*Official* New Zealand in Australia 2019/20

[slippy888]

You cant really blame CDG when he coming out to bat the score is like 50-4 everytime

 

[sphynx]

I will admit that CDG does his role very well, but my main concern is that he will most likely not be on the next tour to Aus for tests. Wagner is our best red ball bowler of the last 5 years and deserves recognition. He is a definite positive. Same concern, will he be there the next tour? I sure hope so.

Wagner is 33 and it’s been 4 years between tours. He will be 37.

No chance, if he does he will get feasted on at about 115kph.

 

[Midwinter]

Had a good day at the MCG today

Warm but not too hot, you could seee a trace of smoke haze in the ground at times.Lots of NZer's at the ground

Wagner was the highlight of the day

Cummins and Pattinson were just too good for the kiwi batsmen.

When Wagner came out at least he threw the bat and added a bit of life.

Then when Smith came out to bat Wagner worked him over and Smith fell for the trap again. It was thrilling to watch

 

[Gob]

Embarrassing. All the talk about this being our best team ever. Pathetic. Didn't watch most of day 2 and didn't watch at all today. Glad to have saved so much time. I swear if these dudes come out after the end of this series and start talking about the "positives" they gained from this tour. There are no noteworthy positives. The definition of insanity is to keep trying the same thing over and over, and expecting it to work. Everytime we come to Aus, its the same goddamn story. We send trundlers. Our batsmen have been completely exposed. Its too obvious to tell that even our batsmen are trundlers by mindset. When the pressure is on from good fast bowling, we dot it up and try to accumulate. There are too many accumulators in this team. You need a maverick like KP or someone who can fight fire with fire! You can't block out a pace attack like this! You try to "grind out" tough runs against these guys and they will settle into a nice line and length, pounding away on the deck at about 90mph with quick bursts while an extremely capable spinner keeps them all fresh. F***ing do something! Counterattack! Try to throw them off their lines and lengths. But then again its obvious these our batters aren't mentally capable of trying anything else other than accumulate. Nicholls, Latham, KW, Watling (and to an extent, Santner) are all cut from the same cloth. Same dot it up and grind out runs method. But my gut just says, even if these guys were at their best to try and make tough runs by being defensive and tiring a bowling attack down, such as an attack of Aus's intensity and quality...they still wouldn't be able to do it. Either their lack of quality or technique would let them down. Simply not good enough to face up to this sort of an intense assault. And to drive my point home, the best innings that were played for our team in the 2015 tests...were by Ross and KW (no surprise there). and they batted in an attacking fashion. They were positive. They showed intent. We need intent. KW made his 140 at the gabba striking at 79. His 166 at perth striking at 67. Ross's 290 was at 78. Mcullum batted like, well..Mcullum. We need to show intent in our batting. And to those who say that well this aus attack doesn't give you anything to work with..well who said you have to work with them too? Have we tried doing something even mildly aggressive to throw them off? From what I've seen they haven't tried any of that. Hell, Blundell failed but his intent was fantastic! Anytime Starc gave width, he punched him through the gully region. And when Starc tried to overcompensate by bowling straight, he picked him off his pads for some runs to leg. Yes, Starc's radar was bit off but Blundell's confidence may have caused it to become a bit more erratic than usual. He played starc really well. He was trying to play his shots looked composed while doing it.

Ross is an aggressor but he is extremely hit and miss, CDG, I feel has been exposed. He cannot handle high quality pace bowling and spin. Not many can and he certainly cannot. But at least he tries to be positive. I do like Blundell, he looks to try and move the game forward instead of dotting it up.

I said it before the series that Ajaz needs to play. I have no idea what he did to not be selected as an attacking specialist spinner. Most of you chose Somerville, who is also of the same ilk and a great choice too. Don't really know what he did to not be considered either??

All I can say is that this time, our bowlers have done better on this tour than on the last. At least on the basis of the first two tests. Instead of Aus declaring at 500 something, they are being bowled out for 400 something. Which tbh doesn't make any difference since our batting mostly sucks. But its somewhat of an improvement even though it isn't decisive to our chances of winning.

