*Unofficial* New Zealand Black Caps Thread

[SteveNZ]

Finn Allen first bbl game: 6 next ball skittled by Milne

He'll count that as a win on balance, hitting a six first ball of the innings. Few beers, beach and golf tomorrow, onto the next one.

 

[wellAlbidarned]

He'll count that as a win on balance, hitting a six first ball of the innings. Few beers, beach and golf tomorrow, onto the next one.

#highvariance

 

[Immenso]

Deep dive interview with Dipak Patel on his career and early life.

Cricket: Dipak Patel on fleeing Kenya, discrimination, and a 50 year devotion

Given the obstacles his family had to face when he was just a boy, former Black Cap Dipak Patel sometimes asks himself how he managed to achieve what he has.

www.rnz.co.nz

 

[SteveNZ]

Deep dive interview with Dipak Patel on his career and early life.

Cricket: Dipak Patel on fleeing Kenya, discrimination, and a 50 year devotion

Given the obstacles his family had to face when he was just a boy, former Black Cap Dipak Patel sometimes asks himself how he managed to achieve what he has.

www.rnz.co.nz

Dipak could have easily been an NZ coach if he was willing to be a bit more adaptable to what NZC wanted out of him. But he's always been his own man and polarising in his own way.

Outstanding technical coach who can take credit for a significant number of guys who played for NZ: Munro, de Grandhomme, Ajaz Patel, Mark Craig, and a hell of a lot of FC players. When he was in charge through 2003-2013 at Howick Pak, there were at least a dozen guys who played for NZ. He drove very strong standards

 

[anonymouskefe]

Ross Taylor has taken up coaching with the Brisbane heat in the bbl

 

[Bahnz]

So what are we thinking the white ball attack is shaping up to look like for the upcoming SL series and the CT? Obviously Henry, O'Rourke and Ferguson will be the frontliners. Any word on Sears' fitness? And who else is likely to get some game time? Milne? Foulkes? Maybe Fisher?

 

[Fuller Pilch]

So what are we thinking the white ball attack is shaping up to look like for the upcoming SL series and the CT? Obviously Henry, O'Rourke and Ferguson will be the frontliners. Any word on Sears' fitness? And who else is likely to get some game time? Milne? Foulkes? Maybe Fisher?

Milne and Ferguson won't play SL due to T20 league commitments. Ferguson with his superb recent T20i performances surely needs to play CT. As contracted players Duffy and Smith will probably play SL.

Re the CT I'd hope to see an XI something like this:

Ravindra
Williamson
Chapman
Mitchell
Phillips
Hay (wk)
M Bracewell
Santner (c)
Henry
Ferguson
O'Rourke

 

[Bahnz]

Smith strikes me as the kind of player who could be handy in T20's in the power play overs, but who will be mostly cannon fodder in ODI's. Still, given the way he's been treated in this recent series he probably deserves a crack.

 

[SteveNZ]

I reckon Smith is a guy like Southee, Henry and King Mills before him that could go great up front but yeah, cannon fodder in the death overs. But I think he's going to be a very good international player in all formats

 

[Zinzan]

Read a post a few days ago suggesting Santner isn't good enough with the bat to potentially challenge Phillips for the no.7/all-rounder spot & I think there's decent argument that he can since his Test bowling seems to have turned a corner. Phillips has the edge with the bat averaging 33.8 vs. Santner's 30 in the last 3 years, with Santner more effective with the ball.

So it really should come down to form and if we were playing a Test next week with 4 seamers & 1 spinner, I'd be selecting Santner at 7.

 

[Zinzan]

I've probably been the toughest Tim Southee critic of all NZ'ders on CW but fair play to him for a solid career & wishing him well in his retirement. The best compliment I can pay him is for his amazing fitness to play so long across all forms of international cricket with such few injuries. That requires a lot of discipline and hard-work to keep the body in tact, especially for a bowler.

I am pleased we can now move on with a fresh start & with an extremely exciting group of Test pace bowling prospects.

 

[honestbharani]

Congrats again on a great career to Tim Southee and hopefully he has a happy and fullfilling life now that he is done playing the game at this level.

Congrats to England on an excellent performance. Kudos to NZ for ensuring they took advantage of the dead rubber attitude of England. England needs to ensure they find the right meter for their Bazball and not go over the top, which has resulted in losses for them every single time. Surely, the right tempo can be found and tuned to.

NZ need to pick the right players but much like India and Australia, they are also going through or about to go through a transition period. Will be interesting to see how they shape up the next time they play tests.

 

[NZTailender]

Stuff

www.stuff.co.nz

This is the second article I've seen speculating on Kanes retirement. I guess it's natural with Southee leaving, but at the same time feels like a concerted effort - felt like I didn't see any of these about Tim in the last 18 months.

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

That article mentions potentially 2 Tests in South Africa after Zimbabwe. That’s a series we don’t get very often and which Williamson couldn’t potentially fill one of those holes in his record that he’s not had a chance to in what, nearly a decade?

 

[Neil Young]

This is the second article I've seen speculating on Kanes retirement. I guess it's natural with Southee leaving, but at the same time feels like a concerted effort - felt like I didn't see any of these about Tim in the last 18 months.

That was our first mistake...

 

[Bahnz]

That article mentions potentially 2 Tests in South Africa after Zimbabwe. That’s a series we don’t get very often and which Williamson couldn’t potentially fill one of those holes in his record that he’s not had a chance to in what, nearly a decade?

Looking at the FTP, I honesty don't see how this can work. SA are off to Australia and England for some T20 jam around the same time as our test series v Zimbabwe is due to wrap up.

