**Official** Pakistan v New Zealand in the UAE 2014

[Flem274*]

nah watling was awful when he first came in. good stance but then would shuffle around and enjoyed a good poke. had no idea how to play real spin in india either.

he's still vulnerable to a good poke before he gets to 20 these days but once he's in there is no stopping him, and he understands what he's meant to do against spinners now as well. he used to be like guptill and brownlie - lunge or prod and hope.

 

[Flem274*]

Jesse polished himself in Wellington - might have just been another Noema-Barnett had he stayed in CD.

Milne just isn't ready. Wheeler looks good and will probably feature in the next two seasons, but then Penn looked great for a number of seasons, then there is Carl Bulfin, then there is Ewan Thompson, Aaron Schwass - dependable players who never took their chance at A level and ultimately got stuck at domestic.

And no - look at Australia, they've got about 10 bowlers going through rotation due to injury, form loss, etcetera... we want that too.

jesse was ticking along happily with bat and ball when he was with us. started very nicely. KNB is a guy who has worked hard to lift himself up to FC standard - not really comparable imo.

Thommo was a hero for us during the era where mason () desperately needed support, but he wasn't likely to ever be a test cricketer imo. mason is a guy who should have been given more chances. really good bowler.

can't really comment on those other guys since they were before my time.

if boult went down tomorrow wheeler would be my like for like replacement. henry or dougeh for southee.

wheeler v boult on what they bring is iteresting. boult is faster and swings the ball both ways, but wheeler gets more bounce. nice to have two good left armers in any case.

 

[Blocky]

nah watling was awful when he first came in. good stance but then would shuffle around and enjoyed a good poke. had no idea how to play real spin in india either.

he's still vulnerable to a good poke before he gets to 20 these days but once he's in there is no stopping him, and he understands what he's meant to do against spinners now as well. he used to be like guptill and brownlie - lunge or prod and hope.

That was nerves, more so than technique - he was regarded by John Wright as having the best technique in New Zealand during practice sessions - etcetera. Nerves take time to get over, especially when you've dreamed about playing for your country.

Let's face it Flem, CD has probably the worst ability to transform youth talent into international success.... and also regarding Will Young - unlike other young batsman in the country he's showing no consistency across any format, it seems a real struggle for him to consistently score runs in the List A format which is a warning sign for me because it indicates a really cluttered mind

 

[Kippax]

There you go. Yesterday's news, but anyway...

McCullum may return to the top of the order

Brendon McCullum may be called upon to open the batting in the Black Caps' three-day warm-up match against Pakistan A in Sharjah.

The team's unsure whether test opener Hamish Rutherford will be able to bat as he recovers from a broken finger.

If Rutherford's ruled out, McCullum is the likely contender to take his place at the top of the order.

 

[Blocky]

Guptill has no real excuse unlike say Watling or Brownlie. He's been given extended stints in the international unit across all formats with a clear position/focus, he's almost played as many tests as Sinclair was afforded across his entire career and has played a lot more against minnows than Sinclair was able to. Brownlie hasn't been given an extended run in the side nor has he been given a position to make his own yet.

Where Watling and Brownlie went back and scored a tonne of runs, also showed their hunger to take over problem positions for NZ ( Watling becoming a keeper at a time McCullum was stepping down, Brownlie becoming a top order bat ) - Guptill hasn't really put runs on the board in domestic and has looked progressively bad over the last few years, his confidence is completely shot and he has no clue what he wants to do when he's at the crease.

 

[Bahnz]

jesse was ticking along happily with bat and ball when he was with us. started very nicely. KNB is a guy who has worked hard to lift himself up to FC standard - not really comparable imo.

Thommo was a hero for us during the era where mason () desperately needed support, but he wasn't likely to ever be a test cricketer imo. mason is a guy who should have been given more chances. really good bowler.

can't really comment on those other guys since they were before my time.

if boult went down tomorrow wheeler would be my like for like replacement. henry or dougeh for southee.

wheeler v boult on what they bring is iteresting. boult is faster and swings the ball both ways, but wheeler gets more bounce. nice to have two good left armers in any case.

