I’m glad they picked a bowler to replace a bowler and not send a batsman over. That would have meant they panicked. Happy to see K Jamieson get a go. Likely replacements for Lockie would have been between Jamieson, Kuggeleijn, Tickner. They went with Jamieson as Tickner is injured and Kuggeleijn is not in the greatest of the form at the moment.
Off field selection would have been Ben Sears or Nathan Smith. Ben Sears likely is the second fastest seamer in the country and Nathan Smith puts good numbers on board both with the bat and ball consistently. Ben Sears is I think still injured but would have been amazing to see him go at it against the Aussies. Likely he would have been on par with Aussie seamers at least on the pace account.
Raval will likely go and they will bring in Tom Blundell. I don’t believe these stop gap arrangements will work in the long term. Maybe a short term solution but not a long term one.
I would have thought there is so much hype around Ravindra and gut feeling says he's not going to be ready for another season. That said revisiting his stats makes me realize there's no point waiting around.
Sure there is a bit of Wellington bias but I think they should go with Ravindra after this series and not be deterred by him not having a first class hundred. The lad scored 72 on debut vs Pakistan A followed by 64 vs Pakistan A in Dubai, a serious 96 against ND when they had in their bowling line up Ish Sodhi and Kuggeleijn, On debut in Plunkett shield opening the batting he scored 83 vs CD with a stacked CD bowling line up of Tickner, Patel and the likes. He also scored 76 and 28* I presume vs Otago the first game of the season. Let’s be honest if by chance he had converted three of the above scores to 100s would it have changed much in terms of his batting quality? I think not getting massive scores have helped him improve. Without the downs there is no way for young cricketers to improve. I think the selectors should not kid around and get him in the team from the next series onward. Besides when has he really failed with the ball either? Recently he’s done so well in the one dayers and T20s. His ball to Guptill on a flat track doesn’t that suggest he’s special with bat and ball. I don’t know what we are waiting for with him, few extra runs wouldn’t have proved anything more that we don’t know about. What about his one day as well, debut in ford trophy 36 ball 50+ batting at the top of the inning, follows it up with a 103 ball 130 vs Auckland taking on Lockie Ferguson, Kyle Jamieson and Will Sommerville. Firebirds delayed his selection to super smash T20s last year for long and the first game he came in as no.8 batter and bowled 4 overs for 32 runs with 3 wickets. Took out the entire top order in his very first T20 game. The most staggering of the fact is he’s never slogged. I have most likely watched every ball he has played in domestic cricket but never seen him slog once. BTW all of the decent scores he's made have come on absolute green seamers not your run of the mill flat tracks.
In between he's been out to Matt McEwan, Foxcroft (twice) and few other bowlers you wouldn't consider as bowling greats. Matt McEwan is not a bad red ball bowler to be fair.
I don’t know of any cricketer in NZ that has come in and done as much to a team as this kid. Any team he plays for he’s guaranteed to become an important cog in the wheel at least so far. I think we are being very conservative here and hoping someone will hold his spot for a while. That someone unfortunately is not necessarily of his quality and likely we will not find another one of this kid’s quality for years to come. What’s the point fussing around? When was the last time we had a player that batted at the top of the order and bowled full quota of overs in domestic particularly at the start of their domestic career?
Similar thoughts I have about Ben Sears and how well he has settled into domestic cricket but likely will be knocked over as Wellington bias
That’ll be for another day.