ashley bach
Cricketer Of The Year
Don't be too certain about that, and don't believe what the players say in the media.
Of course they're going to say such things!
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***Official New Zealand in India Nov-Dec 2021 Thread***
- Thread starter nzfan
- Start date
Of course they're going to say such things!
Burgey
Request Your Custom Title Now!
#OhAshley
ashley bach
Cricketer Of The Year
What!! why isn't Sir William Somerville on the list?
Hurricane2
U19 Cricketer
Because he is a prank selection falsely justified by having a background deemed superior to Rippon et al because he took poles in Aussie FC
Hurricane2
U19 Cricketer
Had Rippon or a half decent plunket spinner played with Patel we would have won both tests.
Even mconchie would have been a better bet.
Even mconchie would have been a better bet.
Flem274*
123/5
this is unfair. even ignoring his fc record on both sides of the tasman (both countries are ruthless on spin bowling too), his performances against sri lanka and pakistan strongly supported his inclusion.
he hasn't bowled since march, and he wasn't as fast to adapt as ajaz. he's not a bad player at all, but unfortunately he'll be remembered as one thanks to this series and the SCG probably sticking in the minds more than good work at midnight NZ time against sides with less media focus.
solid player, unfortunate timing, helped NZ in his mini-career.
honestbharani
Whatever it takes!!!
That was Ashwin who took the pic.
Hurricane2
U19 Cricketer
Good post
ankitj
Hall of Fame Member
Meridio
International Regular
It's no coincidence our two worst performers this series - Taylor and Somerville - have had no cricket in months. You'd think we would have learned from previous tours that have gone horribly wrong that we need proper preparation, but instead we had no warmup games combined with no domestic cricket (in those two cases), and half the team having only finished the T20 World Cup a week beforehand. It's an uphill battle to start with playing India in their home conditions and that stuff makes it that much harder.
ashley bach
Cricketer Of The Year
indeed a very good post.
given the job task Will was given, and lets face it, everything under the sun was against him, age, bubbles, location,
and not least current playing form among other things. He was one of the biggest underdogs to ever line up in a test!
in years down the track if you were to ask memories of Somerville, you may recall he performed admirably, and that
he certainly played his part in helping NZ to a series win in the UAE against Pakistan.
if you were to recall this series you may well remember that he was totally up against it, but in a test he batted for over
a full session on the last day, which obviously went a long way to help saving the test.
his 36 was a masterpiece at the time, what he ate at the lunch break is another story.
doubt you'll remember the 6 that he scored in the first innings, but funnily enough he faced 52 balls which obviously
sucks up more time and overs, so in effect both of his innings counted for a lot.
these are probably most the things i'd recall, as opposed to his magnificent bowling figures of 0/863.
It's just such a hard one, isn't it? There's no hard and fast rule that covers it. On slow decks, we always tended to operate on the fact the ball would squeeze to second or wider - although on such slow decks, the keeper is likely to be up further and any catch is going to die, so his chances of covering 1st become less. Then on quick decks, 1st was a must - but again, maybe the keeper had time to cover it.You and only two or three others on this site have played better cricket so I will stand down.
I will reposition my post to say my personal preference given one slip is to have the Kent stand at 1st slip. Too much of a burn when you stand him
at third and it goes to first instead.
Would go with that guideline regardless of pitch conditions
However happy to be corrected and concede this point
I remember a doozy, I was batting and I think somehow jammied a couple through cover. They called for 'one slip' to come out, and 1st took it upon himself. No prizes for guessing where my next boundary came from...
Absolutely, good point. You don't win anything in India unless you prepare properly - and we certainly didn't do that. Dylan Cleaver made a very good point in his blog column, that the sort of lack of preparation results in dismissals like Young's in the 2nd innings. That tuck off the hip to a spinner in NZ gets you a run every time, but in India it's a dismissal. Those are the sort of things you have to get your head around, but a two-Test, no warm-up series doesn't allow you to. Ajaz's transformation from 1st to 2nd Test was a classic case in point. Skilled bowler who needed a game under his belt to get his radar right. That goes so much better when that game is a warm-up.