Yeah, I remember watching Jesse play in a List A game when he was a skinny () youth back in 2002 (I think), and he was already batting like a genius. After that I kept an eye out for him in the score sheets and he was averaging 50+ in First Class Cricket by the end of the season. If he didn't develop at CD then that's because his behaviour at the time makes his recent shenanigans look tame in comparison, and essentially resulted in him being forced to move elsewhere.

 

[Bahnz]

Guptill has no real excuse unlike say Watling or Brownlie. He's been given extended stints in the international unit across all formats with a clear position/focus, he's almost played as many tests as Sinclair was afforded across his entire career and has played a lot more against minnows than Sinclair was able to. Brownlie hasn't been given an extended run in the side nor has he been given a position to make his own yet.

Where Watling and Brownlie went back and scored a tonne of runs, also showed their hunger to take over problem positions for NZ ( Watling becoming a keeper at a time McCullum was stepping down, Brownlie becoming a top order bat ) - Guptill hasn't really put runs on the board in domestic and has looked progressively bad over the last few years, his confidence is completely shot and he has no clue what he wants to do when he's at the crease.

Guptill made big runs in the last couple of Plunket Shield seasons, and he also did pretty well for one of the counties a few years back. He's had enough experience of real quality bowling now that he can bully domestic no-hopers pretty easily - but as you point out the technical and mental deficiencies have never really been addressed and they are still evident in domestic cricket from time to time.

 

[Blocky]

Guptill made big runs in the last couple of Plunket Shield seasons, and he also did pretty well for one of the counties a few years back. He's had enough experience of real quality bowling now that he can bully domestic no-hopers pretty easily - but as you point out the technical and mental deficiencies have never really been addressed and they are still evident in domestic cricket from time to time.

Unless I'm mistaken, Guptill was just one of about five Auckland batsman who all had massive scores that season due to playing half their games on a road, look at his form in the last 12 months and I don't think I've seen a singular innings that I'd say he looked fluent, confident and in charge of his game. He hasn't been bullying anyone recently, let alone domestic teams. I think he's averaged about 14 from his last 20 bats across all formats.

He's a mental case, he has a poor technique and he strikes me as someone who could give half a **** about risking his position in the team to advance his team's chances of winning. He'll happily score 30 from 75 balls in a ODI match, because at least that's more than the 10s that he's been getting lately.

 

[Blocky]

The basic premise of Guptill seems to be "Well, he scored an amazingly big tonne for us one day and also put back to back centuries together against England in the ODI unit... also, have you ever seen a better single leg swivel pull shot from a New Zealander?" and "Isn't he a nice lad, everyone gets on with him, he's also a gun in the field" rather than "He's going to be a consistent reason we win matches"

I'm at the point that you just forget about him in any NZ side except T20 and even then, why are we leaving Williamson out of the side for him?

 

[hendrix]

There you go. Yesterday's news, but anyway...

McCullum may return to the top of the order

Never before have I hoped for the failure of modern medicine as now.

 

[Mike5181]

A Latham/McCullum combo at the top sounds ***y.

 

[hendrix]

A Latham/McCullum combo at the top sounds ***y.

It will also give us another look at Anderson in the middle order. It's potentially a very #intent batting order but it's not as if we're expecting anything from Rutherford anyway so what the hell.

When Anderson gets a score the NZC blog will be able to pen a nice little sycophantic article on how his IPL experience and learning from Sachin bhai gave him the confidence to score runs in Asia. We might get a one off t20 thrown our way to fill the coffers with.

/Kippaxthoughts

 

[Kippax]

Never before have I hoped for the failure of modern medicine as now.

When was the last time Rutherford actually batted in red ball cricket? Hesson and McCullum are preparation kings; they'll look out for any young farmer who's as close to bankruptcy as Rutherford is. Lock McCullum in here.

