41st Match - England v New Zealand

[vcs]

Would it be a good idea to open with Latham and Guptill?

 

[Borges]

Open with King Kane; he has been coming in early, anyway.

 

[Meridio]

Embarrassing selection. I'm just pleased we'll never see him in white-ball internationals again. There's no way even our selectors can rationalise picking him again, is there?

You just know that if KW's banned for the semi due to slow over rates they'll select Southee for his "leadership"

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Would it be a good idea to open with Latham and Guptill?

Mike Hesson is suggesting it in his latest newspaper column.

 

[Zinzan]

You just know that if KW's banned for the semi due to slow over rates they'll select Southee for his "leadership"

On a serious note If KW is in trouble for slow over rate again wouldn't we know this already?

 

[Pup Clarke]

Taylor run-out was ridiculous. Didn't require great fielding from Rashid - was just a regulation return to the keeper that'd you'd expect of any international player.
Diabolical

 

[halba]

australia will destroy this cake and butter team in the semi final.
Maxi to destroy them. i am calling it. Australia's most out of form player, that'll be an insult.
Even Boult is out of form, hat trick aside.
No ferguson, but southee? Delish.

 

[Jarquis]

It's also a skill which is a little out of fashion these days tbf, because of the emphasis on raw power. Gone are the days when you regularly saw the likes of Hussey hitting 50*(30) with maybe two or three boundaries but a dozen+ twos and threes.

This literally never happened.

 

[mr_mister]

Yeah, Hussey used to score heaps of boundaries

 

[jcas0167]

The one positive is that we’ve got a decent break before the semi. Hopefully the squad can take a little time to reflect on the mistakes being made and go to old trafford with a slightly clearer mind.

Yes, and now Latham has some form as do Kane, Ross, Neesham and de Grandhomme. It sounds like Ferguson will be back for the semi.

 

[wrongun]

Would it be a good idea to open with Latham and Guptill?

They should , although to be honest even that would flop considering Latham's lack of footwork and Guptill's lack of technique. As much as KW opening makes sense, they wont do it since he is literally the difference between a fight and an embarrassment.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Was a very nervy few hours at work while this was going on, was just over 300 going to be enough, could Kane win it on his own. Indians winding you up saying NZ were going to knock us out. All the time going by BBC Sport coverage in the moments you could sneak a look, in the end easy as pie and shouldn't have worried at all. Bring on a semi.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Blame the WAGS!

https://asianinvasion2019.blogspot.com/2019/07/nz-cricket-takes-to-trolling-critics.html

 

[SteveNZ]

Blame the WAGS!

https://asianinvasion2019.blogspot.com/2019/07/nz-cricket-takes-to-trolling-critics.html

As Trump would say...pathetic.

Why do we look to all these stupid reasons for why a side isn't performing? Because, this person in particular, is not equipped to properly analyse what's happening on-field? Am I to presume that Australia have no wives there, India the same? Or if their wives are there, they are at the hotel like good little girls looking after the children, cooking the meals and not intruding into their man's important job? Presumably they weren't here for the first games we were winning, then inconveniently turned up at the Pakistan game and we went downhill?

Interesting that the writer says he couldn't be less interested in the off-field happenings. I couldn't be either and I have no idea what those wives are up to.

We are losing because a) we are a less skilled side than those we are playing and b) we have a sense of that and we're not taking the game to them

 

[Greenlite]

Germany won the football world cup in 2014 and I was told they were the only team allowed to bring their wives with them....

Guppy admitted to be singing Wiggles while's he's batting, so maybe that's the reason for failure. =P

Anyway, I'd keep Latham at 5 as he just found some form we need to let him settle in there. If he had some decent support on the other end he might have scored big that day.

Nichols should do fine at the top, just he and Guppy are lacking the confidence to review anything in the first 10 overs....

Ross has just been average af in world cups, he was awesome in 2015, took a break and came back to the WC batting like a lame duck, grinding out ugly 40s and 50s....remember the mainstream media wanted him chopped for Munro...lol. But I'm really disappointed at how irritated he gets on the field when he's struggling, and incredibly dumb running between wickets.

Kane escaped so many run outs, and finally got done by a freakish play....

This team has 3 future NZ hall of fame batsmen (maybe 2 of the top 3 NZ batsmen) and another future bowling legend....No.5-8 have enough form and experiences to do their jobs as long as they don't have way too much to do and we have Bond junior in the bowling attack....they should take advantage of the break and extra days to study and plan for AUS/India.....attack with some anger and level heads.....stranger things have happened in one-offs but they just need to be fired up and smart on the day.....at least have a go...that's all fans want from BC now...put up a great fight and see what happens....

as long as Pakistan doesn't score 400 and bowl out BANG for under 80-ish lol

 

[Greenlite]

Wonder what you guys' thought on Fergy opening the bowling btw

 

[vandem]

Wonder what you guys' thought on Fergy opening the bowling btw

I think better to give Boult and Henry the first 6-8 overs with 1 or preferably 2 slips, maximise their chances of finding an edge.

