***Official New Zealand in India Nov-Dec 2021 Thread***

[Athlai]

Haha ffs it doesn't matter what the conditions are we won't take more wickets with 3 spinners than 3 pacers EVER.

 

[Zinzan]

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

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.

 

[Hurricane2]

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

 

[ashley bach]

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.

what about beating England in England this year?

 

[Moss]

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.

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.

 

[Flem274*]

Nicholls is very rocks and diamonds I've noticed. Bit of a home track bully too, but tbf has lacked away series opportunities compared to his own teammates. He was decisive against Pakistan in the UAE, but doesn't have much apart from that.

His home runs against South Africa, England etc show he is capable, but his early technical vulnerabilities (which also contribute to his rocks and diamonds nature imo) might be exacerbated away from decks he is familiar with.

 

[ashley bach]

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.

its very difficult to drop Nicholls after what he's achieved in test cricket in recent times.
but yeah you get the feeling he's struggling at the moment.
still a gritty 30 or 40 and he could be back...

 

[honestbharani]

It should be against the law for India to win 2 tosses in a row in a 2 test series at home.

It's why we made Virat captain.

 

[Bahnz]

The would-be slip-catch for Iyer was definitely a turning point in day 4. Though at the same time, I can understand Kane's point of view

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

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.

 

[_00_deathscar]

It's why we made Virat captain.

Sad but true. [/Metallica]

 

[ashley bach]

Sad but true. [/Metallica]

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.

 

[h_hurricane]

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.

Lol, are you sure about this.

 

[hendrix]

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.

 

[Arachnodouche]

People mistake Pant's impetuosity for lack of core skill but he can grind it out, relatively speaking of course, when he puts his mind to the task. Just needs to give the first hour to the bowlers as a rule and you'll see more consistency from him.

 

[Isura]

This Test series deserves a sub-forum more than Ashes ?

Ashes forum is necessary to keep all the terrible Aussie and English posters contained to one place.

 

[Flem274*]

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.

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.

 

[SteveNZ]

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

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.

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.

 

[nzfan]

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?

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).

Taylor Bettelheim, a small statured technically sound cricketer. A very good bat at that. Quite young too. The wellington A players were saying good things about the kid after his recent knock in the provincial one day game. He's from Tauranga and there are few more kids like him from there. The Kane hometown obviously is going to produce some gun players in the coming years. It can't be any other way given the Kane legend. Looks like there are plenty of kids wanting to go Kane's way rather than Boult, Southee or the bowler's path.

 

[hendrix]

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, 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.

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 anything

I guess my point is the hypocrisy of talking about Nicholls in a positive light while slamming Rishabh Pant, a guy who in his short career has achieved just as much if not more than Nicholls.

 

[nzfan]

I think for the upcoming game we will definitely see Wagner feature. There's been some rain about in Mumbai I hear. Like Hesson (on sky) I'm a huge fan of Rachin but he may have to make way for Wagner despite his heroics. That is a huge risk but then after the draw last game India will no doubt will make a deck that will spin way more and with more bounce bringing the edges into play. India will also know our middle order didn't do a great job in the previous game and will back themselves going with all out spin.

I'm not sure if I'd drop Sommerville although Indian batting order is full of right handers. This is not to say Rachin isn't capable of picking up few wickets but then Sommerville has had one not so good game so there's not enough to suggest he won't bowl well next game when there is lot more assistance in the pitch. I'm really on the fence who goes out but if by chance they keep Sommerville (Steady and Kane usually give their players a bit more long rope for eg. Jeet Raval) and Wagner plays in place of Rachin I can understand although I'd be like not that kid... he's the one for crisis.

The top 6 will not be fiddled with, that's for sure. You have to take into account these guys haven't had a lot of cricket for months. I expect them to be firing all cylinders by the next game. I'm not expecting everyone to fire, cricket doesn't work that way but I expect all 6 to contribute in different ways at different times in the next test match.