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

[hendrix]

I don't think that it's too much of a stretch to say that Wagner pretty much single-handedly reversed the momentum of the series. WI had dominated the contest for 6 and a half days straight, and when Wagner came on to bowl, were looking a sure fire thing for a 100+ first innings lead. Collectively, NZ were bowling rubbish, and looked more than a little resigned to the whole situation. By the time that Wagner was done a session and a bit later, WI were 240/5 and the tail was exposed. Other players then piled in and backed up his good work, but Wagner was undoubtedly the catalyst for the turn-around.

I agree, but he's not unique in this.

Look at the Kingston test. The Windies were 60 without loss before Craig and Sodhi took the first three wickets. We weren't in any position to lose that match, but those wickets enabled us to set up a victory after Southee and Boult had failed to take early wickets.

It's just weird to say he's a big-moment player if you don't afford other bowlers the same credit.

 

[Howsie]

I've never understood what people saw in Doug Bracewell. He's barely in the top ten bowlers in the country.

Beautiful, easy on the body action. Great natural length, and best of all a hooping outswinger. Sadly for Bracewell not to long after he made the New Zealand team he lost his ability to swing the ball. I have no idea why he did but it happened, and he struggled from that point on. Jimmy Neesham, during his time on CW reckoned he was the best young bowler in the country - by miles. Was hard to argue when you saw him bowl.

 

[Bahnz]

Yeah, Bracewell's action was great on the eye, and he was also probably a bit quicker than Southee and Boult on average. But once he lost his outswinger, he became a sitting duck for decent batsmen, and he's now a looooong way off reselection. Probably all of Gillespie, Henry and Milne are ahead of him now.

 

[Hurricane]

Beautiful, easy on the body action. Great natural length, and best of all a hooping outswinger. Sadly for Bracewell not to long after he made the New Zealand team he lost his ability to swing the ball. I have no idea why he did but it happened, and he struggled from that point on. Jimmy Neesham, during his time on CW reckoned he was the best young bowler in the country - by miles. Was hard to argue when you saw him bowl.

 

[SteveNZ]

I've never understood what people saw in Doug Bracewell. He's barely in the top ten bowlers in the country.

Perhaps not now, but I saw him bowl v the Proteas at Dunedin and he was every inch a Test bowler. Hard into the deck, decent clip with shape.

Incredible to think of that Test, only two years ago (touch longer) when Doug was at that level, and Tim could hardly get to the crease, bowled without pace/shape and was meat and drink - and about to be dropped. Shows the virtue of hard work v piss drinking.

I think some of us are still stuck in our ways of bagging Wagner, when we really need to accept he's a bona fide third seamer option that fits very well into our attack and has proven himself on varying surfaces. To say it's hard to think of an 'awesome delivery' he's bowled is more amnesia on the commentor's part than anything else. And there's no extra points for jaffas in any case.

 

[Prince EWS]

Beautiful, easy on the body action. Great natural length, and best of all a hooping outswinger. Sadly for Bracewell not to long after he made the New Zealand team he lost his ability to swing the ball. I have no idea why he did but it happened, and he struggled from that point on.

I think some of it was the expectation of him to alter his bowling style to perform the role Wagner is largely doing now. Bracewell, as you mentioned, was a straight up outswing bowler at his best but as the third seamer in a side there's often not a lot of opportunity to do that. Most of his bowling was done with the older ball where he had to either drop his length back or work on reversing the ball, neither of which were strengths of his game.

He was asked to develop on the run and he didn't understand his game well enough to do it, so his performances dropped off and he was replaced. It's tempting to say he was used in the wrong role, but the fact of the matter is: the bowlers who ~were~ being used in his role have always been better than him. It was third seamer or bust, and so bust it was.

Beyond that though, he had a really poor First Class record when he was selected in the first place. For all that looks so right about his bowling, he's always been wildly inconsistent and very much an under-achiever overall. It really shouldn't have been that much of a surprise that he didn't deliver consistently at Test level, especially when you combine that issue with what I mentioned in the first paragraph.

