Lockie bowled well, with pace and swung the ball early. Henry was reasonable at the start, usual stuff bowling back of the length and moving the ball tad away. Last couple of spells from Henry weren't great. Lockie bowled all right in the death but Ireland tail could still find gaps at will. Bracewell got away bowling at a time when Ireland were consolidating and Latham took him off rightly so as soon as he went for a 12 run last of his overs. Sodhi with his new action bowled less shorter than I have ever seen but seems to have lost the ability to beat the batters in the air. Need to be seen. Phillips was all right but didn't look like a bowler and looked good enough for 3-4 overs. Tickener I have no idea what he was trying to bowl. He bowled both sides of the wicket, all lengths and generally pretty pedestrian.
Guptill, no way near his best. Yes he did play some signature over the top straight drive but generally struggled. Scoreboard won't tell you that. Couple of bad calls for singles, a mistimed pull going over wicket keeper, beaten good number of times, spinners had him in a knot, Singh dropped him when on 40 or something but you can understand he has been on a 10 week break from cricket so probably just getting his timing going probably. I'd be really really surprised if Guptill can hang around for another year + and not so sure if the spin friendly tracks in India would be to his liking.
Allen, the biggest problem for him is how does he handle this urge to not having a swipe consistently. The lad just doesn't seem to understand you can still score fours on the ground and can hit a big one every now and then which he is more than capable of. As soon as he dots up few balls he goes for a hoick. I really want him to do well but he is not going to be given a long rope and should make good use of this opportunity.
Young at times finds ways to get out, there was absolutely no need to dance down the track and defend. Looked kind of out of sorts from ball one, beaten, edging to open account etc... High time he just trusts his technique and not try and be funky like Darryl Mitchell.
Latham, looked absoutely fine. Was timing the ball well, getting into good position and scoring at good clip while Guptill at the other end was trying hard to lay bat on ball. But then Latham does Latham, missed a full toss on stumps.
Nicholls came and went, struck in the crease looked as ugly as they come and nicked off to the keeper in no time.
Glenn Phillips played some glorious cut shots, got dropped playing a pull (Wish he had other shots than just pull at anything short of good length) and in general struggled to rotate strike vs spin. Gave a really good hand to Bracewell and built what was a very important partnership. A long way away from being able to play spin, rotate vs spin consistently.
Ish Sodhi was outstanding, soaked in the pressure, ticked along nicely, rotated the strike far better than some of the top order and smashed a couple of the last over of Singh. Just about the time we had to accelerate.
Henry missed more than he hit. Lockie played sensibly and did his very best till he was castled by a good ball. To be fair it was not up to these guys to bat and win games.
Bracewell did all the good things that others did and avoided all the bad things that others did. He was way above the rest of the squad. Obviously he was well fed in areas he could score mostly leg side. 90 of his 127 runs came from the leg side. Don't think there would have been a single four on the off side. The ground was small and his timing was immaculate. All in all a Bracewell's day. I'm sure he will push Nicholls out of the squad.
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