• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

***Official*** Pakistan in New Zealand 2016/17

Zinzan

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Good, as long as he doesn't get a pair in the Test only for us to read afterwards that they should have been more precautionary.
 

hendrix

Hall of Fame Member
The Sri Lankan attack from the previous summer was the same attack but without even Chameera!

I'll knock myself out plenty, but the suggestion that Guptill never played well is ridiculous. He is clearly an extremely limited player at Tests but if you want to create a narrative where Raval has already shown than he was better than Guptill ever was then you're just being silly. There were a few good innings among the dregs.
Raval in his first innings was equal to or better than any innings Guptill has ever played against a similar quality attack in similar conditions, in his long, long career.

Your narrative has always been that #there'snoonebetter.

We needed to be testing out whether Raval and his peers could do even slightly better than Guptill against real test attacks. Even Rutherford and Fulton weren't really worse against quality attacks, so there has never been any reason to suggest other people in domestic cricket can't be better.
 

Moss

International Captain
I do and I am incredibly proud of this team. Just wish it lasted longer, because I have always felt that this team never got the kind of recognition it should have gotten for a variety of reasons. They just never got the attention, coverage, praise for the level of consistency they showed. So you always feel like a bit more success was perhaps needed.
Despite not having played India in that time, there's enough and more admiration around here for what Pakistan have achieved in the last 5 years (at least among those who genuinely follow test cricket). A real shame no Indo-Pak tests took place. A good series in Australia will be a nice way to round off the cycle if we are indeed nearing the end.

Equally I think NZ fans here aren't under any illusion about how the sides actually stack up, and two series undefeated against this Pakistan side is a creditable result for the kiwis (even if that win in Sharjah was a bit clouded).
 

Blocky

Banned
Serious questions should be asked of NZ Cricket Administration if he doesn't contribute and we hear its because of his vision again.
 

Blocky

Banned
In his last 30 innings against meaningful opponents, he's had four scores over fifty and five ducks.

Any other country with maybe the exception of Zimbabwe/Bangladesh/West Indies would have dropped him and gone to youth. He's been absolute rubbish for us most of the time since 2013, with only a couple of big scores and not outs keeping his average inflated.
 

_Ed_

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Have to say I'm a little bit worried about Watling's form. Of course I know how good he is at his best, but if you take out Zimbabwe he's averaging 23.8 in the last 12 months.
 

Blocky

Banned
Yup - our 4,5,6,7,8 is weak at the moment and has been a major problem for us because usually that's been an area of strength for NZ.

I think with Watling it's just a case of needing more cricket, technically he's looking compact and he's getting a lot of starts, he's just not kicking on as much as he should. What I'd love to see if Watling got himself back in form is that he's given more responsibility and moved up in the order, I just think with the guys we have coming through, if you had Watling at 5, have a Munro at 6, maybe De Grandhomme/Neesham/Anderson at 7, Santner at 8 - you're fixing that batting order and putting strength and hitting back down in the tail.

I'm still more worried about our bowling, because we've got the same issue with Southee and technically Boult that we have with Ross Taylor; they've both been selected on previous form, not what they're currently outputting. We're finding reasons to keep them in the side regardless of their performance, meaning the guy who consistently gets the job done has been left out and is only ever one or two bad tests away from being dropped again.
 

Zinzan

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Have to say I'm a little bit worried about Watling's form. Of course I know how good he is at his best, but if you take out Zimbabwe he's averaging 23.8 in the last 12 months.
Yup, Watling has been terrible against decent opposition since that hundred in England 18 months ago.
 

Zinzan

Request Your Custom Title Now!
*** me. it's not the end of the world, but why couldn't it have been Southee and not Boult..
 

Blocky

Banned
I don't mind them going with Bracewell so long as they don't actually play him and he is only there for cover. I'd rather see young guys like Jamieson and Wheeler bowling match overs than coming out to be a net bowler and 12th man for the test side
 

Blocky

Banned
Also, a bit **** on ND that they effectively neutered their match (while being top of the table) for Brownlie to retire on 3 and weren't allowed to replace him.
 

Zinzan

Request Your Custom Title Now!
I don't mind them going with Bracewell so long as they don't actually play him and he is only there for cover. I'd rather see young guys like Jamieson and Wheeler bowling match overs than coming out to be a net bowler and 12th man for the test side
If they're looking at the balance of our attack, they could look for the next best left-arm pacer in the country, rather than the prospect of an extremely samey 4-prong attack.
 

Blocky

Banned
If they're looking at the balance of our attack, they could look for the next best left-arm pacer in the country, rather than the prospect of an extremely samey 4-prong attack.
We already have the best left armer in the country already there in Wagner.
 

Top