And for the love of god, enough with bowlers like Southee, CDG, Southee is horrible on these surfaces and while CDG does well, he is still a trundler and not an option for the future. Boult needs to be be told that if he is to tour on these surfaces, he needs to not hold back on pace for later spells or some other bulls*** like that. Run in each spell, bowl fast, hit the deck hard like we know you can. He can be menacing if he really wants to. He's done it a select few times before, but in just a single spell through the match. Its far too less. I've only seen him hit ranges of 143-147 regularly against SL in the first innings, first home test of 2018-19, the first 2017-18 home test against England, second innings where he was clocking 140-144 and hit Root on the head and body a couple times. Hit some of the SL batters too. On both occasions, the pitch has flattened out and he used Starc's mantra of f it, bowl fast. Need to do it far more often. And I don't even think he would break down and get injured the amount of times Starc does. He's a world class athlete.

I'll close out by saying that Lockie, Sears, Kuggelejin need to be given consistent opportunities. They HAVE to be a part of our next AUS tour or some other 140k+ bowlers. And ideally, with lots of test match experience already under their belt at that point. I remember Mike Holding saying that genuinely quick bowlers will win you tests everywhere mainly because of the increased fear factor. Right now, only India and Australia have a fear factor. We all know the pace starc cummins hazelwood and pattinson get. Shami, Yadav and Bumrah are always in the 140's (even more so when playing on australian, english and south african surfaces over the last 2 years) and hell even Ishant gets there sometimes.

Yes the bowlers need to be good and accurate, but that level of quality will come with playing actual tests. Lets give these rapid bowlers a chance at a younger age and not when they are 29. Give them a chance to grow.

Cliffs?

 

[Spikey]

Cliffs?

Somers Somerville should have been picked

 

[Pup Clarke]

An Australian Summer deserves Somers Somerville

 

[Flem274*]

grains of truth to thunderboults novel. nz probably could try some #intent to see if aus feel a bit jofra archer, and as good as our pace trio are in most conditions aus doesnt swing much and 3 swing bowlers with only one hit the deck bowler isn't the ideal balance for an australian tour. less said about santner the better.

ultimately it's hard to win games when you can't even make 200 let alone 400. they've played a lot of tests in alien conditions and have nice looking averages, time to produce. i expected 3-0 to aus from the beginning because i am a seasoned cricket fan who has seen this hype before but i will still demand the performance we get from other nz sport sides who get paid a lot less.

flemings pack of see ball hit ball #intent cricketers scored some tons against mcgrath and warne. use your bats.

 

[The Hutt Rec]

Just realised NZ in Australia have been England in NZ ... but at least we haven’t moaned about the pitches (just bad luck).

 

[Meridio]

Yeah there's a grain of truth to that rant, but really it just reads like a standard Stuff cricket article comment after we've played badly - we need fassstttt bowlers, we need to take the game to the opposition, be aggressive and positive, all those other meaningless cliches etc etc etc. I remember in particular after our last SA tour seeing a million comments about how our bowlers were too slow after Philander had taken yet another 6/20-odd against us bowling 125 km/h and just despairing. The difference in bowling hasn't really been the pace, it's been the unrelenting accuracy, the lack of release balls, the ability to hit the pitch hard, our wasting of the new ball bowling by not attacking the stumps when it was moving, and our lack of a proper spinner.

With the batting meanwhile it's like people have paid utterly zero attention to the way Labuschagne and Smith have played, and Head yesterday. There was nothing aggressive about their innings; they were the epitome of accumulation, patience and discipline. They left balls wide of off stump - of which there were many. They nudged singles and twos off their pads. They drove when they got a half volley. Last year Pujara scored a million runs there by doing the same. The idea that to win in Australia you have to bat with #intent is nonsense.

 

[Meridio]

There's no real point in sending over another fast bowler to replace Boult since Jamieson's already there, so I do wonder if they'll instead send Somerville instead, and play two spinners with Astle coming in for Santner too. Which would also give either Lord Colin or Wagner the new ball which is what the people want too.

