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

[SteveNZ]

Gee, O'Donnell really knows his cricket, doesn't he?

I've said this before ad nauseum but O'Donnell is an absolute gun. Smartest young head on a cricketer I've ever seen. If it wasn't for the World Cup I imagine he'd be playing for Auckland and filling his boots on the OO

 

[Bahnz]

Bit early to curse him with that tag, look what happened to How & Fulton when they were labelled future BC Captain.

On the other hand look at KW. He's been labelled as a future NZ captain since he was 16, and in the opinion of some he's only about 12 months away from picking up the top job.

 

[jcas0167]

Geeze, O'Donnell does sound like he knows his stuff. Wonder if that translates as a good captaining brain. Future BC captain.

Was mentioned by Sportsfreak on twitter that he is also eligible for England?

 

[Bahnz]

Tugaga continues his success in international warmup games this season. He should probably look to move somewhere else, as he'll have little opportunity to break into the Wellington side with the triumvirate of former NZ quicks firmly entrenched atm.

 

[hendrix]

Was mentioned by Sportsfreak on twitter that he is also eligible for England?

does him having played for a NZ XI cause any stand down period before that could happen or does it need to be actual international cricket?

 

[hendrix]

Tugaga continues his success in international warmup games this season. He should probably look to move somewhere else, as he'll have little opportunity to break into the Wellington side with the triumvirate of former NZ quicks firmly entrenched atm.

Where to though? Wellington might be his best shot within a couple of years.

 

[jcas0167]

Tugaga continues his success in international warmup games this season. He should probably look to move somewhere else, as he'll have little opportunity to break into the Wellington side with the triumvirate of former NZ quicks firmly entrenched atm.

Yes, he'd probably get into the Canterbury side. I see Friday had a chance put down in the slips. He got a contract with Auckland but hasn't featured this season. McPeake sounds promising too.

 

[RxGM]

On the other hand look at KW. He's been labelled as a future NZ captain since he was 16, and in the opinion of some he's only about 12 months away from picking up the top job.

And theoretically could be captain for the next 12 years, by which stage Latham will be 34 and O'Donnell 31.
These both future captains just need to score mountains of runs, and worry about captaincy later.

 

[Jono]

That bowling attack doesn't fill Kiwi hearts with terror... except the spin bowlers, but we're becoming more and more capable against them.

India will need to win this through scoring big, quickly. They need scoreboard pressure because with all respect, I just don't see that bowling attack taking twenty against NZ any other way.

Our bowling is ****, no doubt. But if the South African batting lineup is able to collapse against them, NZ batting lineup is capable of doing the same.

 

[hendrix]

Any bowling attack, even Bangladesh in Bangladesh is capable of taking 20 wickets against NZ.

India in NZ shouldn't have any problems with that.

 

[Blocky]

disagree with that. Shami, Zak, Umesh are all wicket taking bowlers.

I'm more fearful of their seamers than I am their spinners.

Then you're a fool. Shami is a threat, yes, but Umesh is Tino Best reincarnated and Zaheer Khan is four years removed from being a threatening bowler. I could see Ashwin or Jadeja running through our batting as spin often has, but their pace attack feels more like one that will winkle you out with mistakes, rather than force you out with good deliveries.

 

[Blocky]

Yes, he'd probably get into the Canterbury side. I see Friday had a chance put down in the slips. He got a contract with Auckland but hasn't featured this season. McPeake sounds promising too.

It'd be hard for Tip to get into the Auckland side, considering he's only the third best pace bowler in his club side. Michael Ravlic has been out bowling him in every game and Lachie Ferguson is a much better prospect. I also think James Walsh as a prem stalwart is probably harder to face than Tip is.

As for South Africa collapsing, one innings - they then almost put an international all time chasing record on India in the fourth innings. Like I said, taking 20 wickets. Taking 10? A side can do that on the back of some good luck and a dodgy dismissal or two.

 

[straw man]

I'm sympathetic to Hendrix's views in the domestic thread that Wagner bowling poorly is likely to hurt us in this test series more than Sodhi. Sodhi at this stage is a Hail Mary selection, but imo the damage is already done in picking him so early and at this point there are potential benefits to keeping the faith rather than removing all support and dropping him just as quickly (like so many other discarded spinners around the world). Leave him out if there are genuine (pitch-related) reasons to pick four seamers and we have a worthwhile fourth seamer in the squad, which we don't.

Sodhi as our fourth bowler will need to nibble around the edges, be protected from bowling against India's very best players of spin and aim to pick up tail-end wickets like he did in the last PS match. By contrast Wagner must bowl plenty of overs and not be all over the place. Implicit in this is the idea that Wagner is a core bowler while Sodhi doesn't have to be - I realise that's unfair but with two part-timers and two quality fast bowlers the third bowler is far more important than the fourth, who is able to occupy a much smaller niche. As an alternative 4th bowler to Sodhi, Bracewell has been a worse version of Wagner in recent series and it's hard to see him adding much. Clearly I also believe Sodhi has plenty of potential and, leg-spin being perhaps the most difficult skill in cricket (and perhaps the most reliant on mentality as well), it's worthwhile really backing the guy and trying to help things click for him, Southee-like, in the next few years. There's a balance here between immediacy and investment in the future and the balance should always lean very heavily towards immediacy, but in this particular instance we're losing very little to nothing by picking Sodhi over Bracewell anyway imo. Maybe even gaining some tail-mop-up-age.

Longer term I am still in favour of four seamers plus Williamson as Plan A unless Sodhi develops into a gun (the Dream scenario). Anderson as an all-rounder on top of that does give us a luxury of instead going back to a specialist spinner if worthwhile, however I'm pretty wary of relying on Anderson to bowl many overs as there could always be another injury around the corner. Plus his batting against quality bowling is also unproven.

