*Unofficial* New Zealand Black Caps Thread

[nzfan]

cleaver has been a class player for some time. good with the gloves i hear and obviously has it with the bat. if blundell cements the opener position cleaver is the obvious reserve to watling and should be in odi and t20 squads now.

seifert looks an improved keeper from last season but he's a batsman imo and could be a very good one.

chapman is surprising me with this knock in red ball cricket. great stuff.

young seems to be hitting the ground running. a couple of 50s on return from injury across two formats. just needs a couple of daddy tons to prove he's really back to his best from last year pre-injury.

geez rachin looks a gun. i reckon he's going to have one of those mental sinclair/munro/ingram seasons very soon. would love us to hold the trigger on him in internationals until he has a massive shield season. if he plays odis he'll suffer from the henry/guptill lack of red ball game time.

Cleaver is as good a player as any right now but just that there are too many wicket keeping batsman around it'll be a shame to see him miss out. You can't sit Blundell out, he's been really good. Watling has taken his cricket to a different level meanwhile Seifert has been doing fine with whatever opportunities presented. He's not the best of the keepers but if you gave him a chance and if he's doing all right he needs to be persisted. Dare may I say Cleaver has the best technique after BJ in the country for wicket keeping batsmen. He's quite sharp behind stumps and likely the 3rd best WK behind BJ and Tom.

Chapman I think will likely never play red ball cricket for New Zealand but I don't know why we don't want to give him a go at white ball cricket at least in one day cricket. We know for sure at this rate Guptill, Taylor and Munro are not going to keep up with the form and age. We do need players that can hold a bat and also slip in few overs. Besides Chapman isn't a bad fielder either, he has a reputation of being very good fielder.We are seriously lacking ideas to build this team for future. Rutherford, Worker and Chapman have done exceedingly well in domestic and NZ A but none of them were looked at. We have 6 one day games coming up in June/July vs Ireland and West Indies. Who knows by then what form these guys will be in. If not all of the three at least couple of them could have been tried. We missed the trick. Taylor should have been rested and kept fresh for test cricket. If Guptill or Kane aren't fit by then I think they will give one of these guys a go.

Young and Ravindra will play for good number of years for Black Caps there's no doubt it's a given. Ravindra in couple of years and Young is ready to go right away. I'm sure he will be named in the test team. I'd be surprised if he is not.

Our problem is going to be the spinners in test cricket format, Sommerville is out with an injury for the rest of the season, Santner can't bowl in test cricket and neither can Sodhi. Ajaz is the only spin bowler we have at the moment and if he doesn't hit some good form we will suffer in test cricket unless Ravindra does something special with the ball in the NZ A games, scores few more runs and forces his way in. His bowling is probably even better than his batting at the moment.

The ND cricket mafia may end up playing Santner or Sodhi by all account if Ajaz isn't performing with the ball

 

[ataraxia]

That's a four from Cleaver. Terrific innings overall. Both Cleaver and Chapman's highest scores.

 

[ataraxia]

Aargh 196.

 

[Athlai]

Where were all these keepers in the Dropkins /kruger van wyk era?

 

[The Hutt Rec]

Where were all these keepers in the Dropkins /kruger van wyk era?

Reece Young was knocking down the door in those days.

 

[jcas0167]

Where were all these keepers in the Dropkins /kruger van wyk era?

Those guys were gun at domestic level. Hopkins obviously ended up making the side as a batsman, but even Van Wyk averaged 39 in first class cricket and had 7 tons. Good to see Cleaver adding to the depth in that position.

 

[Flem274*]

reece young batted at #3 for auckland one year.

decent technique tbf.

 

[Immenso]

India 400 odd for 3 on 4th day.

Good it's a real test (for NZA bowlers) on a realistically dire nz anti-cricket pitch?

Down to only 1 seamer. Plus Ajaz.

Not filling me with enthusiasm to switch the sky sport back on for the upcoming test series though .

 

[Kippax]

We need to go down the Dubai ICC Academy route and get MAF to look the other way while we bring in a ship full of exotic clays and loams, really.

So sick of this 'grassy then road' archetype to a New Zealand four-dayer, it is very tiresome.

 

[Flem274*]

just get laboratory accreditation for lincoln. soil samples from overseas are perfectly acceptable in a lab with the right credentials as long as they're disposed of appropriately, and disposal won't be an issue if it never leaves the 'lab'.

this post started as a joke but nzc could legitimately import foreign soil.

 

[honestbharani]

Didn't your customs guys create a fuss coz Bhajji brought some "dirt" from India which was basically sand or soil from India in his shoes?

 

[Flem274*]

Didn't your customs guys create a fuss coz Bhajji brought some "dirt" from India which was basically sand or soil from India in his shoes?

overseas soil is allowed in nz in a strictly controlled environment like a lab. what isn't allowed is some muppets dirty shoes he's toured around the world in that could well be harbouring all sorts of introduced organisms. when he was told this he threw a tantrum.

 

[Smudge]

Didn't your customs guys create a fuss coz Bhajji brought some "dirt" from India which was basically sand or soil from India in his shoes?

#neva4get
#justiceforbhajii

 

[Prince EWS]

overseas soil is allowed in nz in a strictly controlled environment like a lab. what isn't allowed is some muppets dirty shoes he's toured around the world in that could well be harbouring all sorts of introduced organisms. when he was told this he threw a tantrum.

"Never coming to New Zealand again"

Man I hope the slips let him know about it on the several occasions he did return to New Zealand.

 

[honestbharani]

overseas soil is allowed in nz in a strictly controlled environment like a lab. what isn't allowed is some muppets dirty shoes he's toured around the world in that could well be harbouring all sorts of introduced organisms. when he was told this he threw a tantrum.

#neva4get
#justiceforbhajii

"Never coming to New Zealand again"

Man I hope the slips let him know about it on the several occasions he did return to New Zealand.

Lol.. I am not supporitng Bhajji's tantrums. I was just asking if you can import soil coz that incident made it seem like a strict no-no.

And FWIW, Flem's tantrum in that post was almost as good as Bhajji's during the incident.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Nah it wasn't

 

[Flem274*]

i think you missed the tone of my post completely

edit - @ honestbharani

 

[nzfan]

India 400 odd for 3 on 4th day.

Good it's a real test (for NZA bowlers) on a realistically dire nz anti-cricket pitch?

Down to only 1 seamer. Plus Ajaz.

Not filling me with enthusiasm to switch the sky sport back on for the upcoming test series though .

Watched a bit of last session and Ravindra was getting big turn from 7th 8th the stump which is of not much use. No evidence of rough or nothing for it in line of the stumps. Absolutely dead for the faster bowlers, not that we had many. Bit of a worry how they went after Ajaz and succeeded pretty much full game. First inning and the second. I don't know why they didn't persist bowling from over the wicket and tuck them in.

 

[honestbharani]

i think you missed the tone of my post completely

edit - @ honestbharani

Apologies then, if it was satirical, I did miss it.

 

[Flem274*]

Apologies then, if it was satirical, I did miss it.

oh it wasn't satirical, i just said it normally rather than crying on national tv like harby did.