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

F

Fuller Pilch

Hall of Fame Member
When is Foxcroft eligible for NZ?

I see he has a 1st class bowling average of 18! (Only 8 matches and 21 wickets but definitely something to work with). Amazing to see a NZ spinner averaging under 35. Only averages 26 with the bat in 1st class but is obviously much better than that (51 and 41 in List A and T20 respectively).
 
nzfan

nzfan

International Vice-Captain
jcas0167 said:
That is still the low point for me. Finally given a Boxing Day test after 32 years and we were embarrassed. Not remotely competitive. At least this series has provided games that could have gone either way and England have had to produce some remarkable innings to chase down the targets. That said, the selection of Bracewell has been worse than the selection calls on that tour.
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Pretty much 3 match series is just too much for us. Maybe the use of the bowlers to grind them to ground has something to do with this.
 
Flem274*

Flem274*

123/5
nzfan said:
I can see Ajaz going the same way as Wagner. He will have bowled 2 overs at test cricket before he plays Pakistan. Then won't play for a while and will again after like a year. Wagner also had lots of stops and starts. The decline of Wagner could be equated to his lack of playing opportunities. No matter how much you are bowling in the nets it's never quite like bowling in the middle. I can understand why Wagner wasn't selected but it doesn't help. Besides both Wagner and Ajaz don't play t20 leagues either which means they are pretty much bowling at a much lower level i.e. domestic cricket. Ajaz is going to be 34 shortly and Wagner is 36. Can't see them both having more than a year or two with black caps. What's the point even I think, they can ply their trade in county cricket and earn some coins while they are still good at it.
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Yeah this sentiment is true tbh. Domestic contracts aren't great. A bowler of Ajaz's quality should rage quit and play County for some money, because he is definitely better than Jeets who was quite useful in County.
 
straw man

straw man

Hall of Fame Member
NZTailender said:
It's weird how extraordinarily harsh they are to some players (mostly specialist spinners) then how overtly nice they are to others and will change the makeup of a side to make sure everyone gets a game.

When Jamieson comes in to the side as cover for Wagner and does well, in the next match when Wagner returns they drop Patel to make room for him. We know how Jamieson's initial foray into tests went and having him in the side was match winning. And yet, over that period, we managed to fit all 4 seamers in with Patel sitting out most matches. The ruthless thing to do would've been to drop Boult, who was performing the least of the 4. We had CdG on top of all that. It was just overkill to have 4.5 seamers and have a spinner sit on the sideline not gaining skills. The NZ mindset seems to be unless it's a dustbowl and the spinner will take 5fer, no point in playing. That's a lot of wasted potential for Patel to play and develop his game on non-spin friendly pitches. Australia have pretty much backed Lyon all over the world because they had enough decent seam bowlers that they could usually absorb any shortcomings Lyon may have had on a particular surface in a particular test, because long term it'd pay off. We've had a fairly similar pool of quality seam bowlers but instead of backing a spinner to develop, we've just decided to play all 4 instead because they were so ****ing short sighted about it all, rating the 4th seamers as being a safer bet to help get 20 wickets than a spinner. And then they pick the under developed, under utilised spinner for one test on an overseas tour to England and just discard him because, shock horror, he hasn't the form or experience to just turn it on at the drop of a hat.

The selection of Bracewell is just the natural result of a ****ed up notion of how spinners operate in this side, and that those who can bat will forever be preferred over specialists because they don't have the guts to do what needs doing in the long term.
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I do need to check myself and remember that tbh I still would not play a spinner every test match at home, probably only about half of them (usually post-Xmas). But that's because NZ is genuinely the worst place to bowl spin at test level in the world - sometimes there genuinely is just no point. Even England whose conditions are most similar to ours provides vastly more assistance than most NZ pitches and I think the Duke helps too.

Even so, someone like Ajaz playing half the home matches and nearly all the overseas tests and being backed by his captain would be a huge improvement.
 
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Bahnz

Bahnz

Hall of Fame Member
Flem274* said:
Yeah this sentiment is true tbh. Domestic contracts aren't great. A bowler of Ajaz's quality should rage quit and play County for some money, because he is definitely better than Jeets who was quite useful in County.
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Hmmm, not sure about this at least for English conditions. Jeets obviously had his limitations, but he always put a lot of overspin on the ball which made him more able to beat batsmen in the flight on pitches that weren't offering a huge amount of turn. Ajaz is much more of a side-spinner, which makes him a better option for a sub-continent tour but might leave him a bit vulnerable on your typical county wicket.
 
Flem274*

Flem274*

123/5
Bahnz said:
Hmmm, not sure about this at least for English conditions. Jeets obviously had his limitations, but he always put a lot of overspin on the ball which made him more able to beat batsmen in the flight on pitches that weren't offering a huge amount of turn. Ajaz is much more of a side-spinner, which makes him a better option for a sub-continent tour but might leave him a bit vulnerable on your typical county wicket.
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His NZ record blows Jeets out of the water though, and NZ is pretty hostile to side spin especially. I think he'd be fine.
 
thierry henry

thierry henry

International Coach
straw man said:
Also think we've only rarely fully committed to Wagnerball in the last 12 months. Needs over after over after over of relentless short ball bowling with no break in sight - instead it's been a here and there thing. It becomes a game-within-a-game (I kinda hate that term but it seems accurate) which the fielders around the bat get right into, the batsmen can get caught up in the moment and suckered into playing on Wagner's terms and skying a pull shot.

It's very similar to a period where a spin bowler continually tosses the ball up to a batsmen who is trying to hit him while there are a couple of close fielders. There's a whole atmosphere to it, demands batters take risks and face different challenges.

Unsure how much the change in Wagner's approach is due to himself and perhaps limitations of age, or due to captain's requirements.
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My sense (at the risk of actually agreeing with the captain/coach) is that we've been a bit more tentative with the tactic because it's been more obviously ineffective. With the loss to Bangladesh for example, my feeling was we resorted to short bowling too quickly and doubled/tripled/quadrupled down on it to the point of absurdity against a weak batting line-up we probably could have bowled out normally.

In the current test we might not have committed to it enough but then it's hard to justify it when we had them 55 for 6 and suddenly Wagner's short balls are getting donked into the stands by Bairstow and the debutant number 8. I think mostly the tactic just hasn't been working because it's been trash cricket, and maybe a yard or two of pace off Wagner is the difference between trash cricket and super-effective Wagnerball?
 
HeathDavisSpeed

HeathDavisSpeed

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Bahnz said:
Amongst all the griping, Mitchell's haul of 538 runs is the best ever by an NZ bat in a series of 3 or fewer matches (just nosing ahead of Baz's 535 v India in 2014). Whodda thunk it?
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McCullum made that tally in basically two innings though. 301 and 225-ish, as I recall. Pretty exceptional.
 
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