Have tried to watch ball by ball and gave up.... Particularly the game vs scotland. It was shambles, there was no scorecard for long periods and looked a lot like club cricket feed on crichq. The graphics worked at some point in time but watching cricket without knowing the score is quite village. The entire scotland setting is like club cricket.
@thierry henry have watched every ball of Scotland and Ireland (call me stupid) so far and Ireland is miles ahead of Scotland. Scotland side looks like a good club side (sorry Scottish folks I don't mean to offend you). The ground dimensions are like 50 meters, the outfield could not be rated first class level (although the sun in recent months hasn't helped). I have to say it is a tough watch. Only spark sports are showing this and don't think any channel in UK or anywhere else is covering it. The camera work is very 80s and amateurish is written all over the broadcast.
The bloke that wrote the article on stuff must not have watched the game vs Scotland. He wrote Allen was dropped on 0, that is not true. Allen smashed the ball at the bowler who had to dive to his right (left arm spinner) and had to pull off a blinder. I wouldn't call that a drop. Guptill was caught at point when he was on nought off a no ball. That never made stuff article strangely.
Allen smashed it big time but the first 50 was a bit relaxed. The second fifty came in super quick time. Granted the ground was small and bowling not so great but hundred is a hundred any day. Particularly when it comes in 50 odd balls. Huge fan of Allen but the excitement got to be a bit tempered at the moment I guess considering we haven't had any serious games of late. West Indies would give us a reasonable look.
Runs off Lockie, Sears and Bracewell were not all legit. Some edged, some went over the keeper and short boundaries as I mentioned. More misses that went for fours and sixes than hits.
Can't blame lesser sides as they don't have the resources or the facilities to get better. Wonder how many grass decks there are in Ireland, Scotland and Netherlands.
Despite our unbeaten streak I'm not feeling good about black caps at the moment. We have been playing too much back to back against sides that are rated over 11 or over in the rankings table.. This is not helping us. West Indies may be of some use next month to tell us where we stand but I think the back and forth of players will cost us eventually.
i.stuff.co.nz
