***Official*** New Zealand in the West Indies 2014

[Hurricane]

Dare I say it, sometimes the 80s side gets overrated. The one above has Ken Rutherford at three...

Did we ever field a middle order of Jones, Crowe, Reid, Coney?

No Reid's last test 1986 - Jones' first 87

I think if Latham turns out to be just ok - then this team will compare ok to the 1980s.

2014 walking wicket opening batsman < Trevor Franklin
2014 Latham < John Wright
2014 Williamson > Jones
2014 Taylor = Crowe (big call but based on this year's form)
2014 Baz < Coney but not by much - Coney was more consistent in my memory.
2014 Neesham/Anderson > Dipak Patel/Jeff Crowe
2014 Watling >>> Hadlee
2014 Southee <<<< Smith
2014 Craig < Bracewell
2014 Sodhi >>> Morrison
2014 Boult >>>Chatfield

 

[Bahnz]

Dare I say it, sometimes the 80s side gets overrated. The one above has Ken Rutherford at three...

Did we ever field a middle order of Jones, Crowe, Reid, Coney?

Coney retired in 1986, so I doubt it. But regardless the great thing about the 80's batting was there was fantastic batting strength all the way through it. John Wright is underrated by NZers I think. He had a dismal start to his career but averaged 42 from 1985 onwards, in arguably the strongest era for fast bowling in history. To me only Turner is definitively ahead of him in the all time list of NZ openers. Crowe was obviously our greatest ever bat. Coney and Reid were terrific in the mid-80's. Jones and Greatbatch were just as good in the late 80's, early 90's. Edgar and Franklin weren't great, but they'd walk into any NZ side in the last 15 years. And then you need to remember that the 80's side had excellent lower-order batting. Smith, Hadlee, Bracewell were excellent at building on the platform set by the top order. .

 

[wellAlbidarned]

Coney retired in 1986, so I doubt it. But regardless the great thing about the 80's batting was there was fantastic batting strength all the way through it. John Wright is underrated by NZers I think. He had a dismal start to his career but averaged 42 from 1985 onwards, in arguably the strongest era for fast bowling in history. To me only Turner is definitively ahead of him in the all time list of NZ openers. Crowe was obviously our greatest ever bat. Coney and Reid were terrific in the mid-80's. Jones and Greatbatch were just as good in the late 80's, early 90's. Edgar and Franklin weren't great, but they'd walk into any NZ side in the last 15 years. And then you need to remember that the 80's side had excellent lower-order batting. Smith, Hadlee, Bracewell were excellent at building on the platform set by the top order. .

Indeed. The most impressive stat for Wright imo is that he averaged over 100 deliveries per dismissal - key for an opener

 

[ohnoitsyou]

I was looking at Watling's cricinfo profile today and I've found a real dolly of a ND batting line up, which was also Watling's FC debut.

Northern Districts v Auckland at Hamilton, Dec 6-8, 2004 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

James Marshall*
Nick Horsley
Mark Orchard
Matthew Hart
Llorne Howell
Grant Robinson
Joseph Yovich
BJ Watling (wk)
Ryan Shutte
Daryl Tuffey
Graeme Aldridge

Hart at 4??? What?

Still beats this imo.

Wellington v Northern Districts at Whangarei, Feb 16-19, 2014 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

BS Wilson
DR Flynn*
JF Carter
JD Hickey
Bharat Popli
MJ Santner
SC Kuggeleijn
IS Sodhi
RM Christopherson†
GW Aldridge
JD Baker

 

[straw man]

The best team we ever put on the park was around the Doull, Nash, Cairns and young Vettori period

That does pip our current attack, if there ever was a test where they all played and none were sub-par or crocked due to their extremely frequent injuries.

 

[Flem274*]

Some of the mid 80s linesups are gun.

Edgar/Rutherford
Wright
Reid
Crowe
Coney

+ Ian Smith, Hadlee and Chats

I'm sure we can find a lineup of that with a few decent guys in the vacant spots.

Genuine, non trolling question for the elderly in this thread.

Someone explain Bruce Edgar to me.

He's universally loved and I can see why - seems a good bloke. His test record is pretty meh though. People always say how good he was but a guy with 3 hundreds from 39 tests at an average of 30.59 just seems a bit underwhelming. He would walk into our current team but he has the sort of record where if he played today I could see his place constantly being on the line when the next flavour of the month smokes Shield attacks and averages a billion. Vincent averaged 34 or whatever it was opening and people always whinged about him.

A lot fans and selectors are never happy unless you're pushing the 40 mark. Edgar would have fluctuated between high 20s to low 30s and that's the sort of player who would cop a lot of stick. That's why I'm surprised at the esteem he is held in as an NZ opening batsman.

I'm way too young to have ever seen him play but I've always been curious as to how he was talked about when he was playing.

 

[Teja.]

Since Boult's debut, he and Southee have 83 wickets each with Southee averaging 24 (19 matches) and Boult 27.4 (23 matches).

 

[Howsie]

Since Boult's debut, he and Southee have 83 wickets each with Southee averaging 24 (19 matches) and Boult 27.4 (23 matches).

Ssssshhhhh. People aren't suppose to know they're good.

 

[Bahnz]

2014 Williamson > Jones

Nah. Williamson's a better batsman to watch I grant you, and I definitely think he'll get better than Jones was. But for all his crabbiness Jones was extremely skilled and averaged 46 until an ill advised decision to come out of reitrement took some of the polish off his numbers. You've also gotta love him for his infamous call during the 1987 Australian tour welcoming function:

"The way you guys treat the aboriginies is a ****ing disgrace!"