 

[Howsie]

He compliments the Boult/Southee partnership rather well though IMO, running in hard all day and standing up when conditions don't suit or when the chips are down. While you didn't say you wanted him dropped you clearly feel that there are potentially better alternatives, I'd argue Wagner has a valuable place in this attack that shouldn't be replaced with another Boult/Southee type, unless of course they are of the same quality, which to my knowledge they aren't atm

Big heart, runs in hard all day. Generally descriptions of a bowler who is merely, i.e. Peter Siddle, average. I'm not going to go all WW here but I do believe New Zealand have some better bowlers floating around then Neil Wagner. Like I said earlier, I would hate to think how we would go if Southee or Boult went down on the morning of the test and Neil Wagner was forced to open the bowling.

 

[Prince EWS]

Big heart, runs in hard all day. Generally descriptions of a bowler who is merely, i.e. Peter Siddle, average. I'm not going to go all WW here but I do believe New Zealand have some better bowlers floating around then Neil Wagner. Like I said earlier, I would hate to think how we would go if Southee or Boult went down on the morning of the test and Neil Wagner was forced to open the bowling.

You'd hope whoever was brought in as a replacement opened the bowling instead. Wagner's carved out a nice niche for himself in this side but I'd have little to no faith in him to perform a role with the new ball.

 

[Maximas]

Any side would struggle if one of their world class players got injured, Wagner's role as a 3rd seamer is to be a 3rd seamer, not to be ready to open the bowling in case someone gets injured. I would also have little faith in him successfully opening the bowling but that's the beauty of Wagner, he is a genuine 3rd seamer, and hence he fits well into an attack with Southee and Boult and provides balance, I don't see the value of replacing him with a Boult/Southee type for the role of 3rd seamer.

 

[BackFootPunch]

How many of you guys have actually watched Wagner bowl for Otago though? Completely different story when he's the leader of the attack, as opposed to supporting Boult and Southee.

 

[Blocky]

God help us if Southee or Boult ever go down injured. Because as decent as his recent returns have been Neil Wagner is still trash. I seriously have no idea how this guy continues to pick up wickets. No accuracy, medium paced and he still can't land the ball on the seam to save himself. It boggles the mind.

The sooner Doug Bracewell sorts himself out and starts swinging the ball again, or a young guy like Henry or Wheeler stays injury free the better.

Yeah, bagging a guy who continues his amazing trend of taking out the best batsmen in the opposition team for most of his wickets makes perfect sense, versus Doug Bracewell who performed in one series and has been utter **** ever since.

Tbf, Latham's average was stuck in the high 30's until his two double-hundreds last season.

Yup - but also to be fair to Latham, it was a season or two of consistency that got him selected, rather than just a season post marked with a few big scores.

Yeah, I totally get that it works for him, he seems to get wickets of decent batsman from totally innocuous deliveries. Braithwaite done by a floater, Chanderpaul strangled down legside in this test. Even in the Indian series, a short wide nothing delivery got Kohli and Dhoni was done by a slower bouncer of all things. Granted, you could say that it's from the pressure he builds but I've never seen a Wagner dismissal where I've thought "That's an awesome delivery" like I've done for Southee and Boult. On the other hand, I guess that's not really the job of a third seamer and if it means he keeps taking scalps then I'm not complaining.

It's just the Shane Warne/Border school of thought - he went out there and picked a fight with the opposition to get himself into the game and into their heads, he needs that in order to get himself firing and I have no issue with it, I'd have an issue with it if he was the type of guy that went back into his shell and wasn't able to run in like he does all day, but Wagner runs in as hard for his 10th over on the trot as he does for his first and brings a bit of mongrel into the bowling attack.

Boult and Southee look a million bucks when they get all over an opposition player, Wagner is more about plans, pressure and slight deviation - but his track record against guys like Chanderpaul, Pietersen, Kohli, et all - he has a habit of taking the best player out of the opposition team and it's been with him since Day 1.

well this is a little disingenuous.

Good bowling does cancel out poor bowling, and there's been plenty of poor bowling in Wagner's career. "single-handedly" and "from a horrible position" isn't really accurate either.