 

[Slifer]

Afaic NZ has nothing to be ashamed of. Yeah their performance has been underwhelming but any team not named India would probably suffer the same fate in Australia. And Australia's fast bowling resources...wow!! I'm impressed!!!

 

[stephen]

It's a shame that Ferguson isn't here but it's been the batting capitulation that should gall kiwi fans. Aside from your one opener, all of these blokes are the best you guys have and have been doing the business everywhere else.

Full credit to the Aussie bowlers though. They have always threatened to have a series like this against a good side and this time it's happening.

Pattinson is a beast and should be ahead of Starc normally but not with the way that Starc has been bowling. All of the big 4 are in incredible form right now.

 

[stephen]

Oh I just read that Boult is out with a fractured hand for the rest of the series. That sucks.

 

[Spikey]

There's no real point in sending over another fast bowler to replace Boult since Jamieson's already there, so I do wonder if they'll instead send Somerville instead, and play two spinners with Astle coming in for Santner too. Which would also give either Lord Colin or Wagner the new ball which is what the people want too.

who wants to see Wagner take the new ball. I want him to be the Sachin Tendulkar of bowlers, refusing to open the bowling no matter how obvious it is that he should.

 

[Gnske]

who wants to see Wagner take the new ball. I want him to be the Sachin Tendulkar of bowlers, refusing to open the bowling no matter how obvious it is that he should.

Commenting on Indian politics in the CC sub? Someone ban this jerk.

 

[Spikey]

Commenting on Indian politics in the CC sub? Someone ban this jerk.

does the Citizenship bill allow Neil to become a citizen of India

 

[Tom Flint]

Embarrassing. All the talk about this being our best team ever. Pathetic. Didn't watch most of day 2 and didn't watch at all today. Glad to have saved so much time. I swear if these dudes come out after the end of this series and start talking about the "positives" they gained from this tour. There are no noteworthy positives. The definition of insanity is to keep trying the same thing over and over, and expecting it to work. Everytime we come to Aus, its the same goddamn story. We send trundlers. Our batsmen have been completely exposed. Its too obvious to tell that even our batsmen are trundlers by mindset. When the pressure is on from good fast bowling, we dot it up and try to accumulate. There are too many accumulators in this team. You need a maverick like KP or someone who can fight fire with fire! You can't block out a pace attack like this! You try to "grind out" tough runs against these guys and they will settle into a nice line and length, pounding away on the deck at about 90mph with quick bursts while an extremely capable spinner keeps them all fresh. F***ing do something! Counterattack! Try to throw them off their lines and lengths. But then again its obvious these our batters aren't mentally capable of trying anything else other than accumulate. Nicholls, Latham, KW, Watling (and to an extent, Santner) are all cut from the same cloth. Same dot it up and grind out runs method. But my gut just says, even if these guys were at their best to try and make tough runs by being defensive and tiring a bowling attack down, such as an attack of Aus's intensity and quality...they still wouldn't be able to do it. Either their lack of quality or technique would let them down. Simply not good enough to face up to this sort of an intense assault. And to drive my point home, the best innings that were played for our team in the 2015 tests...were by Ross and KW (no surprise there). and they batted in an attacking fashion. They were positive. They showed intent. We need intent. KW made his 140 at the gabba striking at 79. His 166 at perth striking at 67. Ross's 290 was at 78. Mcullum batted like, well..Mcullum. We need to show intent in our batting. And to those who say that well this aus attack doesn't give you anything to work with..well who said you have to work with them too? Have we tried doing something even mildly aggressive to throw them off? From what I've seen they haven't tried any of that. Hell, Blundell failed but his intent was fantastic! Anytime Starc gave width, he punched him through the gully region. And when Starc tried to overcompensate by bowling straight, he picked him off his pads for some runs to leg. Yes, Starc's radar was bit off but Blundell's confidence may have caused it to become a bit more erratic than usual. He played starc really well. He was trying to play his shots and looked composed while doing it.

Ross is an aggressor but he is extremely hit and miss. CDG, I feel has been exposed. He cannot handle high quality pace bowling and spin. Not many can and he certainly cannot. But at least he tries to be positive. I do like Blundell, he looks to try and move the game forward instead of dotting it up.

