, not a good thing for a fast bowler to ask.

Yeah as you say, reads like he's a kid who was never one of the select few who got all the coaches so was just left to make it up as he went along. You make him sound like he's very much a gentle giant on the field too. He's exactly the sort of bowler who could send Hawke Cup batsmen to hospital with his bowling if he wanted to.

 

[Blocky]

I've heard stories of him firing up, he played against McCullum in a game for an U19 vs NZ side and bounced him, McCullum came down the pitch and told him to **** off with the short ****, so he came around the wicket and bowled a sustained spell reminiscent of bodyline at him.

 

[Flem274*]

I like him

 

[SteveNZ]

I think you're being harsh on Wheeler. Early this season he fell to pieces a bit but usually bowls a fantastic length and gets consistent inswing to the right hander. Neither he nor Mathieson are anywhere near the late 140s though. Mathieson can't bowl the same pace two balls in a row and the quickets I've seen from him is low 140s, which was achieved once or twice in four overs mixed in with 125kph long hops and Wheeler is consistently hovering either side of 135kph.

I was going to say the same about Wheeler. Granted I haven't seen him bowl for 12 months or so but I saw him absolutely dismantle Wellington at Nelson Park with a beautiful display of seam-up, quick late inswing. Not sure whether that's still the case post a couple of injuries, or how his pace is.

 

[Smudge]

The Hawke Cup is what I'd like to expand; at the moment it seems more like a way for players from outside the main cities to be recognised than anything. I'd love to see it run more consistently across the season with teams from the city centres included (although probably less teams overall) and more consistently over three day matches. Obviously there are major logistical and financial roadblocks to this however; we probably don't live in a world where this is possible.

I basically just think the entire country should be represented in some way at Hawke Cup level, with the First Class sides picking from it as the season goes on.

I wouldn't really want to "cut" any teams per se, but I'd want less of them and I'd want some new ones, so if that meant merging some of the districts, then so be it. I don't know enough about regional NZ geography to offer specific suggestions but the merged districts could have pre-season trials between the pre-merger sides to form squads for it.

If this interrupted some working functionality of the Hawke Cup as it too much then I'd just leave the Hawke Cup as it is and stick another competition above it. Again though, we don't live in a perfect world; there would be logistical, financial and indeed political roadblocks to all that.

What South Africa did was merge their dozen or so First Class districts into six and then leave the original competition below (erroneously still having First Class status ). All the franchises have a couple of different sides competing in the lower comp to pick players from. Imagine the Kippax conspiracy theories possible with that setup though, gosh.

Please, for the love of Christ, keep your hands off meddling with the Hawke Cup. The cup has always been for minor associations and should stay that way. The inclusion of Dunedin Metro 10 or so years ago was a joke, and this is from someone who played club cricket in Dunedin at the time. Bar a player or two, they were essentially an Otago B side. Contrast that with the sheer joy that the North Otago guys got a couple of years ago when they upset Manawatu to lift the Hawke Cup.

 

[Kippax]

Evidently not a Plunket Promise subscriber. I wouldn't be judging Milne's swing on one game, especially with the white ball in his hand. We've seen him bowl inswingers with the outswinger variation for both CD and NZ A. However I will grant you he appears to have temporarily lost it this season by the FC footage.

Yeah Milne was far from gun-barrel straight with the new white ball in Sri Lanka.