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*Official* 2022 New Zealand Tour of England, Ireland, Scotland & Netherlands

K

kaetor

U19 Cricketer
I've been a big Latham fan for a long time now, but I'm really starting to find the lack of performances against anything resembling a decent bowling attack concerning. I guess there is nobody else coming through to give him a wake up call, and I'm sure another 170 odd against the next rubbish team we play will keep people quiet for a while.

I have rated Mitchell for a while, but never did I expect these results... I think I was slagging off Blundell a bit back too, whoops. Not sure why we don't just start 5 down and save everyone some trouble
 
Flem274*

Flem274*

123/5
I'm starting to think Tom Latham might reflect the Zak Crawley Fallacy - that we equate talent with aesthetics and technique rather than decision making.

Low scores are a part of life as a batsman, but Tom Latham through his career has consistently made poor decisions when in the 30-80 run zone against good pace bowlers. I think it's time to admit he just isn't very good at playing test pace bowlers for prolonged periods of time, and his opening role is based more on how he looks when batting rather than who he succeeds against when batting.

His best innings have all been in Asia and the UAE. He is a middle order batsman who consistently makes good decisions against spin bowling.

Daryl Mitchell and Tom Blundell do not have the technique of Latham and also aren't as traditionally aesthetic, but in this series so far they have made far better decisions and we've been extremely fortunate they've had such a good run or we'd have two innings losses. Might still get one because we have 3 ****ing bowlers. Three. T.H.R.E.E.

Richardson might be a better example. He was far less talented than almost everyone since but he had the one talent that matters - making the correct decision to the ball in front of him. So in the aspects that matter, Richardson was more talented than Latham at opening the batting.
 
Jezroy

Jezroy

State Captain
kaetor said:
I've been a big Latham fan for a long time now, but I'm really starting to find the lack of performances against anything resembling a decent bowling attack concerning. I guess there is nobody else coming through to give him a wake up call, and I'm sure another 170 odd against the next rubbish team we play will keep people quiet for a while.
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Thing is with Latham that NZ

A: Play lots of average teams in NZ, which is when he makes hay so it’s less obvious when he fails against the likes of SA, Eng, and Aus as we play them so rarely.

B: The longer his test career gets, the larger his sample size of times he ****ed out against certain teams gets. It becomes more obvious, and it becomes more obvious that the situation isn’t improving. We Black Caps fans probably hoped that as time went on, this part of his record would improve to some form of respectability. But it’s becoming apparent that there are teams he just isn’t succeeding against. And there are some he absolutely monsters. But due to NZ not having any other better options, he isn’t going anywhere. He’s played 68 tests and averages 40. If we can find two openers that will do better than that, by all means, drop the ****. But that won’t happen.

C: They aren’t going to drop Latham for tours of Australia, SA, and England, then get him to play everywhere else. That makes hardly any sense. Pretty much saying they have no faith in him.

It’s just such a weird one. And it’s not helped by having a pretty unreliable opener at the other end, and our previously God Mode #3 not being the second coming at the moment.
 
Moss

Moss

International Captain
I think with Latham earlier against the better bowling attacks, even if he wasn’t making substantial scores he was at least seeing off the new ball on a somewhat regular basis and helping set a platform for the likes of Williamson, Taylor and others. Even last year over the three tests NZ played in England he was a reasonable foil for Conway if nothing more. For a NZ supporter this was acceptable even if there was a feeling of wasted potential.

Now the single digit scores have been piling up and as much as Kane is in a funk, it isn’t doing him and Conway any favours walking out with next to nothing on the board. Latham is still only 30 and will keep the opening gig for the foreseeable future, but needs to work things out with the coaching staff.

Wonder if there is some real truth to the suggestion that McMillan as batting coach was an asset in terms of the decision-making he instilled in the batsmen, and that aspect may have fallen with Fulton and Ronchi.
 
Flem274*

Flem274*

123/5
Moss said:
Fulton and Ronchi.
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great players =/= great coaches but these guys are so recently retired that realistically, what do they bring that is new to the fold? nzfan mentioned KW and Latham don't need tips but I disagree, everyone needs a sounding board or someone to push and challenge them. Latham especially is in no position to be above coaching atm.

