**Official** New Zealand in Australia 2015

[Howsie]

Must be close to being the worst performance ever by a touring team

Forget pink balls, we're going to need to make them invisible to make these ****s competitive

You're gong to be fun this tour.

 

[Tangles]

A flat pitch but zero wickets and a ton by Arun hardly inspires confidence that anyone other than Smith will be needed. I get that the 2 best bowlers were not involved, bar 3 overs.

After the uneven Ashes tests some competitive cricket would be nice.

 

[Skyliner]

Australian pitches outside of the Gabba and the Wacca are dung-heaps, obviously. The 2 pitches we've played on to date are bad for the sport. Just farcical. Light years away from the pitches you'd get touring England.

 

[Tangles]

Except your not touring England. Adelaide is a drop in and Starc doesn't seem to be having issues getting wickets.

 

[Spark]

SCG is hit and miss but has definitely put up some good pitches in the last 5 years.

Of course, if your definition of good pitch is "greentop where it swings everywhere all day", then lol.

 

[jonbrooks]

Greetings my fellow cricket fans. Just saying hello and welcoming in the summer of cricket ahead of us downunder.

I see normal service has been resumed with the Aussie XI plundering 370 runs in a day for no loss! Ouch, them Black Caps butts must be smarting good.

What's up with Southee? Why did he only bowl 3 overs?

 

[Skyliner]

Greetings my fellow cricket fans. Just saying hello and welcoming in the summer of cricket ahead of us downunder.

I see normal service has been resumed with the Aussie XI plundering 370 runs in a day for no loss! Ouch, them Black Caps butts must be smarting good.

What's up with Southee? Why did he only bowl 3 overs?

Southee took one look at the brown dustbowl, devoid of any organic life of any kind, and felt absolutely as sick as a dog. He bowled 3 overs and felt sicker yet.
Our top bowlers like Baz, Guptil, Williamson and co have been smoked. The other guys like Bracewell, Henry, Neesham are on strict bowling loads so weren't bowled into the ground. The one guy who really got through some work in a big way was poor Mark Craig.

 

[wellAlbidarned]

A flat pitch but zero wickets and a ton by Arun hardly inspires confidence that anyone other than Smith will be needed. I get that the 2 best bowlers were not involved, bar 3 overs.

After the uneven Ashes tests some competitive cricket would be nice.

Lol. If there's one thing the last couple of years have shown us it's that Australia doesn't do competitive. Either they're busting the door down, or they're the door.

 

[adub]

Can cricket survive Aaron Finch scoring a triple or quad tomorrow?

Can the universe?

 

[Flem274*]

This is the darkest hour yes?

NZ to win 3-0, finishing with the customary mark craig 5fer.

 

[Bahnz]

Henry is still a better (but not significantly so) bowler than Doug, he's just in a rotten patch of form. To his credit he does bowl a slightly heavier ball than Henry with more natural variation too, but the Wagner mk1 package is completed by a propensity to bowl rank filth.

Horses for courses and both are pulling up lame. All it will take is one more day like today and the correct pony will be on his way over while our hopes for the summer are crushed by a hairline fracture.

Yeah but that rotten patch of form has now gone on for 6 months, so I don't think that's likely to change in the next week. Doug's clearly bowling with better rhythm so he should get the nod next week.

Btw, this post descends into Kippax levels of opacity in it's second half.

 

[Skyliner]

Would have been interesting to see if Milne could have done something on this track. Pace is your only friend in conditions like these.

 

[Spark]

Whose idea was it to play two warmup games on two of the slowest, most turgid pitches in the country that only get used occasionally at FC level anyway? Seems like either terrible planning or a massive shafting on CA's part.

 

[hendrix]

Whose idea was it to play two warmup games on two of the slowest, most turgid pitches in the country that only get used occasionally at FC level anyway? Seems like either terrible planning or a massive shafting on CA's part.

yeah Bangladesh tactics, hence NZ's request to shorten this to a 3 dayer and just get to Brisbane.

 

[Skyliner]

Whose idea was it to play two warmup games on two of the slowest, most turgid pitches in the country that only get used occasionally at FC level anyway? Seems like either terrible planning or a massive shafting on CA's part.

A massive shafting on CA's part.

 

[Midwinter]

It is CA tactics to not give touring teams any serious opposition.

Was it last year when they stacked the CA XI with bowlers who didnt exceed 130 kmh.?

It explains why when the Oz team tours they play 2nd XIs.

 

[Skyliner]

Finch, Carters blast Black Caps | cricket.com.au

Two anguished back-to-back lbw appeals against Finch from McCullum off his own bowling late in the day typified the Kiwis' desperation.

Are there neutral umpires standing in this fixture? Baz had him plumb twice!

 

[Bahnz]

It is CA tactics to not give touring teams any serious opposition.

Was it last year when they stacked the CA XI with bowlers who didnt exceed 130 kmh.?

It explains why when the Oz team tours they play 2nd XIs.

NZC does the same thing to be fair. The last couple of years we put out PM XI teams against WI and SRL that featured only 1 or 2 first class players for 2 day warm ups.

 

[hendrix]

yeah but remember when we let Jimmy Anderson play a domestic first class game? Never again.

 

[adub]

SCG is hit and miss but has definitely put up some good pitches in the last 5 years.

Of course, if your definition of good pitch is "greentop where it swings everywhere all day", then lol.

When was the last bad Sydney pitch? 04 was too flat, but last year was ok if a little on the flat side. They're the only two draws in the last 20 years there but I can't remember any pitches that were unplayable in that time. Usually a great balance with opportunities to score big, but still enough for the quicks, whilst bringing spin into the game later. Maybe it's just parochialism but I don't think there's a better place to see all of Test cricket's skills get a fair crack than the SCG.