1st Semi Final - India v New Zealand

[Agent TBY]

Would've been better if Saudi Arabia had hosted it and you know it

That would've been the Greatest World Cup.

 

[Jezroy]

Right so New Zealand are relying on...

- Taylor, Latham, Santner, Henry to get them up to 240 plus - 39 off 23

- Overcast conditions

- Pitch to not have improved with moisture around

- Conditions conducive to swing and bounce - Boult, Henry, Ferguson, CDG to have a field day. Neesh to bowl lots of slow off cutter type deliveries

- Bowlers to not **** the bed

- Field like demons

- India batsmen to **** the bed

I reckon the odds are about 1 in 6 for New Zealand to win this match.

So much on Rohit and Kohli here. Dare I say that this type of total might end up being good for Mighty Slow Dhoni to finish chasing down with 50*(87)?

 

[Athlai]

All the Taylor playing a Test innings jokes now looking pretty silly. He was looking to bat till the end of the day

 

[weldone]

Just saw the highlights - there are no demons in the pitch, it is just a touch tricky that's it. I reckon 270 is par. NZ is short and need 2 wickets in the powerplay to get back in the game.

 

[wrongun]

Just saw the highlights - there are no demons in the pitch, it is just a touch tricky that's it. I reckon 270 is par. NZ is short and need 2 wickets in the powerplay to get back in the game.

Highlights won't tell you the whole story. The wicket seemed slow and the ball was difficult to time. I reckon NZ have a slight chance IF they hang onto their chances. Rohit has had a lot of luck with dropped catches, let's see if the tide turns.

 

[silentstriker]

I just checked the weather for Old Trafford Cricket Ground on the big G and noticed that there will be some early morning showers at 7 but the rest of the day seems clear. Also, cloudy and overcast, may bode well for NZ. They should aim for another 30-40 or heck even 50 in the 23 balls they face.

50 in 23 with Bumrah would be quite the achievement.

 

[Howsie]

He copped some flak, but good on Ross for battling through when he obviously wasn't at his best. Gave us something to bowl to at least, in the end ... and nobody else other than Kane did much.

tbf Neesham, de Grandhomme and now Latham weren’t really given much of a chance seeing as they came in needing to hit. There was absolutely no reason for Taylor to be 21 off 50 balls last night, it was an atrocious start to his innings, he was just dead batting everything.

His SR might catch up in these last four overs but he still cost us runs with his negative and quite frankly head scratching innings. 265-280 would’ve been nice, NZ will do well to make 240 from here.

 

[Athlai]

tbf Neesham, de Grandhomme and now Latham weren’t really given much of a chance seeing as they came in needing to hit. There was absolutely no reason for Taylor to be 21 off 50 balls last night, it was an atrocious start to his innings, he was just dead batting everything.

His SR might catch up in these last four overs but he still cost us runs with his negative and quite frankly head scratching innings. 265-280 would’ve been nice, NZ will do well to make 240 from here.

Neesham wasn't close to timing anything and wasn't trying to hit out from ball 1. Without Ross (or Kane) we'd have been bowled out by now.

 

[Howsie]

And if we lose it was because Taylor was striking at under 50 after facing 50 balls.

 

[Bahnz]

Neesham wasn't close to timing anything and wasn't trying to hit out from ball 1. Without Ross (or Kane) we'd have been bowled out by now.

That may be true, but that doesn't mean they played particularly well. Taylor in particular was completely incapable of rotating the strike through his first hour or so at the crease. It killed any momentum that we'd been building prior to Nicholls wicket dead. It's not a super easy pitch to bat on - 280 a par score imo. Overcast or not, I can't see us defending 240ish. Need something ludicrous from Taylor first up and then Boult with the new ball to keep us in this.

 

[Athlai]

And if we lose it was because Taylor was striking at under 50 after facing 50 balls.

If we lose it's because Guptill, Nicholls, Williamson, Taylor (and maybe even Neesham though probably harsh) failed to accelerate on slow starts.

 

[Jezroy]

And if we lose it was because Taylor was striking at under 50 after facing 50 balls.

Sure, he was scratchy as ****, but don’t you think at some point he said “the most important thing for me to do here is stay in so we don’t lose a heap of wickets?”. Knowing that if he didn’t bring Neesham and CDG early, there was more chance that they could launch later (and himself as well).

