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

[Flem274*]

as much as we whinge about rutherford against spin, slower and lower west indian pitches might help him get a start against the new ball.

 

[hendrix]

"Rare loss of concentration - drawn into the shot"

no, no, that's not rare.

 

[Flem274*]

still better than fulton

 

[hendrix]

and there's that classic Rutherford dismissal.

He has no control over it.

 

[BeeGee]

holy **** we have 5 runs on the board without losing a wicket yet.

bless you hamish. you've already outdone fults.

Not by much.

 

[Dan]

That was disgusting #BringBackGuptill

 

[Flem274*]

rutherford has it imo. jury is out as to whether he will fulfill his ability but with some fix ups he'll be a test opener.

he'll more than likely need a long spell away from tests to come back better though.

 

[Kippax]

Michael Bracewell, heading over for three-dayers with NZA soon apparently.

 

[BeeGee]

Sodhi should take his professional night watchman role to the ultimate level and walk out with Latham at the start of the innings. He'd probably do a better job of seeing off the new ball than Fults/Ruds and we'd have the added bonus of being able to play Wags.

 

[Dan]

Or pick Tastle in that role:
> Better opening bat
> Better leg spinner
> Wagner also plays

 

[Kippax]

McCullum made a firm commitment over the weekend to playing no makeshift openers under his watch, ftr. Unless they have "the slight insanity required", like he did.

 

[Kippax]

Hinted at going down the makeshift route for a Ryder replacement in ODIs though, before the WC.

 

[Flem274*]

guptill
raval
flynn
wilson
carter
how
smith
papps
brodie
fulton
latham
worker
nicol
redmond
rutherford
broom

there's our list of attempted openers, and a lot of the guys who haven't been tried yet don't even score domestic runs.

who has the best technique up there do we reckon?

 

[BeeGee]

McCullum made a firm commitment over the weekend to playing no makeshift openers under his watch, ftr. Unless they have "the slight insanity required", like he did.

Every NZ opener is a makeshift opener. Fulton and Rutherford were never opener material. Huge flaws in their defense.

 

[Dan]

More of this today please. The tumblr fangirls need more material.

 

[Beamer]

Tall bowlers have a really good record at QPO. Jason Holder was regularly beating the bat in the nets, getting lots of extra bounce.

So naturally, they've gone with Gabriel, who can't even get the ball to hit the seam. Fantastic!

 

[Dan]

Yeah, it makes no sense whatsoever. Maybe they really didn't want to debut two players at once?

 

[BeeGee]

Tall bowlers have a really good record at QPO. Jason Holder was regularly beating the bat in the nets, getting lots of extra bounce.

So naturally, they've gone with Gabriel, who can't even get the ball to hit the seam. Fantastic!

Yeah, I'd love to hear the reasoning behind Gabriel over Holder. I'd have taken Holder every day of week.

 

[Beamer]

Yeah, it makes no sense whatsoever. Maybe they really didn't want to debut two players at once?

Hometown pick. A Trini playing at home, it's the only thing I can think of. Nothing else makes any cricketing sense.

 

[hendrix]

Tall bowlers have a really good record at QPO. Jason Holder was regularly beating the bat in the nets, getting lots of extra bounce.

So naturally, they've gone with Gabriel, who can't even get the ball to hit the seam. Fantastic!

one thing this series is very quickly doing is sorting out the Test level players from guys not up to it. The likes of Fulton, Rutherford, Powell, Samuels etc are getting found out rather easily.

Gabriel. Well he's just not there yet. Nice pace, good bounce, but he needs to be able to land the ball on the seam or he's useless.