I said it before the series that Ajaz needs to play. I have no idea what he did to not be selected as an attacking specialist spinner. Most of you chose Somerville, who is also of the same ilk and a great choice too. Don't really know what he did to not be considered either??

All I can say is that this time, our bowlers have done better on this tour than on the last. At least on the basis of the first two tests. Instead of Aus declaring at 500 something, they are being bowled out for 400 something. Which tbh doesn't make any difference since our batting mostly sucks. But its somewhat of an improvement even though it isn't decisive to our chances of winning.

And for the love of god, enough with bowlers like Southee, CDG, Southee is horrible on these surfaces and while CDG does well, he is still a trundler and not an option for the future. Boult needs to be be told that if he is to tour on these surfaces, he needs to not hold back on pace for later spells or some other bulls*** like that. Run in each spell, bowl fast, hit the deck hard like we know you can. He can be menacing if he really wants to. He's done it a select few times before, but in just a single spell through the match. Its far too less. I've only seen him hit ranges of 143-147 regularly against SL in the first innings, first home test of 2018-19, the first 2017-18 home test against England, second innings where he was clocking 140-144 and hit Root on the head and body a couple times. Hit some of the SL batters too. On both occasions, the pitch had flattened out and he used Starc's mantra of f it, bowl fast. Need to do it far more often. And I don't even think he would break down and get injured the amount of times Starc does. He's a world class athlete.

I'll close out by saying that Lockie, Sears, Kuggelejin need to be given consistent opportunities. They HAVE to be a part of our next AUS tour or some other 140k+ bowlers. And ideally, with lots of test match experience already under their belt at that point. I remember Mike Holding saying that genuinely quick bowlers will win you tests everywhere mainly because of the increased fear factor. Right now, only India and Australia have a fear factor. We all know the pace starc cummins hazelwood and pattinson get. Shami, Yadav and Bumrah are always in the 140's (even more so when playing on australian, english and south african surfaces over the last 2 years) and hell even Ishant gets there sometimes.

Yes the bowlers need to be good and accurate, but that level of quality will come with playing actual tests. Lets give these rapid bowlers a chance at a younger age and not when they are 29. Give them a chance to grow.

When the whole top order are 50 all out after trying to hit every other ball to the ropes you will be here complaining that they are throwing their wickets away lol

 

[Kippax]

With the batting meanwhile it's like people have paid utterly zero attention to the way Labuschagne and Smith have played, and Head yesterday. There was nothing aggressive about their innings; they were the epitome of accumulation, patience and discipline. They left balls wide of off stump - of which there were many. They nudged singles and twos off their pads. They drove when they got a half volley. Last year Pujara scored a million runs there by doing the same. The idea that to win in Australia you have to bat with #intent is nonsense.

Yes good thoughts, KW has been feeling this strain acutely, apparently. The strain often felt by indie boys who haven't been taking their art into a sufficiently counter-culture and darkly humorous direction to ward off the bombardment of dumb input from mainstream record execs in their push for some radio-friendly hits. Warnes, Juniors, Vaughans, McCullums, Stuff comments section people....a bombardment.

 

[Moss]

flemings pack of see ball hit ball #intent cricketers scored some tons against mcgrath and warne. use your bats.

Assume you're referring to the 2001 series? In which case I don't think this is not entirely true. The strategy then was to play as little off McGrath as possible, though that lot certainly didn't let Warne settle for the most part.

In the current series there have been enough instances where the NZ batsmen have tried to force the issue or at least look to score freely (Taylor vs Lyon on day 2 at Perth was the one sort of successful case) but Blundell yesterday seems a more accurate representation of what comes of it. I personally think even by their own high standards the Aussie attack have found a purple patch and NZ haven't been able to step up accordingly. The batsmen have been dominated by Starc Cummins and co in a number of different ways so hard to pinpoint any specific problems. Sucks but it is what it is.

 

[jcas0167]

Head on Wagner:

"He's an absolute machine – it's been very impressive the way he's gone about it. He just didn't stop, we were questioning who was going to bowl after tea and there was no surprise when he took his cap off and started up."