Yeah. He hit his ceiling point most likely as a cricketer, played for NZ and helped win Test matches. Whether or not Joe Public appreciates that, I'm sure means little to him. And he has the 1st Test as a great memory, then got absolutely shafted by the selectors.. I could be overreacting but that won't help him at the selection table when it comes to the Pakistan tour.
Howsie
International Captain
Nah, no way. Will Young, Glenn Phillips, Rachin Ravindra, Daryl Mitchell, Dane Cleaver, Mark Chapman, Cam Fletcher and Tim Seifert is pretty damn impressive bench strength. Admittedly none of them are likely to average 45 plus in test cricket (I’m still holding out hope for Phillips) but that is a decent amount of talent right there.
Behind our main four seamers who do we really have? The fact Matt Henry is still an option says a bloody lot. Ferguson has probably proven in the last two years his body probably just won’t hold up to test cricket. Duffy meh, he’d probably have a worse record than Matt Henry if he managed any game time. Ben Sears is probably a good 2-3 years away from being a proper test eligible bowler and Nathan Smith needs to add at least another 5km on average to his bowling, he’s still a bit of a trundler.
centurymaker
Cricketer Of The Year
Or would have struggled against high quality spin on spinning pitches and that too being a left hander - the task is twice as difficult with all the left-handers rough and with Ashwin averaging like in the low-mid 10s against left handers.
Anyway, the rough is the reason I believe that India struggles to produce world class left handers as they start with a massive handicap.
All great Indian batsmen in history have been right handers!!! All top batting candidates for All Time XI are right handers-
Sunil Gavaskar
V Sehwag
Rahul Dravid
Sachin Tendulkar
VVS Laxman
G Vishwanath
Virat Kohli
Vinoo Mankad
C Pujara
Vijay Hazare
Mohinder Amarnath
And all of the current top 6 and even the 6 reserves are right handers-
Rohit, Rahul, Pujara, Kohli, Rahane, S Iyer, Vihari, Pritvi Shaw, Gill, Agarwal, Suryakumar..
And the odd good left hander has barely managed to average 40. Ganguly and Gambhir, both amazing against spin yet average 41. Not one good left hand batsman in the history of India has managed to average 45. I suppose that with half of India's tests in India, it's very difficult. And most of the time they get eaten up domestically so don't even get close to the playing XI.
NZTailender
I can't believe I ate the whole thing
Marks out of ten for both tests
Tom Latham - 7/10: basically 9 points for the first test, where he batted supremely well, but overall loses points due to the 2nd Test he was captain and 2nd most experienced batsmen and we needed more out of him. I've been intrigued to him being captain instead of Kane but we seemed pretty lacklustre and uninspired when bowling
Will Young - 6/10 - Like Latham gets an 8 for his first test efforts. He was in as an injury replacement and his first dig of the series was genuinely good, looked inherently calm. Should get more of a run
Kane Williamson - 3/10 - got started but didn't kick on, and when the plans didn't work he didn't have much to fall back on. Used to be you feel like you could rely on Kane to perform and he'd fail less than he'd succeed, but that feeling has been definitely waning in the last 2 years
Daryl Mitchell - 7/10 - got a bit of a raw deal, asked to bat 3 after the skipper went down injured. His second innings score was a nice reprieve in an otherwise awful batting display.
Ross Taylor - 0 /10 - Like 20 runs for the entire series, just awful from the boss man. Last overseas test for him one assumes
Henry Nicholls - 1.5/10 - his 4th innings providing some scratchy runs but otherwise was just as terrible as Ross with the bat. His spot should be under pressure from Young and Mitchell
Tom Blundell - 1/10 in the first test he was able to soak up deliveries but did that do us any good in the first innings when we needed runs? Scored 3 more runs than Ross. Wasn't the best with the gloves either. tbh I sometimes wonder if he shouldn't just go back to opening, with Conway at 4 and Young at 5 in the future with Cleaver or Fletcher coming in with the gloves
Rachin Ravindra - 6/10 - hard to rate this young bloke as his first series in the toughest conditions, batting at 7 but also asked to bowl. Acquitted himself well and we drew because of his efforts. Picked up 3 wickets which is promising. I'm sure he would've liked to have scored more than 53 runs for the 4 innings he had.
