Whilst I might appreciate there's a bit of me that wants to bag Stead out at any opportunity, I'm going to have to stick to my guns.Gotta say, as much as I'd usually agree that more prep > less prep, I think it's being over-egged.
T20Is are extremely high variance (good teams lose to **** teams all the time because the format kinda encourages that), Afghanistan's team is actually good, and the pitch suited them to the ground. Sometimes you just lose and letting Glenn Phillips face 14 deliveries in a practice game 10 days ago wouldn't have mattered. Stead does indeed suck but this is really reaching.
Warm up games aren't pointless, but NZ still wouldn't have beaten Afghanistan with any number of them. It's not the point of differenceIf warm up games are non-essential and focussing on the lack of them is seen as a red herring, why did virtually every other side find a way to play them? Why did other sides believe they were a necessity? Australia played two warm up matches with 9 players - support staff made up the numbers - against the West Indies, allowing players like Warner, Marsh, Wade, David, Hazlewood, and Zampa a decent work out ahead of the tournament start. Apparently NZ will now be ‘better for the run’ after playing Afghanistan. Ok, but we are now one game down in the tournament proper. Warm up matches are the place to work out any rust, find some confidence, or get bad performances out of the way in a setting where a loss does not equate to losing key tournament points. If not every player is available for warm up games then so be it, it’s not a reason just to flag them away.
This takes nothing away from the Afghanistan performance. They are a very good side, but NZC should have known that. All the more reason to leave no stone unturned.
I mean, that's not really the point...and we don't know we wouldn't have, either. I think it's pretty apparent you'll be better placed for having played in the conditions leading up to the event, otherwise why would anyone do it? Whether or not that's enough to actually compete, yeah who knows.Warm up games aren't pointless, but NZ still wouldn't have beaten Afghanistan with any number of them. It's not the point of difference
Maybe they thought the top 3 in the group progressed so the first two games could double as warm ups for the must wins against Uganda and PNG.If warm up games are non-essential and focussing on the lack of them is seen as a red herring, why did virtually every other side find a way to play them? Why did other sides believe they were a necessity? Australia played two warm up matches with 9 players - support staff made up the numbers - against the West Indies, allowing players like Warner, Marsh, Wade, David, Hazlewood, and Zampa a decent work out ahead of the tournament start. Apparently NZ will now be ‘better for the run’ after playing Afghanistan. Ok, but we are now one game down in the tournament proper. Warm up matches are the place to work out any rust, find some confidence, or get bad performances out of the way in a setting where a loss does not equate to losing key tournament points. If not every player is available for warm up games then so be it, it’s not a reason just to flag them away.
This takes nothing away from the Afghanistan performance. They are a very good side, but NZC should have known that. All the more reason to leave no stone unturned.
That's the point. Finn Allen hasn't played since Feb 23. I had a tan on February 23, now three and a half months on, I am white as a sheet. Conway the same for T20s, as with Phillips.I think the lack of warm up games is an over-used excuse, while I agree that it's useful to have good prep - we had no warm up games in 2022 in Australia (they were both rained off) and we still thrashed Australia in Sydney in the opening pool game. Admittedly we at least had been playing cricket in NZ a couple of weeks earlier.
The reason given was for players to spend time with their families. Which must be a huge challenge with the increasingly congested calendar. But you wonder how other teams who have similar numbers or more in IPL managed to get some warm up matches. And as you say a number of the players like Allen weren't in IPL. It gives the impression that the IPL guys are running the show.That's the point. Finn Allen hasn't played since Feb 23. I had a tan on February 23, now three and a half months on, I am white as a sheet. Conway the same for T20s, as with Phillips.
If there'd been warm-ups scheduled and it rained, no worries. But we get T20Is shoved down our throat and they talk them up as relevant. But not relevant enough to prepare decently. So now I am to understand we don't really care, so it's really only about the revenue (which we all knew all along).
Saw that. One of the only times I can recall Hesson criticising his successor?The Post
www.thepost.co.nz
“To hear, then, that New Zealand had opted to not have a warmup game when only two of the players who played in Pakistan played in the (Afghanistan) game… It’s not hindsight, it’s something that we foresaw many months ago. I am astounded by it, to be brutally honest, because we did look rusty and I don’t blame the guys for looking rusty.”
Yeah, I believe the only NZers to make the playoffs were Phillips, Boult and Ferguson, and Phillips was the only one whose team made it all the way to the final.With that said, you'd think enough players would've been freed up from the knocked out teams to fill out an XI.
Despite Phillips being left out for the whole tournament (incredibly).Yeah, I believe the only NZers to make the playoffs were Phillips, Boult and Ferguson, and Phillips was the only one whose team made it all the way to the final.
Assuming Stead is telling the truth, that is just terrible. Considering the majority of the squad is coming in from the other side of the world, there isn't enough for an XI even if Ronchi/Oram/Stead are drafted in. You'd probably need Sears too, as a reserve, & even he's not enough. It's looking better once you factor in the players eliminated from the IPL, but even that is a tight squeeze if they're going home before flying to Guyana.“Logistics made it very difficult. Our original warm-ups were down when our players weren’t in the country here [the West Indies] so that made it hard.”
He said New Zealand had appealed to tournament organisers to arrange later matches but that appeal was denied and that they knew they were running the risk of heading into the tournament without warm-ups.
“We tried to get later warm-up games but that was denied by the competition officials here, they deemed that it wasn’t possible.
It is terrible. It's ridiculous that a tournament has been scheduled so close to the IPL and has been therefore been affected. Ignoring the 'herr derr you're just salty because your team lost', it isn't good enough.From The Herald:
Assuming Stead is telling the truth, that is just terrible. Considering the majority of the squad is coming in from the other side of the world, there isn't enough for an XI even if Ronchi/Oram/Stead are drafted in. You'd probably need Sears too, as a reserve, & even he's not enough. It's looking better once you factor in the players eliminated from the IPL, but even that is a tight squeeze if they're going home before flying to Guyana.
What a terrible sh**show. If I wanted that with my NZ cricket, I can go to the White Ferns.