***Official*** Australia in New Zealand 2016

[hendrix]

Yeah Eden Park also usually offers some swing, although that was strangely absent last night.

A ground that offers swing, decent bounce so that edges carry and the Suresh Rainas can't play on-the-up drives to everything, but also gives our block-bash batsmen easy hits is pretty much the perfect ground for us.

It's also a nightmare ground for spinners which suits us down to a tee.

 

[Flem274*]

Guptill is the only block basher inthe top five imo. Baz used to be awesome at cruising along with singles before he became a just bash and ross just blocks with the occasional single or four until you hear a loud clunk and he hits his next 50 runs from 25 balls

Anderson, gup and ronchi are almost parodies of block bash though

 

[Athlai]

Calling Guptill only a block basher is so rubbish. Yes he scores heavily in boundaries but hes hardly Pinga.

 

[_Ed_]

Calling Guptill only a block basher is so rubbish. Yes he scores heavily in boundaries but hes hardly Pinga.

Oooh. Shots fired.

 

[thierry henry]

Just re: the boundary sizes (and I feel, as I usually do, that I'm rehashing old posts here) how small are boundaries at NZ grounds really, anyway? And how much difference does that actually make in a game of cricket?

I know it definitely makes SOME difference and perhaps I'm taking memes too literally, but: isn't it still a 65-70m straight hit at Eden Park? How big are the straight boundaries at the MCG or the Gabba (which iirc have comparatively shorter straight boundaries)? To the best of my recollection it's a 75-80 metre straight hit at those grounds in their modern limited overs configurations?

I'm not saying 10 metres isn't a major difference but the way people talk it's like 70 metre straight hits are just something you can choose to do against international bowlers whenever you want. I generally agree with SteveNZ's points, but what difference does it make whether McCullum or Guptill are hitting to a 70m or 80m boundary in the PowerPlay when mid-off or mid-on are all up in the circle anyway?

Also, Eden Park isn't even short square- what is it, 65-68 metres-ish either side? Isn't that smack bang on average?

You could probably do a similar analysis for a lot of grounds. Eden Park is probably 10 metres too short (5 at each end) for what I'd like as an absolute bare minimum. It's definitely an undersized ground straight (you could make an argument that if the pitch ran the other way it'd actually be ok, all four boundaries would be short without any being ridiculous). But at the same time, grounds like The Caketin are AFAIK perfectly normally sized and yet you hear the same complaints there...but I guess that's how memes work.

 

[Spark]

The Eden Park straight boundaries are 55m iirc.

 

[straw man]

Looks like this is from the last world cup for Eden Park.

 

[Spark]

I mean, this is Eden Park:

This is the MCG (noting how far the straight boundaries have been pulled in):

You can draw your own conclusions about whether they're of similar size.

 

[Athlai]

Uh the graphic's circle should be taken with a grain of salt, the measurements are likely correct though.

 

[Bahnz]

You can draw your own conclusions about whether they're of similar size.

Nobody's saying that they're of similar size in the context of cricket grounds globally. MCG is obviously one of the biggest grounds out there and Eden Park is pretty much the smallest. I think the argument is more around the assumption in some quarters that Eden Park's boundaries makes bowling a nightmare and hitting 6's a trivial thing. The fact that we've yet to see anyone post more than about 315 at Eden Park in the last 5 years (and plenty of scores waaaaay lower than that), while all around the world scoring rates have been exploding would suggest that that isn't the case.

 

[Spark]

Nobody's saying that they're of similar size in the context of cricket grounds globally. MCG is obviously one of the biggest grounds out there and Eden Park is pretty much the smallest. I think the argument is more around the assumption in some quarters that Eden Park's boundaries makes bowling a nightmare and hitting 6's a trivial thing. The fact that we've yet to see anyone post more than about 315 at Eden Park in the last 5 years (and plenty of scores waaaaay lower than that), while all around the world scoring rates have been exploding would suggest that that isn't the case.

It definitely makes a difference to how you play, though, which is the point. Really incentivises pure boundary-hitting over working gaps and angles to push 2s and 3s, which is what you have to do at most Australian grounds which aren't North Sydney.

Also, the main reason NZ didn't post way in excess of 315 yesterday is incompetence, more or less. They really should have been pushing high-300s with that platform.

 

[RxGM]

It definitely makes a difference to how you play, though, which is the point. Really incentivises pure boundary-hitting over working gaps and angles to push 2s and 3s, which is what you have to do at most Australian grounds which aren't North Sydney.

Also, the main reason NZ didn't post way in excess of 315 yesterday is incompetence, more or less. They really should have been pushing high-300s with that platform.

Highest score was about 350 in the drawn match vs India in 2014.
In hindsight i really dont think the pitch was a 350 pitch, NZ performance was almost identical to Pak's on sunday, as the ball softened it became harder to hit. (and as bowlers worked out how to bowl on the pitch)

 

[_Ed_]

Highest score was about 350 in the drawn match vs India in 2014.

That was 314.

And, yeah, Pakistan had at the very least a similar platform of 215-3 after 31 overs, and they collapsed to 290.

 

[Spark]

Pakistan do that sort of thing regardless though.

 

[RxGM]

That was 314.

And, yeah, Pakistan had at the very least a similar platform of 215-3 after 30 overs, and they collapsed to 290.

Oops - I was certain that was a 350 game

 

[Athlai]

It's not a 350 pitch but after the McCullum/Guptill/Nicholls platform, we should have certainly pushed there after our start.
The start was some very good and some very fortunate batting and an Australian attack that didn't really know how to bowl here.

 

[SteveNZ]

Looks like this is from the last world cup for Eden Park.

So that indicates one end, the boundaries are 70m? Horse **** they are.

 

[Spark]

So that indicates one end, the boundaries are 70m? Horse **** they are.

That's from the striker's end, so it includes the 20m of the pitch. Although yeah that looks a tad high to me.

 

[_Ed_]

If that's meant to be a vaguely accurate depiction of the Eden Park stands (which it does kind of seem to be), the pitch alignment is completely wrong. It should be left-right.

 

[SteveNZ]

Good post. But I thought the small-grounds thing was always common knowledge. Overseas current players and those who've moved to commentary have toured and played on these grounds enough times over the years. Internet memes are a relatively recent phenomenon, but other than that..how come all the noise now?

NZ sides have turned this into an advantage many times in the past. The most famous example would be Martin Crowe's strategies in the 1992 WC, sending Greatbatch up the order to take advantage of the short boundaries, and also opening the bowling with Patel thus challenging batsmen to take the aerial route with the field up if they were game. Worked a treat against the likes of Srikkanth and Botham. I remember Eden Park wickets in the 90's being mostly slow and low, and sub-200 scores being the norm in ODI's. You needed guys like Larsen and harris to utilize those conditions well. (This is also the reason for Sachins 82(49) in 1994 being one of my favourite ODI knocks)

Why all the noise now? Social media. Didn't exist in the past. The small grounds hashtag grew like wildfire in the World Cup. Probably bigger bats, quicker pitches, and two new balls adds to how they can be accessed too. But yeah there's more discussions nowadays hence the louder voice (as I now notice you said with memes)

Apart from Eden park as I said, which is a farcical ground which suits no one but corporates and henceforth NZC/Eden Park, they're slightly smaller grounds and that's fine. You'd expect every team in the world to have some sort of advantage when it comes to their conditions. The slow, seaming days are becoming a thing of the past (I know they're not quite extinct yet) so if small grounds suit us, so be it. Maybe that explains why we are block bashers.