 

[Kippax]

When was the last time Rutherford actually batted in red ball cricket?

It was August, and it wasn't pretty.

 

[Blocky]

We need to work a swap programme with India where we can send our Brownlies and Rutherfords to be tested and they can send their Gambhirs and Rainas in return.

 

[Bahnz]

Unless I'm mistaken, Guptill was just one of about five Auckland batsman who all had massive scores that season due to playing half their games on a road, look at his form in the last 12 months and I don't think I've seen a singular innings that I'd say he looked fluent, confident and in charge of his game. He hasn't been bullying anyone recently, let alone domestic teams. I think he's averaged about 14 from his last 20 bats across all formats.

He's a mental case, he has a poor technique and he strikes me as someone who could give half a **** about risking his position in the team to advance his team's chances of winning. He'll happily score 30 from 75 balls in a ODI match, because at least that's more than the 10s that he's been getting lately.

True to an extent, but nobody in the Auckland side had numbers anywhere near as good as Guptill's. He averaged 75 from 6 matches (Craig Cachopa was the next best with an average of 56), almost twice as much as fellow opener Jeet Raval. Would also disagree about him putting himself before the team. Yeah, he probably sees himself as having a cautious role, but from watching a bit of him batting during the SA series, it's very clear that he's not happy about being 10 from 30 or 20 from 50 or whatever. You can see that in the shots that he played to get out. He wants to score more quickly, it's just that he can't. His scoring options are too limited, and even when he does find a ball in his arc, he seems to hit it to the fielders more often than not.

 

[hendrix]

So we're actually going to open with two batsmen who can play a drive, a cut shot, and a pull shot?

This is unprecedented.

 

[Athlai]

True to an extent, but nobody in the Auckland side had numbers anywhere near as good as Guptill's. He averaged 75 from 6 matches (Craig Cachopa was the next best with an average of 56). His averaged almost twice as much as fellow opener Jeet Raval. Would also disagree about him putting himself before the team. Yeah, he probably sees himself as having a cautious role, but from watching a bit of him batting during the SA series, it's very clear that he's not happy about being 10 from 30 or 20 from 50 or whatever. You can see that in the shots that he played to get out. He wants to score more quickly, it's just that he can't. His scoring options are too limited, and even when he does find a ball in his arc, he seems to hit it to the fielders more often than not.

That only proves that Raval is a myth.

I'm okay with that.

 

[Kippax]

It was August, and it wasn't pretty.

Matt Dunn bowling the second delivery there btw Wellington, if you wanted to bring someone out from England to hit the hole for you. Shut up. I love that shirt on Matt.

 

[straw man]

Rutherford, Papps and Guptill would all have similar output to Brownlie in the long term, with each having slightly different strengths and weaknesses. Maybe even Jamie How.

Seriously? Rutherford needs to go back to domestic cricket (and County cricket if he can somehow get another gig there) and work on a lot of things for a couple of seasons. He was terrible last time he played for us and unless the UAE pitches are the type where you can score at more than a run a ball against the new ball, he'll fail badly again (if fit). Papps is just not an option. And Guptill has well-documented problems; I'm not writing him off completely and would like to see how he goes this season, but it's too early to bring him back. Brownlie is comfortably a better test batting option than all three of those right now. Reasonable back foot player, straightforward technique and probably more importantly, calm and reliable, even if he hasn't managed to address his problems against spin. A saviour by no means but I think he could be as good as or a little better for the next few years than our last two 'great' opening plodders;

Matt Horne: 35 tests 1788 runs at 28.38
Bryan Young: 35 tests 2034 runs at 31.78

(ok, Guptill does have a similar record to the above, but his performances were declining further in more recent times and he's probably dined out more on minnows than Horne and Young did)

You also mentioned Flynn. I was a fan of his for a long time and always thought he and Brownlie were on a similar level, or Flynn even a little ahead. However Flynn didn't manage to take his chances and, as an opener, Flynn always a more likely bet to nick off than Brownlie imo.