Vote #1 Sodhi for the Auckland test.

 

[Blocky]

Wagner continues to get the good players out in test cricket and has bowled some pretty good spells without a tremendous amount of luck, that being said, I think he's trying too hard at the moment for pace which is distorting his natural abilities. I wouldn't pick him but the other options are either Gillespie for another run at cricket, Bennett (although his fitness would concern me), Henry or Bracewell. That being said, I'd much rather Wagner over Bracewell and think Wagner is only a breakout performance away from becoming a very good consistent bowler for NZ.

The other thing to keep in mind is that at similar points in their career, Wagner has better statistics than Southee and comparable statistics to both O'Brien and Martin.

Ultimately, Sodhi still has a first class average of 49 - even with a 5/29 thrown in there. We should never select players who haven't performed a role at domestic level that we would consider "handy" in the test scene - i.e if Sodhi replicated his first class form and after 20 matches, had taken 45-50 test wickets at an average of 49, would we be happy with that? I don't see how we could be, therefore I don't see how he's been selected and why we're happy to select these types of players. Maybe if he'd come back this season and been dominating sides and lowered his average right down, but you can't even say he's done that outside of one performance

Compare that to the amount of domestic bowlers who year in, year out had great performances without getting a chance and it just seems like we're getting a little bit over eager on the basis of having a leg spinner for once.

 

[hendrix]

Then you're a fool. Shami is a threat, yes, but Umesh is Tino Best reincarnated and Zaheer Khan is four years removed from being a threatening bowler. I could see Ashwin or Jadeja running through our batting as spin often has, but their pace attack feels more like one that will winkle you out with mistakes, rather than force you out with good deliveries.

this is honestly the last time with you.

If you want to have a discussion you need to treat others with respect. Otherwise you're going to run out of people to talk to.

 

[hendrix]

Southee=picked as an 18y/o after his first season of first class cricket, clearly wasn't the finished product

Wagner=27, been a professional cricketer for a number of years.

Wagner will never be as good as Southee is now.

 

[hendrix]

By contrast Wagner must bowl plenty of overs and not be all over the place. Implicit in this is the idea that Wagner is a core bowler while Sodhi doesn't have to be - I realise that's unfair but with two part-timers and two quality fast bowlers the third bowler is far more important than the fourth, who is able to occupy a much smaller niche. As an alternative 4th bowler to Sodhi, Bracewell has been a worse version of Wagner in recent series and it's hard to see him adding much.

pretty much this.

Sodhi's other role is to get through overs quickly so we can get the new ball, but it's relatively minor compared to the job Wagner has.

 

[jcas0167]

It'd be hard for Tip to get into the Auckland side, considering he's only the third best pace bowler in his club side. Michael Ravlic has been out bowling him in every game and Lachie Ferguson is a much better prospect. I also think James Walsh as a prem stalwart is probably harder to face than Tip is.

Yeah, I've heard Ferguson is pretty quick.

I wouldn't pick him but the other options are either Gillespie for another run at cricket, Bennett (although his fitness would concern me), Henry or Bracewell. That being said, I'd much rather Wagner over Bracewell and think Wagner is only a breakout performance away from becoming a very good consistent bowler for NZ.

I hope so. He comes up with wicket taking deliveries reasonably frequently. Bracewell had such a great start to his test career, you'd expect him to develop into a really good test bowler at some stage.

 

[straw man]

Wagner continues to get the good players out in test cricket and has bowled some pretty good spells without a tremendous amount of luck, that being said, I think he's trying too hard at the moment for pace which is distorting his natural abilities. I wouldn't pick him but the other options are either Gillespie for another run at cricket, Bennett (although his fitness would concern me), Henry or Bracewell. That being said, I'd much rather Wagner over Bracewell and think Wagner is only a breakout performance away from becoming a very good consistent bowler for NZ.

The other thing to keep in mind is that at similar points in their career, Wagner has better statistics than Southee and comparable statistics to both O'Brien and Martin.

While I'm not writing off Wagner completely, I have far less faith in him than you and I wouldn't put his overall poor career figures to date down to bad luck. There's some hope there still - while he doesn't have the natural physical attributes of Southee or Boult, that's actually not what's been holding him back - general lack of control, trying too hard and at times perhaps lack of sense being more pertinent. And that horrible seam position - ugh. I'm not holding my breath for a big improvement tbh.

Ideally for me, we'd be playing both tests on a Basin Reserve-like pitch identical to the one vs WI, where you could (just) justify four seamers, and we'd select Wagner as third and Henry/Milne/Bennett/Wheeler as fourth. Most likely Henry as I can most see him replacing Wagner as third seamer. Then reintroduce faith-in-Sodhi for the West Indies tour and it's a shootout between Henry and Wagner for the third seamer spot.

 

[straw man]

Ultimately, Sodhi still has a first class average of 49 - even with a 5/29 thrown in there. We should never select players who haven't performed a role at domestic level that we would consider "handy" in the test scene - i.e if Sodhi replicated his first class form and after 20 matches, had taken 45-50 test wickets at an average of 49, would we be happy with that? I don't see how we could be, therefore I don't see how he's been selected and why we're happy to select these types of players. Maybe if he'd come back this season and been dominating sides and lowered his average right down, but you can't even say he's done that outside of one performance

Compare that to the amount of domestic bowlers who year in, year out had great performances without getting a chance and it just seems like we're getting a little bit over eager on the basis of having a leg spinner for once.

This is all completely fair - I'm just coming from the perspective that Sodhi has already been thrown in the deep end and our alternative in the squad is Bracewell. And also that, while I do like selection based on proven domestic performance the vast majority of the time, I do believe that on occasions it can work to choose someone with good bones and back them for a period of time.