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

[Bahnz]

Mitchell only bowled 3 overs in the first innings and didn't bowl in the second. I don't think they rate his bowling. I would have thought Neesham would be handy at 7 with CdG out. Nathan Smith, Sean Solia or Simon Keene might be handy too.

Nathan Smith I think is more of a number 8 with his batting. 7 in tests would be serious nose-bleed territory. Neesham to me is the best bet for a mid-term replacement for CdG at 7. The one downside is that his bowling is unlikely to offer the control NZ are looking for in a 5th bowler, but I remember seeing him bowling some really nice inswingers that accounted for Will Young a season or two ago.

 

[Flem274*]

Neesham struggles to average 30 in FC. I'm a fan but he's Macewell standard with the bat in red ball. Better bowler obv.

How long is CdG out for?

I'm happy to just give Mitchell more overs in the meantime, with Ravindra likely joining the side after our inevitable loss to Pakistan.

 

[thierry henry]

Southee at 8 is bad but then Henry/Wagner/Patel/Boult are all probably capable of batting #9, so our 8-11 is never really *that* bad. That's the frustration, even if we don't have a "proper number 8" we'll have 4 guys who can all "bat a bit" and are capable of averaging 15+. There should be enough there to really frustrate opposing teams waiting for the out and out bunny who never comes. Instead they pretty much know the last 4 wickets are coming quickly and it's just a question of whether they can avoid being bopped for a few 6s or not.

 

[straw man]

Jamieson is still a perfectly acceptable number 8 batsman, especially if he's told his job is not to try hook everything for six. With him there the weakness of the tail is a non-issue imo. The approach taken by the tail is another story.

 

[straw man]

Extremely ****ing frustrating to read Kane and Stead openly state Bracewell's pick was to help bolster the batting. I wonder who was leading that push of the two.

Quoted for Idiocy. Let's not let surface level issues like terrible tail-end batting distract us from the fundamental issue over the last 12 months, which is leadership and coaching.

NZC will try to get away with this as an off-season overseas tour that doesn't get a lot of attention at home, and ignore how it dovetails with the exact same failings in the home summer. NZ cricket reporters should be asking a lot of very hard questions of Stead in particular, not allow him to get away with the 'oh we were close but that's cricket' style of indifferent answer that avoids any discussion of what needs to change.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

off-season overseas tour that doesn't get a lot of attention at home

Is this actually true, do people in NZ not care much about this tour?

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Is this actually true, do people in NZ not care much about this tour?

There are some very annoyed comments on Stuff cricket articles, so I think they do.

Also for once there is a sensible opinion piece by Mark Reason about the series and team, and he is actually pretty fair on McCullum as well (surprisingly).

 

[thierry henry]

Is this actually true, do people in NZ not care much about this tour?

It's been relegated pretty far down the sports news bulletin. I think cricket in general is in a weird place where we've had this great team lately but cricket is not in a terribly strong position as far as mainstream popularity goes. Anecdotally, the move to Spark has hurt and cricket has rarely been less relevant to the younger demographics. But yeah....anecdotally.

 

[Athlai]

Is this actually true, do people in NZ not care much about this tour?

If it isn't in ANZ I'm pretty sure viewership is awful

 

[NZTailender]

When we toured India I was at a pub when Patel got his 10fer and the crowd was hanging in every ball after he had his 8th basically. But most of those people were there to drink and got absorbed by the cricket, rather than being specifically there to watch. It was always be a bit if second fiddle game in NZ. When it's summer and we're doing good people will get onboard but when we suck or play overseas it goes back to being that boring old game for most people.

 

[Flem274*]

It's on in the middle of the night, often during the week. Most teenagers would follow this through scorecards and many adults as well.

Cricinfo scorecard and NZC scorecard viewing stats would give a great indicator of who cares, even if they can't watch, but we'll never ever see those.

 

[jcas0167]

It may have changed, but when it first went to Spark the Backbencher and presumably a lot of pubs didn't have Spark. I think the best exposure recently has come from the Black Clash on TV1 which attracts big audiences because All Blacks are involved.

 

[nzfan]

Extremely ****ing frustrating to read Kane and Stead openly state Bracewell's pick was to help bolster the batting. I wonder who was leading that push of the two.

Pretty much having a batter at no.8 means they don't trust the tail or the top order. Bit of a shame really, we aren't that bad a batting unit. Maybe in the second inning yes but generally we bat all right in the first dig.

 

[straw man]

There are some very annoyed comments on Stuff cricket articles, so I think they do.

