This is an overly simplistic take. The fielding was excellent for several years after Stead came on board. We had the highest catching percentage of any team during the first WTC.
Ok sorry.
You can take more catches but on tracks that turn into flat decks from day 2 onwards and stay that way across the test, NZ will struggle to beat Eng like Jun 2022.
Sounds like two dimensions to me.
Don't think this deck ever turned into too much of a road tbh. Was always a bit of seam movement there during the first 3 days. The fact that Brook kept offering more chances no matter how long he stayed at the crease is a testament to that I think. We were also just starting to get a bit of uneven bounce on days 3 and 4. In the 4th innings it looked very easy for England to just go out and clobber it, but they would've had to play it differently if they were 50/2 chasing 350 instead of 100.
Brook was first dropped on 18. If the catch is taken that's 153 runs not scored by him and who knows what the flow-on effect would've been.
I stand corrected.
Exactly right. That catch should always be taken at this level.
Yeah well he also said the following three times in slightly different ways:
Absolutely, but he doesn’t have to say some wholly inane instead. Something along the lines of we’re all going to be working hard blah blah blah would be similarly supportive without being quite so vacuous.
It beats me why they even bother with this mealy-mouthed stuff. It would be more satisfying and enlightening if he just stood there eating handfuls of paste straight out of the jar.
I've heard worse ideas.
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Hmm. To me, it seemed like catches were most definitely going to hand. The problem was they weren't staying in said hands.
It goes beyond needing work. More like a class: "Okay boys, now this here is the cricket ball. You need to grab it out of the air before - and I can't stress this enough - before it touches the ground. If you do that, the guy in all the weird armour has to go away. Isn't that great?"
