straw man
Hall of Fame Member
Had assumed too from my quick peak at Craig in Kippax's videos that it was mostly drift and loop rather than spin - how else is an NZ spinner going to get by, really. All our spinners will need the turn from this pitch to speed up or become more uneven if they're going to be a threat anyway.Yeah I agree. It was clear to me through watching in the vault that he was going to bowl reasonably accurately and get some drift and drop. I also suspected he'd get some turn on reasonably helpful wickets such as this one but that was speculative based on his action and release rather than on empirical evidence as there are no helpful wickets in the Plunket Shield.
Hard to get all that much from one over but got one shorter one to straighten and no side- or over-spin on any of the other deliveries really; hopefully he puts a bit more on it tomorrow when he's settled in more and the ball's a bit older.
Guess we've known for quite a while we have a slip catching problem. Taylor is pretty good and McCullum is about average by international standards. Southee not bad though obv can't slip to himself and there's always a slight injury concern. Missing Guptill and to a lesser extent Brownlie by not making the grade with the bat. Ironically Fulton's apparent slip catching ability was the only thing separating him and Rutherford in my mind when thinking about selection for this test.Still, it's ridiculous the amount of catches we put down in the slips. As good as Southee and Boult have been over the past two years New Zealand's slip cordon has really let them down big time over and over again. Drop city.