2014 Taylor = Crowe (big call but based on this year's form)

 

[Flem274*]

Jeremy Coney averages 50 with the bat in NZ iirc. Partly explains why we were so hard to beat at home.

 

[ohnoitsyou]

IIRC from his biography Wright believes he always under performed in test cricket; he changed his backlift sometime very late in his career and became a better batsman over night.

 

[Hurricane]

Genuine, non trolling question for the elderly in this thread.

Someone explain Bruce Edgar to me.

He's universally loved and I can see why - seems a good bloke. His test record is pretty meh though. People always say how good he was but a guy with 3 hundreds from 39 tests at an average of 30.59 just seems a bit underwhelming. He would walk into our current team but he has the sort of record where if he played today I could see his place constantly being on the line when the next flavour of the month smokes Shield attacks and averages a billion. Vincent averaged 34 or whatever it was opening and people always whinged about him.

A lot fans and selectors are never happy unless you're pushing the 40 mark. Edgar would have fluctuated between high 20s to low 30s and that's the sort of player who would cop a lot of stick. That's why I'm surprised at the esteem he is held in as an NZ opening batsman.

I'm way too young to have ever seen him play but I've always been curious as to how he was talked about when he was playing.

What was wrong with my post in the crabs subbie then

He was consistent - he scored over 20 runs 34 times out of 68 innings which meant he was seeing off the new ball usually before getting out.

Also he was good at ODIs - his average was 30 which is fair going.

Also earned brownie points with everyone for his century in the underarm bowl game. It was an epic knock - centuries weren't as common back then, he opened and carried his bat.

 

[Bahnz]

Genuine, non trolling question for the elderly in this thread.

Someone explain Bruce Edgar to me.

A lot fans and selectors are never happy unless you're pushing the 40 mark. Edgar would have fluctuated between high 20s to low 30s and that's the sort of player who would cop a lot of stick. That's why I'm surprised at the esteem he is held in as an NZ opening batsman.

His average actually mostly fluctuated above and below the 35 mark, before nose-diving in the last couple of years of his career. He also did pretty well against Australia and the West Indies, which I imagine would lead to him being fairly fondly remembered.

 

[Flem274*]

His average actually mostly fluctuated above and below the 35 mark, before nose-diving in the last couple of years of his career. He also did pretty well against Australia and the West Indies, which I imagine would lead to him being fairly fondly remembered.

haha, very much so.

 

[ohnoitsyou]

What was wrong with my post in the crabs subbie then

He was consistent - he scored over 20 runs 34 times out of 68 innings which meant he was seeing off the new ball usually before getting out.

Also he was good at ODIs - his average was 30 which is fair going.

Also earned brownie points with everyone for his century in the underarm bowl game. It was an epic knock - centuries weren't as common back then, he opened and carried his bat.

So he got a start once every second innings?

 

[kiwiviktor81]

We've never really been blessed in terms of openers. Lots of journeymen making good but rarely does an opener of ours dominate an attack.

 

[Hurricane]

Nah. Williamson's a better batsman to watch I grant you, and I definitely think he'll get better than Jones was. But Jones was extremely skilled and averaged 46 until an ill advised decision to come out of reitrement took some of the polish off his numbers.

Your laugh at my Taylor / Crowe comparison is misplaced - Crowe did not go on hyper drive I believe from reading old accounts until the 1990s - his 299 for example came in 1991.

Kane this year only is better than Jones ever was. Jones was a mind of matter player - he over achieved as well. Him and his psychologist girlfriend made breakthrough discoveries on how to approach a cricketing inning and the mindset you need to be in - and he turned himself around from a domestic stalwart into a test quality batsman. With his technique he should have averaged in the 20s. Very selfish player.

 

[Hurricane]

My crabs post on Edgar

Edgar had classy shots he is my fav player of all time. He had this back foot punch through wide mid wicket to back of a length deliveries that no one else did or has done since. It would be a dot ball to any other batsman pretty much ever.

Perhaps his finest moment was the underarm bowl game, but he also had several stodgy hundreds in white clothes Tmac style. After one century that took 5 sessions iirc there was a public outcry and peeps called for him to be dropped. Luckily he scored a better ton in the next match.

He retired one series after I started watching so some of my knowledge is based on reading about him.

 

[Bahnz]

Your laugh at my Taylor / Crowe comparison is misplaced - Crowe did not go on hyper drive I believe from reading old accounts until the 1990s - his 299 for example came in 1991.

Kane this year only is better than Jones ever was. Jones was a mind of matter player - he over achieved as well. Him and his psychologist girlfriend made breakthrough discoveries on how to approach a cricketing inning and the mindset you need to be in - and he turned himself around from a domestic stalwart into a test quality batsman. With his technique he should have averaged in the 20s. Very selfish player.

Can't remember the exact numbers, but Crowe was a beast in the second half of the 80's. I think he averaged 54 from 1985 till Hadlee retired. He scored 190 odd against the greatest bowling attack of all time in Georgetown, was the batting driving force behind our runs v Aus and England, and was wonderfully consistent against all opposition. I like Taylor, but 3 centuries against (Narine aside) an FC standard bowling attack does not put him into Crowe's class.

 

[Immenso]

On paper; the 85/86 3rd test in Perth,

Wright
Edgar
Reid
Crowe
Crowe
Coney
Hadlee
Smith
Bracewell
Cairns
Chatfield.

Also the 1983 World Cup team, although they had a rubbish tournament, on paper had a fantastic team with both Glenn Turner and Martin Crowe plus Howarth and the rest of the early 80s guys. The cricketing equivalent of Scotland '78.