Don't worry I don't rate Santner as a red ball bowler at all, I just recalled him having a decent tour with the ball in 2016 but in double checking while he took 10 wickets, they came at 50 a piece. So Phillips in the middle with a license won't do any worse than Nicholls in his current form, with the extra bonus with the ball & in the field.Too many SLAs.
I more liked your first instinct of Phillips as an extra bowling option to give the off spin option
Here are some funny stats for the day
Glenn Phillips 26 FC wickets at 41
Mitchell Santner 84 FC wickets at 47
what about beating England in England this year?Disappointing part there is it's been the more recent overseas tours where he's done less well, while he was much more productive overseas between ~2013 to 2016.
NZ didn't play an overseas test from Nov 2016 to Nov 2018 and since resumption Kane's had one good tour (v Pakistan in UAE) and the rest not good, excepting the WTC final.
Nicholls looked terrible in Kanpur but does have a habit of bouncing back with gritty innings later in a series. In the one-off situation Phillips does seem to offer more of an allround package, but if it's a difficult pitch the experienced specialist bat becomes potentially more valuable if he gets going. Guessing it's not really in consideration, but tough decision if it is.Don't worry I don't rate Santner as a red ball bowler at all, I just recalled him having a decent tour with the ball in 2016 but in double checking while he took 10 wickets, they came at 50 a piece. So Phillips in the middle with a license won't do any worse than Nicholls in his current form, with the extra bonus with the ball & in the field.
its very difficult to drop Nicholls after what he's achieved in test cricket in recent times.Nicholls looked terrible in Kanpur but does have a habit of bouncing back with gritty innings later in a series. In the one-off situation Phillips does seem to offer more of an allround package, but if it's a difficult pitch the experienced specialist bat becomes potentially more valuable if he gets going. Guessing it's not really in consideration, but tough decision if it is.
It's why we made Virat captain.It should be against the law for India to win 2 tosses in a row in a 2 test series at home.
Bit harsh on Blundell given he was dealt an ankle shooter in the first innings and a genuinely freakish dismissal in the second. Missed a difficult but important stumping chance though and generally looked pretty average behind the stumps.Hurricanes Scores out of 10
India
Gill 7 he came off once out of two innings
Mayank 5
Pujara 3 rated harshly because I expect more leadership with the bat as a senior player
Rahane 4 see comment for pujara
Shreyas 10 I hated his first inning but he showed he has multiple facets in the second inning. Had he failed second innng then India would have lost
Jadeja 9 played very well
Saha 6 did ok
Ashwin 10 he was and is the leader of the attack and the other bowlers feed off him. A real leader in the team and he played like one
Yadav 3 got Kane out
Sharma 1 out of ten. His main contribution was creating some footmarks for the spinners
Axar Patel 9 could turn around and sneeze into his hanky and find out the next day in the newspaper he had a Michelle next to his name
aotearoa
Young 9 well played
Tom Latham 10 couldn’t ask for much more. Sure he was slow in the first inning but he is an opening bat and most of those guys are slow by nature. Starting to come into the conversation for NZ’s best ever opener.
Kane 2 a number three scoring slowly like he did in the first inning wasn’t ideal and he set the tone for everyone who followed
Ross 1 but will still take this chance to say Ross is Boss
Nichols zero lower score than Ross
Blundell zero for batting as his first inning was terrible as in Gareth Hopkins levels of terrible
Rachin 9 my hero
Jamieson 9 very good
Southee 10 5 wickets for a seamer in india is a decent effort
Somerville zero his batting overshadowed by the pies he bowled
Patel 8 Also my hero
Sad but true. [/Metallica]It's why we made Virat captain.
cant seem to remember the blackcaps winning a good toss in ages.Sad but true. [/Metallica]
Lol, are you sure about this.cant seem to remember the blackcaps winning a good toss in ages.
they lost the toss in the first test, all 3 T20's, the world 20/20 final, the world test championship final......
lucky for them they're the best team in the world and don't have to rely too much on the stupid coin flip.
Ashes forum is necessary to keep all the terrible Aussie and English posters contained to one place.This Test series deserves a sub-forum more than Ashes ?
Nicholls batted very well in the Pakistan series on tough decks, and Pant's batting technique does not resemble McCullum at all, nor does he get into good positions to hit pace bowlers in some countries.How in this thread can we be extolling the virtues of Henry Nicholls, a man who can't play on slow decks to save himself, while raging about Rishabh Pant's aggressive batting as Not Proper Cricket (tm)?
It's just ridiculous.
Just because he bats at a high strike rate doesn't mean that he doesn't have a lot of fundamentals in place. If you watch him he gets into very good positions to hit the ball.
He is very similar to McCullum at his best.
Yeah, Nipples is absolutely a guy who needs the ball coming on. I think one of the 'issues' with him, is that he's scored runs at Test level because he is mentally tough. He's overcome technical deficiencies in the right conditions to score big runs because he has a mindset that works well. Unfortunately, it doesn't really matter how much you grind on a deck that completely exposes you technically. I think he knows that too - the sweep off Axar in the 1st innings was the classic shot of a guy who had absolutely no idea how he was going to score. I don't suggest for a second he didn't have a plan, but it felt like he got out there and thought ****, where's my runs coming from.How in this thread can we be extolling the virtues of Henry Nicholls, a man who can't play on slow decks to save himself
Troy is a gun player... don't go by his unorthodox stance or his style of play. He's very good. Taken his time to come good but those that saw him play from young age knew it was a matter of time. He's a very good player of spin too. Electric in the field, terrific fielder and a fantastic leader. He led HIBS school team that were quite unbeatable and also led the NZ 19s. He's Ben Sears contemporary. Sears, Troy, Ravindra played plenty of cricket together. Yours truly kid's team was on the receiving end of their side consistently. Then it hurt but now it feels like good knowing they were that good then and even better now Only matter of time will break into NZ A side (hopefully we will have few NZ A games coming up).Troy Johnson has made a pretty good start to his career, averaging over 40 in both First Class and List A ( not including his 70 odd today) but still a pretty small sample size. I think @nzfan rates him quite highly. Taylor Bettelheim seems to have been scoring runs for fun the last couple of years at Hawke Cup level and has been Bay of Plenty Player of the Year for the last two seasons and I think is only 19 or 20. He scored an A level hundred last year and 90 last week so hopefully he continues to progress over the next few seasons. Anyone know what he is like technique wise?
Nicholls batted very well in the Pakistan series on tough decks, and Pant's batting technique does not resemble McCullum at all, nor does he get into good positions to hit pace bowlers in some countries.
TH can argue the rest.
Yeah he has never looked like a world beater but we love him because he's got that veteran pro ability to just be busy and know his scoring areas. He's never looked like a perfectly technically sound batsman or anythingYeah, Nipples is absolutely a guy who needs the ball coming on. I think one of the 'issues' with him, is that he's scored runs at Test level because he is mentally tough. He's overcome technical deficiencies in the right conditions to score big runs because he has a mindset that works well. Unfortunately, it doesn't really matter how much you grind on a deck that completely exposes you technically. I think he knows that too - the sweep off Axar in the 1st innings was the classic shot of a guy who had absolutely no idea how he was going to score. I don't suggest for a second he didn't have a plan, but it felt like he got out there and thought ****, where's my runs coming from.
That's probably a pattern we're going to see with him - the strong home record where it suits his technique, and relatively poor away when it doesn't. I absolutely love the guy, and I appreciate the fact he's scored tough runs, against good attacks and when his position in the side has been in jeopardy. But yeah, don't expect him to buy a run in the 2nd Test.