*Official* New Zealand in England 2021

[Fuller Pilch]

I think Emgland should pick Adrian Shankar against India. He'd be a step up over some of these players.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

So what would NZ fans have preferred more if given only 1 choice?

1. ODI WC 2019
2. Test series win in ENG.

World Cup

 

[hazsa19]

Yeah, this cropped up the other day. My response then was that, to differing degrees, we were lucky not to lose to India in 2018 and to Australia in 2019. And we'd have lost to Pakistan if Buttler and Woakes hadn't produced a once in a generation partnership. Our luck wasn't going to last forever, and individual heroics weren't always going to cover up the deteriorating quality of the newer players and the inevitable diminishing powers of the oldest players.

Yes, it’s been coming for a few years. WI have also pushed us close, as did Pakistan in 2018 as well as last year.

 

[Aritro]

Is this England batting unit worse than the grimmer 90s incarnations? Even with Stokes in the side?

Haven't watched them too closely, but I'm seeing the infographics appear on my Facebook feed with their recent test scores. It looks like several of them are genuinely struggling to make it to double figures.

 

[grecian]

Is this England batting unit worse than the grimmer 90s incarnations? Even with Stokes in the side?

Haven't watched them too closely, but I'm seeing the infographics appear on my Facebook feed with their recent test scores. It looks like several of them are genuinely struggling to make it to double figures.

Honestly, it's as I've said before, apart from the golden period, it's pretty par for the course, anyone saying it's abnormally worse really haven't great memories, of all the hideous collapses of our teams throughout the eighties and nineties.

oh and someone might mention we had some good bats then, well we have Root now, averages better than any of them, but when your relying on one or two amongst dross, occasionally they'll fail and this is what you get.

 

[Aritro]

Honestly, it's as I've said before, apart from the golden period, it's pretty par for the course, anyone saying it's abnormally worse really haven't great memories, of all the hideous collapses of our teams throughout the eighties and nineties.

oh and someone might mention we had some good bats then, well we have Root now, averages better than any of them, but when your relying on one or two amongst dross, occasionally they'll fail and this is what you get.

It wasn't that bad in the 80s was it? Before my time, but you had Gooch, Gatting, Smith, Lamb and Gower. Not sure if their best periods actually coincided, or how much they really played together but just on paper that looks pretty good and a lot better than the dross I watched in the 90s.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Not seen anything in last 2 days. Good days to miss. So predictable. This side is going to get smashed by India and Australia this year.

 

[Moss]

Was concerned the NZ bowling combination selected for this game would struggle to take 20 wickets, said so in a couple of earlier posts. Extremely happy to have been proven wrong - pleased that Henry in particular had one of those terrific new ball bursts he mostly reserves for ODIs. Admittedly the current state of England’s top six made their task a lot easier.

I suppose by the law of averages England’s lineup were going to have one collective shocker of an innings, pretty galling that it happened in what are probably the best batting conditions of the series. Still quite a green top six so no easy fixes.

 

[Moss]

It wasn't that bad in the 80s was it? Before my time, but you had Gooch, Gatting, Smith, Lamb and Gower. Not sure if their best periods actually coincided, or how much they really played together but just on paper that looks pretty good and a lot better than the dross I watched in the 90s.

I thought England had pretty respectable bats in the 90s too - Atherton, Stewart, Smith, Hussain, Thorpe were all decent to very good.For a variety of reasons the results weren’t great but hard to argue that any of those names wouldn’t make the current lineup.

 

[Aritro]

I thought England had pretty respectable bats in the 90s too - Atherton, Stewart, Smith, Hussain, Thorpe were all decent to very good.For a variety of reasons the results weren’t great but hard to argue that any of those names wouldn’t make the current lineup.

Smith retired mid 90s though didn't he?

And Hussain didn't really get going until later in the decade. They usually carried several **** batsmen from memory.

 

[slippy888]

England are a fragile cricket team

 

[Lillian Thomson]

The likes of Gatting, Lamb, Atherton, Stewart and Hussain would cruise into the current team, but they only averaged in the 30's.

 

[grecian]

It wasn't that bad in the 80s was it? Before my time, but you had Gooch, Gatting, Smith, Lamb and Gower. Not sure if their best periods actually coincided, or how much they really played together but just on paper that looks pretty good and a lot better than the dross I watched in the 90s.