Also for once there is a sensible opinion piece by Mark Reason about the series and team, and he is actually pretty fair on McCullum as well (surprisingly).

Yeah pleasing the number of comments on the Stuff cricket articles, with plenty of well-targeted criticism. So people outside of weirdos on CricketWeb do care and aren't completely ignoring it. I'll have to take your word on Mark Reason as he's not getting any of my precious clicks.

It's on in the middle of the night, often during the week.

Yeah this was really the only gist of my comment - most people aren't watching in the middle of the night in winter. 3-0 loss to England at home would inevitably receive a lot more coverage.

 

[straw man]

Pretty much having a batter at no.8 means they don't trust the tail or the top order. Bit of a shame really, we aren't that bad a batting unit. Maybe in the second inning yes but generally we bat all right in the first dig.

It makes zero sense. Sub-zero. The top 7 now and over the last five years is the best NZ has had in decades if not ever, you just don't compromise your entire bowling attack to put a batsman at 8 (jokes about Vettori aside).

 

[nzfan]

This is one guy that's been on the selection case even before the series started. He pointed out glaring mistakes and he's been more or less proven right. He had even mentioned the players that should have ideally been on the tour.

Opinion: Black Caps in freefall on back of selection shockers

Brendon McCullum helped revitalise a deflated England, while the reigning Test champions continued their horror run of form.

www.1news.co.nz

The rest of the folks like Smith, Waddle, Coney, BYC, NZ Herald guys were all lauding before the start of the series of Bracewell's pick. Now the same guys are only centered on Bracewell's case and calling it a bad call. Hypocrisy at its best from these lot particularly the old timers.

 

[nzfan]

I now think Gary and likely the captains are going to be very impatient with the new lot that is coming through. They will probably expect them to be good from game one. There's definitely a bit of pressure to turn things around quite quickly. Bad times to be making a debut I think. Lot easier to walk into a well performing team than the one that is having some trouble turning up good performances. Thankfully we are playing Ireland (although Ireland have come lose to beating a reasonable Indian side), Scotland and the Dutch. Hopefully there'll be no pit stops.

Just hoping they are a bit patient with the likes of Allen, Sears, Duffy, Rippon etc... Hope they don't make the mistake they made with Bracewell and try and groom Phillips as an offie that can bat. I honestly don't think he has much chance as a bowler in the long run. Yet another player that has taken up bowling after having known he can't cut as a wicket keeping batsman. Thankfully he can continue to work on his bowling given his age and mature over the coming years unlike Bracewell.

 

[Bahnz]

Yeah pleasing the number of comments on the Stuff cricket articles, with plenty of well-targeted criticism. So people outside of weirdos on CricketWeb do care and aren't completely ignoring it. I'll have to take your word on Mark Reason as he's not getting any of my precious clicks.

Yeah this was really the only gist of my comment - most people aren't watching in the middle of the night in winter. 3-0 loss to England at home would inevitably receive a lot more coverage.

Haha, I was actually surprised by how balanced the Reason piece was. Normally when he’s not intending to be openly hostile, he can still be relied on to lead with back-handed complements and a couple of snarky asides. This time he was just genuinely complementary about McCullum’s role in Bairstow’s success in particular.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

This is one guy that's been on the selection case even before the series started. He pointed out glaring mistakes and he's been more or less proven right. He had even mentioned the players that should have ideally been on the tour.

Opinion: Black Caps in freefall on back of selection shockers

Brendon McCullum helped revitalise a deflated England, while the reigning Test champions continued their horror run of form.

www.1news.co.nz

The rest of the folks like Smith, Waddle, Coney, BYC, NZ Herald guys were all lauding before the start of the series of Bracewell's pick. Now the same guys are only centered on Bracewell's case and calling it a bad call. Hypocrisy at its best from these lot particularly the old timers.

It owns that I, a scrub who has watched maybe an over of live cricket in 3 years, has more nous than people who do this for a living.

 

[ashley bach]

Jamieson is still a perfectly acceptable number 8 batsman, especially if he's told his job is not to try hook everything for six. With him there the weakness of the tail is a non-issue imo. The approach taken by the tail is another story.

Can't believe just how capable he looked at the start of his career.
Not only was his test average close to 50 for a while(albeit early on) but his ODI career started off on a good note as well.
Since then he's looked as impatient as Southee, which we know is really saying something, like he's just gone crazy in the last year.
So there is ability there, he just needs to be coached better, and even more so apply himself better by valuing his wicket.