Brownlie is more of the same with the recently retired guys who were fringe players at best and for a reason. What's Brownlie going to add to a tour of Pakistan, a place where his record against spin suggests he would have been rekt as a player? He's only been retired a couple of years, is that enough time to reflect and recognise what he could have done better?
 
F

Fuller Pilch

Hall of Fame Member
I don't want to jinx Dazza M, but this is the list of players who've scored 3 away 100s in consecutive tests:

Don Bradman, Jack Fingleton, Everton Weekes, Neil Harvey, Sunil Gavaskar, Jack Hobbs, Wally Hammond, Gary Sobers, Ken Barrington, Chris Broad, David Boon, Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting, Graeme Smith, Andrew Strauss, and Alistair Cook.

Some pretty decent company if he gets there.
 
nzfan

nzfan

International Vice-Captain
I don't know what the fuss about Latham really... yeah he got few low scores so does every opener. There has always been dearth of openers, ask England and they'll tell you. Since the retirement of Cook and Strauss they have trialed so many of them but with very little success. Consistent openers are hard to come by, it just comes with the territory. Also the way things have evolved in batting. If you try and be a proper test opener like say Richardson, Raval etc. chances are you're going to play for Black Caps in no more than 6-8 games in all. If you do play lot of white ball and also play test cricket there are bound to be some low scores. Batting from other formats do bleed into test format. This is where Warner is quite good, he also bags low scores but does not change his approach. I think Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul are in the same boat perhaps. Probably the only change they make is playing closer to the body and playing late unlike in white ball cricket where you create width and go at the ball with hard hands.

The guys that will bowl at you are probably the best paid players from the opponents. They are paid big bucks to get the openers and make inroads. Unfortunately when opening you are bound to come across players that are in good form most of the times otherwise they won't be bowling with the new ball.

Latham will improve, he will score against every opponent but just has to go through this. No way of passing over it, have to go through it and get better.
 
nzfan

nzfan

International Vice-Captain
Zinzan said:
Anyone seriously pick that Mitchell was even remotely capable of this level of Test batting?
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I won't lie, I thought Mitchell, Nicholls both were just journeymen and will disappear after a year. No real reason why there were picked I thought. They were all right in domestic cricket, no bowler really worried bowling to them. They didn't give sleepless nights to opponents coaches or the bowlers but they have done so well. Credit to the selectors although they have their share of stuffing up things consistently.

I'm still not expecting Darryl to go on and be a world beater but his numbers scream out. In fact his numbers are better than Conway's and that's saying something. They have both played similar number of test matches and likely have same number of hundreds. Daz is likely averaging 65 and Devon after the last knock touch over 50.

Nicholls is around 40 I think, that's pretty good for a bloke with limited skills. He has over performed for the kind of balance at the crease and limited number of shots.
 
nzfan

nzfan

International Vice-Captain
I equated Will Young to score like the way Mitchell is scoring. Young has played similar number of test matches and averaging tad under 30. I expected way more from him. Also a batter at domestic that was likely the best for his side i.e. CD. Did really well for NZ A as well.

For the record, I don't quite rate Bracewell and Rippon. I like what Rippon brings, the left arm chinaman but don't think he is international class. Rate Macewell very highly in t20s, one of the very best from NZ. Have seen Macewell score consistently at good clip in t20s but haven't seen much of him doing lots in other two forms. Purely going by having watched both live lots at Basin I think both are supposed to be journeymen.

I'd like both of them to follow Daz's or Nicholls' path though.

I know how my judgement will go, Macewell and Rippon will be the talk of the town. They'll make me look stupid :laugh:
 
straw man

straw man

Hall of Fame Member
nzfan said:
I equated Will Young to score like the way Mitchell is scoring. Young has played similar number of test matches and averaging tad under 30. I expected way more from him. Also a batter at domestic that was likely the best for his side i.e. CD. Did really well for NZ A as well.
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Having to open a huge part of this obv.

I was thinking before that Nicholls is kind of the bane of Young's NZ career - even back when Nicholls first started playing for NZ it was a surprise to many that he was picked over Young (who had a good domestic record but whose main problem then was converting fifties to hundreds). Nicholls took that spot at five for the next what, five years, and now Taylor's gone there are other contenders. And with his decline in form, I would still see Nicholls as the main guy keeping Young from a preferred spot in the middle order. (That and the shortage of NZ opening batsmen, of course).
 
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