There has been equally plenty as poor bowling from Boult and earlier years from Southee. Wagner has taken his test average down by seven runs in the last seven tests, and done so by taking out the top scalps of the team. His three wickets in the first innings to get Braithwaite, Bravo and Chanderpaul were arguably as important as Williamson's tonne to winning the match.

People want to bag the guy, and pretend like he's a fluke - but flukes don't get better and better with each performance and to be honest, at the moment he's out performing Boult for the last three series in a row.

It's more to do with Holder not being under-bowled. I think it would've made a big difference if he were to bowl more than 10 overs each innings.

Agree, but then as I pointed out at the start of the match, the real problem with Holder was likely to be his stamina and whether or not he could bowl at 130kph+ for long periods. I'd have given him more overs too, but we're guessing at the reasons why he wasn't given more than the overs he got.

Big heart, runs in hard all day. Generally descriptions of a bowler who is merely, i.e. Peter Siddle, average. I'm not going to go all WW here but I do believe New Zealand have some better bowlers floating around then Neil Wagner. Like I said earlier, I would hate to think how we would go if Southee or Boult went down on the morning of the test and Neil Wagner was forced to open the bowling.

Siddle being "average" makes me laugh, considering the guy has been the backbone of Australian cricket during times where everyone else got injured and wasn't available. 188 wickets at 29.37 puts him in a pretty good standard of cricketers in my view.

If Wagner was forced to open the bowling? Let's see, he was the only one in the first innings capable of finding a line and length and putting pressure back on the batsmen, which he converted into some wickets later in his spells. He bowls to a plan and is helped by the fact that he has natural variation in his pace due to his awkward action and the fact that he doesn't have a perfectly presented seam every delivery.

Some balls come out at 130, some come out at 142, some hit the seam and deviate in bounce and line, some hit the leather and skid through. I can't be bothered once again pulling out the list of top order batsmen he's dismissed and the fact that for the most part, he's never given a chance to bowl at the tail and take the kind of wickets that keeps Boult averaging under 30 ( go look it up ) - but the thing he does give you, which Boult doesn't, is a guy that is likely to take a wicket at any point in the day with the ball in any condition.

Southee is learning the ability to plug away when the swing isn't there, but Boult is clueless once his outswinger leaves him and his pace tends to drop horribly once the ball is a little older.

But I guess you have to put it down to "luck" - when he takes Trott out 4 times from 5 matches, Chanderpaul out 3 times from 6 matches, Bell out 3 times from 5 matches, Bravo out 2 times from 3 matches, Kohli out 2 times from 2 matches, Pietersen out 2 times from 2 matches.

Chanderpaul averages 12 against him, Cook averages 13, Bravo averages 12, Pietersen averages 6. But yeah, he's a horrible bowler who just happens to fluke wickets in every innings he plays.

 

[Blocky]

You'd hope whoever was brought in as a replacement opened the bowling instead. Wagner's carved out a nice niche for himself in this side but I'd have little to no faith in him to perform a role with the new ball.

Yet with Otago he bowls rapid, swings the ball both ways and has performances like 5 wickets in 6 balls to call from. The idea that "He can't possibly open the bowling" is a little stupid in my view, considering almost every single pace bowler has more chance with a 0 over ball versus a 15 over ball. Many times he's coming in after bad spells from the opening bowlers and taking a wicket(s) that changes the innings.

 

[Blocky]

How many of you guys have actually watched Wagner bowl for Otago though? Completely different story when he's the leader of the attack, as opposed to supporting Boult and Southee.

Reading through the comments before the home series against Windies and India will tell you most of these people think Wagner was a poorer selection than Sodhi. It doesn't matter that they had a big serving of "You don't know **** about Cricket" when he took a tonne of wickets at home, It doesn't matter that they've had another serving of "Boult may be the prettiest girl in the team, but doesn't take the important wickets like Wagner does" in this series - in their view, Wagner is a substandard cricketer and Doug Bracewell would be a much better option.

 

[Maximas]

I agree, but he's not unique in this.

No, and I never meant to imply that I thought he was, it's just that this performance (as well as several others in the past year) serve as evidence that Wagner plays a distinct role in this attack and he does it well, something that not all NZ supporters recognise

 

[Prince EWS]

How many of you guys have actually watched Wagner bowl for Otago though? Completely different story when he's the leader of the attack, as opposed to supporting Boult and Southee.

