*Official* West Indies in New Zealand - Nov/Dec 2020

[Athlai]

nz have this conundrum atm with ross taylor and devon conway/will young. no one can question the boss has achieved a lot for nz but i think conway and young are better batsmen now.

 

[Frost]

Jeez i hope your joking, I haven't seen alot of Conway, but from what I have seen of Young he struggles when bowlers bowl the standard 4th stump line, he needs to tighten up.
Taylor's been here before, then goes reminds us how good he is. I cam remember talk before aus and a series in England along the same lines, he pulls out a blinder. He's got the rest of the season at least and a potential final at lords

 

[nzfan]

I have said before, say it again Conway or Young both can't hold a candle to Taylor. I'm not sure why this is even a debate. Taylor is world class. Young and Conway may become one but let them first play 5 years of international cricket and be consistent. I want both of them to do well but to compare them i.e. rookies to a legend is out of order.

 

[Flem274*]

taylor was world class. he's my favourite player, but the boss doesn't get beaten up by shannon ****in gabriel. i want the 20th ton, a guard of honour and a dignified exit in front of an adoring crowd. no slow death pls.

 

[Moss]

Taylor right now reminds me of Ponting in his final year or so of test cricket. Obviously deserves to script his own farewell (and WTC final at Lords would be amazing), but feels like a case of diminishing returns now along with his record losing a bit of gloss.

The area of concern for me (and I’ve said this before on the thread) is he hasn’t done well at all in the last few away series, maybe it’s an unfair burden but you need your senior players to shoulder responsibility on the road. He’ll no doubt be hurting from the way the Aussie quicks made short work of him last year, but he was even more of a walking wicket in the UAE against Yasir Shah. Was outsmarted on more than one occasion by the left arm leggie Embuldeniya in Sri Lanka, and the less said the better about his last India visit.

I’m looking at his situation purely from the lens of being prepared for the next big away series, whenever that is. I’d like to have a replacement ready by then. Watling too doesn’t have much time left in the game and I wouldn’t want to have too many holes in the batting during the next tour.

 

[Bahnz]

Taylor's big problem I think is he's never been an especially technically correct batsman defensively and his attacking mentality doesn't help him either (compare how often he leaves the ball to KW or Latham). He made up for that with raw hand-eye and sheer bloody hard work. Now at 36, the hand-eye is starting to leave him, and his ring-science is increasingly unable to compensate. As TH said, you can't rule out his capability to make runs - if he gets a fair slice of good fortune and makes it through that dodgy first hour at the crease, he can still make bowlers pay. But the likelihood of him doing that now feels pretty low, and if he should happen to get set relatively late in the day, he faces the problem of being back to square 1 in the morning (his 80's v SL and Aus in 2019 being good examples of this). He deserves 2 tests v Pakistan and (if we qualify) a WTC final. After that, if he's not put some real runs on the board then he really should call it a day.

 

[The Hutt Rec]

He reminds me of McCullum’s final year in test cricket at the moment ... defensive game has deserted him, he doesn’t trust it and is just looking to attack. In some ways I wish he’d go full McCullum final year meme and just unleash each innings, but I guess it’s a bit different doing that at number four compared to five.

 

[trundler]

Is the Boss better than Crowe

 

[thierry henry]

Is the Boss better than Crowe

No. And I’m the biggest Taylor fan going, but I feel like people seriously underestimate how elite Crowe was at world level for a number of years when just looking at his similar average to Taylor and lower aggregates.

 

[thierry henry]

Batting records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPNcricinfo.com

stats.espncricinfo.com

For the decade 1985-1995, minimum 2000 runs. Crowe arguably the best batsman in the world for that decade.

 

[The Hutt Rec]

Mid-decade 1 Jan 1985 to 31 Dec 1994 Crowe averaged 53.85, scored 16 hundreds and 17 50s, and had the highest average in the world for anyone that scored over 2000 runs in that period.

Taylor’s awesome but he hasn’t been up to that standard.

 

[The Hutt Rec]

Batting records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPNcricinfo.com

stats.espncricinfo.com

For the decade 1985-1995, minimum 2000 runs. Crowe arguably the best batsman in the world for that decade.

Great minds ...

 

[thierry henry]

Mid-decade 1 Jan 1985 to 31 Dec 1994 Crowe averaged 53.85, scored 16 hundreds and 17 50s, and had the highest average in the world for anyone that scored over 2000 runs in that period.

Taylor’s awesome but he hasn’t been up to that standard.

lol we just did the EXACT same search, uncanny

 

[The Hutt Rec]

lol we just did the EXACT same search, uncanny

 

[thierry henry]

To put that in perspective in a different way - if you do the same for 2008 - 2018, Taylor’s average goes up to 49 but that’s only good enough for 20th in the world. The top 2 both average over 60, top 4 over 58. Gives you an idea of the relative value of their career averages too because obviously the top batting averages were significantly lower in Crowe’s era.

 

[thierry henry]

And to put KW in the mix over his (shorter) peak - he is a clear 2nd behind Smith since the start of 2014. So both Crowe and KW have extended peaks where they were top 1 or 2 in the world overall for that era, Taylor isn’t really close. His overall average also reflects he made a faster start than Crowe and KW, who were somewhere between terrible and passable during their initial forays in test cricket.

 

[trundler]

Haha, I knew those exact statistics too. Crowe was legit the best bat in the world for a good decade in a ripe era for fast bowling. Reputedly the best player of reverse too. Being picked as a kid and his knew going bring his average down by ~5. Would put him on the same plane as KW.

 

[Flem274*]

yea the boss deserves every plaudit for carrying that awful team on his shoulders between 2008 - 2013 but he's a clear 3rd in the kiwi ranks.

without him though we potentially lose test status.

 

[Bahnz]

Turner, Crowe and KW quite clearly on a different level to all other NZ batsmen, including Taylor. Sutcliffe might've gotten close if Adcock hadn't ruined his short ball technique by smashing him in the face.

 

[trundler]

Taylor a level above Turner?