Kyle Jamieson - 5/10 - came crashing back to earth this series one feels. Good in the first test obviously but a few worrying signs when he was getting attacked, didn't seem to fight it well
Tim Southee - 7/10 - most of his points are for the first test where he was brilliant but as the Indian seamers showed it wasn't impossible to get wickets on the 2nd test wicket. He should also be batting 11 from now on
Will Somerville - 2/10 - two points purely for the 36 as nightwatchman without which it would've been 2-0 and not 1-0. Love the guy but this is the end I'm afraid
Ajaz Patel - 9.5/10 - gets 11/10 for taking a 10fer in one innings but we could've used a bit more from him in the first test I feel. Also helped draw a test, wafg.
Tom Latham - 7/10: basically 9 points for the first test, where he batted supremely well, but overall loses points due to the 2nd Test he was captain and 2nd most experienced batsmen and we needed more out of him. I've been intrigued to him being captain instead of Kane but we seemed pretty lacklustre and uninspired when bowling
Will Young - 6/10 - Like Latham gets an 8 for his first test efforts. He was in as an injury replacement and his first dig of the series was genuinely good, looked inherently calm. Should get more of a run
Kane Williamson - 3/10 - got started but didn't kick on, and when the plans didn't work he didn't have much to fall back on. Used to be you feel like you could rely on Kane to perform and he'd fail less than he'd succeed, but that feeling has been definitely waning in the last 2 years
Daryl Mitchell - 7/10 - got a bit of a raw deal, asked to bat 3 after the skipper went down injured. His second innings score was a nice reprieve in an otherwise awful batting display.
Ross Taylor - 0 /10 - Like 20 runs for the entire series, just awful from the boss man. Last overseas test for him one assumes
Henry Nicholls - 1.5/10 - his 4th innings providing some scratchy runs but otherwise was just as terrible as Ross with the bat. His spot should be under pressure from Young and Mitchell
Tom Blundell - 1/10 in the first test he was able to soak up deliveries but did that do us any good in the first innings when we needed runs? Scored 3 more runs than Ross. Wasn't the best with the gloves either. tbh I sometimes wonder if he shouldn't just go back to opening, with Conway at 4 and Young at 5 in the future with Cleaver or Fletcher coming in with the gloves
Rachin Ravindra - 6/10 - hard to rate this young bloke as his first series in the toughest conditions, batting at 7 but also asked to bowl. Acquitted himself well and we drew because of his efforts. Picked up 3 wickets which is promising. I'm sure he would've liked to have scored more than 53 runs for the 4 innings he had.
Kyle Jamieson - 5/10 - came crashing back to earth this series one feels. Good in the first test obviously but a few worrying signs when he was getting attacked, didn't seem to fight it well
Tim Southee - 7/10 - most of his points are for the first test where he was brilliant but as the Indian seamers showed it wasn't impossible to get wickets on the 2nd test wicket. He should also be batting 11 from now on
Will Somerville - 2/10 - two points purely for the 36 as nightwatchman without which it would've been 2-0 and not 1-0. Love the guy but this is the end I'm afraid
Ajaz Patel - 9.5/10 - gets 11/10 for taking a 10fer in one innings but we could've used a bit more from him in the first test I feel. Also helped draw a test, wafg.
thundaboult
International Debutant
been quite a stay for our guys in the subc these last few months...roller coaster ride, enjoyed most of it...lots to look forward to and build on!
Moss
International Vice-Captain
Much like the last Australia tour, the senior/experienced guys failing when it mattered most was a common theme barring Latham and Southee in the first test.
I suppose the heavy defeat obscures the fact that it was still a 1-0 loss and NZ were truly competitive in the first test, but clearly the lack of preparation a major problem once again - the batting outside the top three was never *this* bad on earlier tours to these 2 countries.