 

[straw man]

That article mentions potentially 2 Tests in South Africa after Zimbabwe. That’s a series we don’t get very often and which Williamson couldn’t potentially fill one of those holes in his record that he’s not had a chance to in what, nearly a decade?

Hope these go ahead, provided SA schedule somewhere where a drop of rain doesn't wash out the whole match.

 

[kevinw]

Read a post a few days ago suggesting Santner isn't good enough with the bat to potentially challenge Phillips for the no.7/all-rounder spot & I think there's decent argument that he can since his Test bowling seems to have turned a corner. Phillips has the edge with the bat averaging 33.8 vs. Santner's 30 in the last 3 years, with Santner more effective with the ball.

So it really should come down to form and if we were playing a Test next week with 4 seamers & 1 spinner, I'd be selecting Santner at 7.

Phillips has as good a FC record as anyone. He could be batting in the top five, assuming your WK bats at six.

 

[Bahnz]

So it really should come down to form and if we were playing a Test next week with 4 seamers & 1 spinner, I'd be selecting Santner at 7.

Santner's getting a severe nose bleed at 7. He's kinda in the awkward middle ground where he's a bit too good to be a number 8 and not quite good enough to be a number 7. That and he visibly craps himself every time the ball gets up to chest height. If we were to proceed with this approach, NZ would need an absolutely stacked lower order batting wise - as in Matt Henry has to be the 4th best batter out of the 5 bowlers. That rules out your Duffy's and Fisher's from the 4th seamer role. Smith's inclusion would be non-negotiable, and we'd need the number 9 to be someone who could average 20+ as well. KJ showed some initial promise in his early outings, but later succumbed to Southee-think. We'd need him to go back to taking a lot more responsibility with his batting - and given that just getting back to his best with the ball is a big ask, I'm not sure that's pressure we want to be heaping on him. In the event that KJ is lost to us, Foulkes and Clarke can both bat - though Foulkes has yet to really put numbers on the board in domestic cricket, and Clarke is more of a new ball bowler, so I'm not sure you can carry him and Smith in the same team while Henry is playing.

Four seamers is only necessary if we keep producing pitches that offer the spinners bupkis, and that no longer makes sense as a strategy. We showed in India that we have spin bowlers who can be a threat, and batsmen who can make runs, when the ball turns. That doesn't mean we want the kinds of surfaces that we saw in Pune and Mumbai, but making a shift to produce more balanced surfaces that reward other skills besides swing bowling makes sense imo.

Therefore, I still think the answer is move Phillips up to 6 and proceed with Santner, Henry, O'Rourke and hopefully KJ (Smith if not). Give Phillips the direction to start batting with some responsibility rather than playing as a spin-bowling all-rounder/tail shepherd, and pick a keeper who can actually be relied on for runs. Blundell producing tail-ender numbers at number 6 for the better part of 2 years has been a massive part of NZ's mediocre run in tests. Given that he ended up averaging about 40 in this series (the inverse of O'Rourke in terms of his stats disguising the meaningfulness of his contribution) he's probably got his spot for the Zim tour booked in, but the new coach really needs to be getting ready to pull the trigger on him early if he reverts to his recent mean.

 

[Flem274*]

Santner's getting a severe nose bleed at 7. He's kinda in the awkward middle ground where he's a bit too good to be a number 8 and not quite good enough to be a number 7. That and he visibly craps himself every time the ball gets up to chest height. If we were to proceed with this approach, NZ would need an absolutely stacked lower order batting wise - as in Matt Henry has to be the 4th best batter out of the 5 bowlers. That rules out your Duffy's and Fisher's from the 4th seamer role. Smith's inclusion would be non-negotiable, and we'd need the number 9 to be someone who could average 20+ as well. KJ showed some initial promise in his early outings, but later succumbed to Southee-think. We'd need him to go back to taking a lot more responsibility with his batting - and given that just getting back to his best with the ball is a big ask, I'm not sure that's pressure we want to be heaping on him. In the event that KJ is lost to us, Foulkes and Clarke can both bat - though Foulkes has yet to really put numbers on the board in domestic cricket, and Clarke is more of a new ball bowler, so I'm not sure you can carry him and Smith in the same team while Henry is playing.

Four seamers is only necessary if we keep producing pitches that offer the spinners bupkis, and that no longer makes sense as a strategy. We showed in India that we have spin bowlers who can be a threat, and batsmen who can make runs, when the ball turns. That doesn't mean we want the kinds of surfaces that we saw in Pune and Mumbai, but making a shift to produce more balanced surfaces that reward other skills besides swing bowling makes sense imo.

Therefore, I still think the answer is move Phillips up to 6 and proceed with Santner, Henry, O'Rourke and hopefully KJ (Smith if not). Give Phillips the direction to start batting with some responsibility rather than playing as a spin-bowling all-rounder/tail shepherd, and pick a keeper who can actually be relied on for runs. Blundell producing tail-ender numbers at number 6 for the better part of 2 years has been a massive part of NZ's mediocre run in tests. Given that he ended up averaging about 40 in this series (the inverse of O'Rourke in terms of his stats disguising the meaningfulness of his contribution) he's probably got his spot for the Zim tour booked in, but the new coach really needs to be getting ready to pull the trigger on him early if he reverts to his recent mean.

Agreed. If we don't trust 4 main bowlers and Phillips/Mitchell/Ravindra, then we need to start looking at Abbas and Foulkes coming in and/or ensuring our keeper can really bat 6.

Foulkes has been trusted to open the batting sometimes, and can obv open the bowling, so he's a guy who really needs to kick on with the bat because he could force his way into the side in multiple spots.