Bloody hell, we're getting into an old argument here, but fair enough if you haven't read it before, but one of the very few things I agree with the Erstwhile Richard, was how bad we were in the 80s. No their best periods didn't really coincide and the amount of hideous batting performances we put in against nations, including getting bowled out for under a 100 twice against Pakistan at home.

I'm not going to look this up, but I think we lost our first home series against New Zealand, India (or one of the first), Pakistan in that decade, obviously got our first whitewash at home.

It is remembered as a good time by many England supporters because of Ashes performances, against possibly the worst Oz side ever, and the charisma of Botham. All of our other results were uniformly awful, except for the 84 India away series which oddly was sans Botham.

Some may say well all those sides had great teams other than Oz and Lanka, who we managed to not beat in a one-off Test at Lords early on, but in the end you compare yourself to the other teams around you, and compared to them we were dog-shite.

We were just awful for the better parts of both decades IMHO.

 

[Moss]

Smith retired mid 90s though didn't he?

And Hussain didn't really get going until later in the decade. They usually carried several **** batsmen from memory.

Yeah Smith was dropped for good in 96 and Hussain effectively replaced him from that point. Pretty sure Athers, Stewart and Thorpe played a huge chunk of games together after Thorpe debuted.

And yes though there were a number of underachievers in the side in that decade, there were generally at least 3 test class bats in most XIs they put out.

 

[Aritro]

Bloody hell, we're getting into an old argument here, but fair enough if you haven't read it before, but one of the very few things I agree with the Erstwhile Richard, was how bad we were in the 80s. No their best periods didn't really coincide and the amount of hideous batting performances we put in against nations, including getting bowled out for under a 100 twice against Pakistan at home.

I'm not going to look this up, but I think we lost our first home series against New Zealand, India (or one of the first), Pakistan in that decade, obviously got our first whitewash at home.

It is remembered as a good time by many England supporters because of Ashes performances, against possibly the worst Oz side ever, and the charisma of Botham. All of our other results were uniformly awful, except for the 84 India away series which oddly was sans Botham.

Some may say well all those sides had great teams other than Oz and Lanka, who we managed to not beat in a one-off Test at Lords early on, but in the end you compare yourself to the other teams around you, and compared to them we were dog-****e.

We were just awful for the better parts of both decades IMHO.

Interesting. To be fair, I've always had the impression England were good in 80s purely because of Ashes results, as you said.

 

[grecian]

The likes of Gatting, Lamb, Atherton, Stewart and Hussain would cruise into the current team, but they only averaged in the 30's.

Yes, but the point is all of those guys would have had times they weren't averaging in the 20s, so you can't compare embryonic careers to people that have finished their careers. I still have hopes for Pope, and maybe Lawrence. gatting took eons for his first ton, Hussain was a disappointment for years, Stewart only established himself when he was getting close to 30, Atherton had a shocker of a start.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Yes, but the point is all of those guys would have had times they weren't averaging in the 30s, so you can't compare embryonic careers to people that have finished their careers. I still have hopes for Pope, and maybe Lawrence. gatting took eons for his first ton, Hussain was a disappointment for years, Stewart only established himself when he was getting close to 30, Atherton had a shocker of a start.

I agree. I'm not unequivocally dismissive of Sibley and Crawley either, but it's too many maybes in one line up.

 

[grecian]

I agree. I'm not unequivocally dismissive of Sibley and Crawley either, but it's too many maybes in one line up.

Indeed, but part of that has been down to covid, I mean know they're lower order, but Stokes, Buttler and even Woakes or even Ali makes this a significantly better batting line-up, even though oddly none are pure batsmen, I meant 20s not 30s in my original post.

In a way I agree this is a pretty shocking batting line-up, but I have to give them a bit of an extreme circumstances let-off, as people say Bracey is probably 4th choice, and probably on the evidence we've seen not even that.

 

[Starfighter]

Boy do NZ have a bowling selection problem of the 'who do you leave out' variety.

 

[grecian]

Boy do NZ have a bowling selection problem of the 'who do you leave out' variety.

Well they do for the Test final, but in the end, like with India, it seems the way to be successful in Modern Test cricket is to have a settled batting line-up, and plenty of bowlers to rotate, as long as they all know they're being rotated rather than dropped, and don't get uppity about it.