Well, I've had a look on the vault, if that counts.

I'm not surprised he succeeds in that role at domestic level but I just don't really think he has the tools to do in Test cricket. I'd honestly be rather surprised if any Test first change bowler of Wagner's stature couldn't open the bowling domestically with success, but doing it at Test level is a different story. His record in this role was actually not consistently exceptional for Otago anyway, by the by.

His seam position is often poor and his control of line leaves a lot to be desired as well. These faults can be successfully masked by his other qualities as a third seamer (good control of length, consistently good pace even in later spells, clever use of the crease etc) but I'd think they'd really come to the forefront as a new ball bowler. Good on him for adapting his bowling in such a way that allowed him to carve out a contributing role in a Test cricket attack but I just don't think he's skilful enough to lead an attack at Test level.

 

[Bahnz]

People want to bag the guy, and pretend like he's a fluke - but flukes don't get better and better with each performance and to be honest, at the moment he's out performing Boult for the last three series in a row.

Haha, that's crap.

You can only really compare how Boult and Wagner played in this one match. And in this one match it's pretty even - Wagner bowled superbly with the old ball in the first innings, Boult came back and bowled brilliantly with the new ball in the 2nd.

Yeah, you could probably argue that Wagner bowled better during the India series. But there is no way in hell that Wagner bowled better in the first series v WI. Wagner was as bad as Boult was sublime in that series.

 

[Bahnz]

Yet with Otago he bowls rapid, swings the ball both ways and has performances like 5 wickets in 6 balls to call from.

I have never once seen Wagner swing the ball both ways - he's into the right hander with conventional swing, and away with reverse.

 

[SteveNZ]

Reading through the comments before the home series against Windies and India will tell you most of these people think Wagner was a poorer selection than Sodhi. It doesn't matter that they had a big serving of "You don't know **** about Cricket" when he took a tonne of wickets at home, It doesn't matter that they've had another serving of "Boult may be the prettiest girl in the team, but doesn't take the important wickets like Wagner does" in this series - in their view, Wagner is a substandard cricketer and Doug Bracewell would be a much better option.

I'd challenge you to come up with anyone saying anything of the ilk you've just suggested there. You're taking hysterical posting to new heights. And the don't know **** and pretty girl stuff, that's really embarrassing. Sorry.

 

[hendrix]

No, and I never meant to imply that I thought he was, it's just that this performance (as well as several others in the past year) serve as evidence that Wagner plays a distinct role in this attack and he does it well, something that not all NZ supporters recognise

I'm happy to give him a big tick over the last two series. But if we keep trotting out the "big wickets" line it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where when he bowls well it was crucial and when he doesn't it has no bearing on the match.

It comes down to bowling well and doing a job. He's doing that. But we shouldn't miss the forest for the trees- he has to be susceptible when he's not performing and the "big wickets" theme obscures that.

 

[straw man]

Still pumping from the series win - it's a top achievement to do that away from home against a WI side that were far better than the one that toured here recently. Piece by piece this side is coming together and there's a good feeling around the side, the way they go about things and with good performances starting to pile up.

Ratings for the component parts:

Fulton - 0. 1 run at 0.5. If someone has done worse than 0, 1 and a dropped catch in a test match, I haven't heard of it. At least he will have some good memories when he looks back at his second chance to play for NZ, while forgetting about the latter part of that.

Rutherford - 1. 39 runs at 9.75. Most of that solitary point is for catching two important steeplers this match. Might be a test opener in 3+ years - is nowhere near being one now. Thank god we have an NZ A tour coming up to help work out who replaces Rutherford - M Bracewell and Brownlie are the experiment, with both Latham and Rutherford as the controls.

Latham - 8.5. 288 runs at 48. One of the finds of the series along with Neesham. A sign perhaps that there's something right in our team culture at the moment, with young talented guys coming into the side and immediately performing. We still know Latham is a little suspect around offstump and there will no doubt be some difficult times ahead, but he's still a million times more compact than Rutherford and shows an ability to learn from his mistakes.