 

[Greenlite]

I think better to give Boult and Henry the first 6-8 overs with 1 or preferably 2 slips, maximise their chances of finding an edge.

Sounds good. I doubt our catchers can catch the new ball going at 150KM+ anyway =P

 

[straw man]

I'm feeling very downcast that basically everything has gone wrong in the last 3 games, but the melodramatic negativity in this thread has forced the contrarian in me to start thinking positively lol

Let's put this in perspective- as good as the 2015 CWC was, we NEVER capitalised on it by becoming a consistent, elite ODI team. Did we really have the players to do it? Hell, we went straight over to hapless England after the CWC and let them beat us. The narrative that we have got consistently worse or fallen off a cliff is just fake news imo. Pretty much since 2015 we have always been around 3rd-5th best in the world, won more than we lost but tended to struggle against the top sides. By historical NZ standards we are and have for several years been a good side, but really we were only elite for 1 season when the stars aligned.

We knew that India, England and Australia were better than us coming into the CWC and it turns out they are the only teams above us. We knew we had to ideally win 5 straight games to make the semis, and we did. We beat the likes of WI, SA and Bangladesh who were the other contenders for a semi final spot. Yes, there is an argument that we have only been 5th best and qualified due to the rain out against India, but that depends on whether or not Pakistan would have beaten both Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in what would have been high stakes games - far from a certainty. Fact is we beat who we were supposed to beat, did what we had to do and got into an almost unassailable semi final position.

Our frontline bowling for this tournament has generally been Boult, Henry, Ferguson, Santner- basically the attack most of us have been asking for, so we should be praising the set-up for finally getting the line-up right, and the attack for doing a pretty good job.

We know there are a couple of holes we haven't been able to fill in the batting but we also know that we have Taylor, KW and Guptill. 3 world class bats and an attack that is functioning pretty well. It doesn't make us a better team than the big 3, but it certainly means it's possible we can beat them in a pair of 1-off games. How is this any different to the situation for the last 4 years? I actually feel like the CWC momentum was lost immediately after the Cup and by basically the same coach and players who got us there. Blaming the current lot seems a bit revisionist.

tl;dr we are still a decent ODI team, maybe 4th best in the world, with enough good players to spring an upset and possibly 2 upsets, especially if a bit of luck (which is a thing, and has been against us) goes our way.

......we'll probably bow out meekly in a semi-final again though, in which case we are about the same as the majority of NZ World Cup teams over the years.

Disclaimer: None of this is meant to suggest that we should just accept being 4th best in the world and not try to improve. But stepping back from it, it's not objectively a disaster.

Partly agree. If we'd had these losses interspersed throughout the tournament rather than all towards the end leading into the semi-finals, expectations would never have risen as high. Making the semi finals is an ok achievement for a 4th or 5th best side. Some selection gripes are legitimate though they're only around the edges of the side which is largely settled. Spare wicketkeeper and spare seamer were controversial but wouldn't have affected results much. My only real question there is whether Nicholls, had he played from the start, would've had a better output than Munro. But otherwise selection is only a small part of the picture.

However there are still legitimate gripes.

We all knew the side had some weaknesses, but those haven't necessarily been the spots where we've lost out. Yes one opener has lived down to expectations, but we also thought:
- fourth bowler could be bad, but Henry's been pretty good;
- part-time fifth bowlers were weak, but they've been good;
- lower-middle order batting of Neesham/CDG/Santner were weak, but they've performed a few times (admittedly not against Australia or England);
- even Ferguson was a slight concern as he sometimes flies for a lot of boundaries, but he's been great.

However the top order batting bar Williamson has, on the big stage, been awful. Three senior players - Guptill, Taylor and Latham - haven't performed and that's the core of our problem, at the surface anyway.

Then there is the manner of these latest losses, with batsmen looking like their heads are scrambled, making poor decisions and batting fearfully. It's useless to speculate and that'd risk going into talkback radio territory, but whatever words we use to describe it ('mental skills', 'swagger', confidence, understanding of roles, ability to handle pressure), there's something off, and that's unfortunate to see at this stage of the competition.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

One off game in the semi - stack the batting and have a crack:

Guptill
Latham (wk)
Williamson (c)
Taylor
Nicholls
Neesham
Colin M
Colin DG
Santner
Ferguson
Boult

CDG to open the bowling with Boult. Get as many overs as possible out of Munro and Williamson. Hope Neesham continues to bowl well.