I’m not saying that his strike rotation didn’t leave a lot to be desired, as well as the fact that he sucked vs Jadeja, but if he saw his job as “not getting out”, and his captain agreed, you can’t fault the guy.

Plus, Kane was just as guilty for long periods of time of not turning the strike over. Taylor so far faced 39 dot balls (out of 85), and Williamson 43 (out of 95).So we should probably blame him if we lose as well. Plus Nicholls! How dare he hang around for 51 balls on a tricky pitch at a strike rate around 55?

BUT if they have somehow scraped enough runs together to make us competitive, suddenly it’ll be a master stroke.

Yes, we’ve probably bottled it. But there are people there who are far more to blame than Ross Taylor for our total so far. And you never know what’s a good score until the other team bats.

 

[Bahnz]

Hey, at least we've scored more runs than we did in the 2015 final.

 

[Neil Young]

And if we lose it was because Taylor was striking at under 50 after facing 50 balls.

If only cricket was that binary.

 

[hendrix]

I really don't think it's that tricky if a pitch to bat on, particularly against the pace bowlers - ball was coming onto the bat nice and fast.

Missed a massive trick not attacking early. I get that Bumrah was bowling well but you can't just let him bowl at you in that situation.

The team selection and actual role outlining seems to have no clear definitions.

What was the point in Munro if you're then gonna replace him with Nicholls? Hardly a like-for-like is it?

 

[Greenlite]

Thought we played fine, the spin on the pitch, geez, Kane and Ross assess the condition pretty well, they're probably slight behind so they were told to accelerate after drinks, or maybe the coaches think there are wickets in the tank so just go for it.

Playing Monday quarterback here, but I thought Latham would probably be better to come in at 5 instead of the all rounders, clearly it's hard to time the ball and get 6s for them and Latham is in good touch knocking 2s and 4s.

To be fair I thought the Indians looked rattled and a mess before the disruption, all the overthrows and Chahal fielding show, lol, Dhoni messing up a couple too, amazing, and the 1st ball review. We can win if we actually catch ALL the chances tonight. Nerves are a funny thing.

Wonder what the weather is like tonight, would be funny to be knocked out by nature, a reduced game would be a death sentence for us.

Do they roll the pitch and condition it etc or do they leave it mostly as it is last night? Would it favor batting or bowling overnight?

 

[Athlai]

Yeah it's a 270 par pitch I reckon. Not insane but we aren't doing quite as miserably as some people think either.

 

[Neil Young]

I really don't think it's that tricky if a pitch to bat on, particularly against the pace bowlers - ball was coming onto the bat nice and fast.

Missed a massive trick not attacking early. I get that Bumrah was bowling well but you can't just let him bowl at you in that situation.

The team selection and actual role outlining seems to have no clear definitions.

What was the point in Munro if you're then gonna replace him with Nicholls? Hardly a like-for-like is it?

It's been like that since the NZ summer. No selection vision at all.

But, on your first, point, the ball was definitely not coming on at times. I think CdG will bowl well on that deck.

 

[weldone]

Do they roll the pitch and condition it etc or do they leave it mostly as it is last night?

As far as I remember from the India-vs-England match in 1999 WC, they leave the pitch as it is (covered of course). But I maybe wrong as it was a long time ago. Can someone else remember the match?

 

[straw man]

tbf Neesham, de Grandhomme and now Latham weren’t really given much of a chance seeing as they came in needing to hit. There was absolutely no reason for Taylor to be 21 off 50 balls last night, it was an atrocious start to his innings, he was just dead batting everything.

His SR might catch up in these last four overs but he still cost us runs with his negative and quite frankly head scratching innings. 265-280 would’ve been nice, NZ will do well to make 240 from here.

Agree, it's a little ironic that we end up with spare resources (e.g. Latham) towards the end of an innings because we were so petrified of losing wickets all the way through. Williamson and Taylor have to have a little more faith in the lower middle order and if they fail by trying to push the scoring rate and then the lower-middle fail too, so be it. Taylor's accelerated well now but we lost so much momentum (including Williamson's momentum) through the middle.

Generally speaking if you're the weaker team in a game then you have to take a few risks to be competitive. Instead we did the opposite - bat ultra conservatively to maximise the chance of below-par score, which India should canter home against. Minimises the chance of being bowled out, but if a below par score means you likely lose anyway, there's no difference.

Runs on the board and all that, we have a chance and noone knows what the pitch and atmospheric conditions will be like on resumption, but gotta feel we left at least 30 runs in singles out there.