Williamson - 9.5. 413 runs at 82.6. 2 wickets at 35. Just immense, his two centuries were a huge part of both wins. By not leaving us 50/3 every innings, Williamson gives our middle order a chance to really prosper too.

Taylor - 6. 187 runs at 37.4. Didn't look quite right at the crease all series though still contributed some mildly useful runs. Would be a 4.5 or 5 but for his excellent slip catching.

McCullum - 4. 87 at 14.5. That McCullum continues to fail with the bat away from home shouldn't surprise anyone. In away series since he moved back to the middle order (England, Bang, WI) he now has 169 runs in 12 innings at 14, and he wasn't a great deal higher than that in the away series as opener previous to that period either (SA, SL, India, WI). Obviously is a gun at home though. Still his captaincy is roundly praised, he puts faith in his players some of who respond, he made good declarations, and even though I haven't spent enough hours watching to really assess, has made some noticeably effective field placements.

Neesham - 8 278 runs at 46.3. 3 wickets at 37. A revelation at number 6, seems an age ago most of us including me were uncomfortable at the thought of him slotting into that position after Anderson's injury. Love the way he just backs himself to play his shots and hit the ball hard, without being reckless, and seems unfazed by the match situation or opposition bowling. Scored important runs in both our victories. Bowling will get better when his release improves.

Watling - 9 207 runs at 51.8. Batting like a mini-Williamson, scoring important runs and is a such a good foil to our attacking middle order (plus Southee the biffer). That his keeping continues to be truly excellent is the clincher though, and it's the part that I was most uncertain about when he was first brought into the side. Contrasted against Ramdin's keeping, Watling's emerges as one of THE differences between the sides.

Southee - 9 11 wickets at 21. Those bowling figures don't do justice to how well Southee bowled this series (with the exception of a couple of sessions) - he really could have had more wickets and the pressure he applied surely contributed to wickets-at-the-other-end (TM). Southee's batting is assessed on number of sixes hit and there were only three in the series, so not up to his usual standard.

Craig - 6. 12 wickets at 43. 128 runs at 64. A very mixed bag but there's something there to work with, and also Can Bat. Like all our spinners, needs to word on landing that stock ball ultra-consistently. Is justifiably our number one spinner now, when we want to play one. As several have pointed out, like many spinners he's confidence dependent and benefits a lot from his side being on top in the match, and having batsmen defending against him. Fortunately this NZ team is starting to get into positions like that more often (Jeets never had that luxury, though he does for Warwickshire).

Boult - 6. 9 wickets at 35. His three wickets today were some of the best swing-bowler's wicket-balls you'll see - Mark Butcher on Sky after the game described facing that type of swing bowling as a nightmare. Brathwaite did little wrong in trying to leave the hooping inswinger, while Edwards played at a ball that started exactly the same as Brathwaite's, but went across him to take the edge. Taylor at no.11 no answer to the inswinging yorker. Unfortunately it seemed like Boult spent most of the series trying to bowl these unplayable deliveries and as a result was inconsistent at best, with some spells of absolute rubbish at worst. If nothing else though, the WI batsmen always knew Boult was a threat and that would have kept them on their toes.

Sodhi - 3.5. 8 wickets at 28.5. Those numbers flatter him a little and McCullum hid him at various points in his two tests. Still bowled some lovely deliveries to dismiss Chanderpaul and clean up the tail, though is obviously very inconsistent. I imagine he will end up on the tour to the UAE later this year, though hopefully we've learnt our lesson and only play one spinner, leaving Sodhi as the reserve. A little surprisingly, didn't do anything with the bat this series.

Wagner - 7. 5 wickets at 22.8. Helped turn around this third test dismissing Brathwaite, Bravo and Chanderpaul when WI were on top in their first innings. Even if it's not always clear why Wagner gets these wickets, he is always getting at the batsman and it's worked for him recently. He's certainly making the batsman play more and bowling less short wide rubbish than he did during his crap-Wagner days. Need I mention that he should have been picked for the first two tests in place of a spinner.

Next up - Pakistan in the UAE. That will be a challenge tstl.