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Final – India v New Zealand – Sunday, March 9 – Dubai

thundaboult

thundaboult

International Debutant
F*** this sport.

Congrats to ACME cricket council beep beep. Hearty commiserations to underdog always fail in a final cricket board. Genuinely love you guys here on the forum though. Great humor and grassroots level insights + stories.

Badminton is quite fun, physically taxing and exhilarating to play. Time to give their athletes and world events a looksee.
 
ImpatientLime

ImpatientLime

International Regular
The little guys punching up, 5m population, awwwww commiserations at least you beat us in the tests is ****ing cringe worthy, pat on the head stuff.
 
thierry henry

thierry henry

International Coach
I know Smith is CW's boi but I find it hard to understand him being selected over Duffy, particularly for a one-off final. Duffy has been better in his recent international opportunities and there is a pretty significant gap in their domestic records, with Duffy being more a white ball specialist and Smith red ball. Just find it hard to see on what basis you'd expect Smith to do better in yesterday's game.
 
jcas0167

jcas0167

International Regular
Well played India. The spinners were superb. Pleased for Rohit in what will presumably be one of his last tournaments. Pleasantly surprised how close it was - went to bed when Phillips got out and was worried we might struggle to get much more than 200 but a good effort from Bracewell to post a competitive score.

NZTailender said:
Yeah but O'Rourke suddenly opened the bowling where he's usually first chanfe (in this tournament and the tri series anyway). Playing Duffy would be like for like but I guess Smith was also chosen for his batting.

All hindsight but bringing in Conway would've been the best move, but hard to know where to slot him in. Like I said opening with Young and everyone shuffling down one but then that's unfamiliar for everyone else.
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Yeah, many here suggested Smith would be too hittable when the tour squad was announced. Conway or Chapman might have disrupted the order but perhaps they might have been able to attack more in the middle overs. For that classic WC game where Harris and Germon were promoted up the order NZ were missing key strike bowlers so the instruction was to just keep attacking to get as close to 300 as possible with a stacked batting line up. Granted hitting the spinners was obviously not that easy for either side here.

EDIT: Maybe an Ajaz Patel, Sodhi or Jayden Lennox could have been handy too.

Moss said:
Meanwhile, how good has Macewell been today? The one NZ player to properly turn up for the big game, was thinking Santner could have turned to him even earlier given the confidence he must have taken from his innings.

Truly a good riposte to the doubters, I was one of them.
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Occasionally see him when I'm doing my school drop off. Will definitely say 'well played' if I bump into him.

Overall, it's been a fantastic tour for the Black Caps with the tri-series performances too. A few 'what ifs' for the final but the batting generally was excellent. The stroke play of Ravindra and catching of Phillips will live long in the memory.
 
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Bahnz

Bahnz

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Not having watched a ball, it kinda looks like NZ were one Matt Henry short of having a realistic chance of winning. Agree with those noting that Duffy should've played over Smith. Duffy was definitely the form pacer in the ODI squad, and while these are obviously very different conditions, I do suspect that with his swing he would've been more of a threat with the new ball than O'Rourke.

Hat tip to Macewell, hell of a performance in a big game.
 
Skyliner

Skyliner

International Debutant
I guess the writing was on the wall when Henry got injured but on that slow spinny deck we used 7 bowlers and still ended up bowling KJ for only 5 which went at 4.8 runs an over, and also probably under-bowled GP as well. Smith was always going to be a risk, the decision to bowl him smacks of 'we've selected him and we trust him' which we often see from BC brains-trusts, and they think it's a strength this "we are showing faith", but it sometimes flies in the face of common sense and reality. At the end of the day we lack that touch of ruthlessness that would see us winning more tournaments. When you see how India selected their team with the bare bones of seam resources then there was probably a case to be made for selecting DC instead of Smith; every single run was always going to be vital on a slow spinny deck like that.
 
S

SteveNZ

International Coach
thierry henry said:
I know Smith is CW's boi but I find it hard to understand him being selected over Duffy, particularly for a one-off final. Duffy has been better in his recent international opportunities and there is a pretty significant gap in their domestic records, with Duffy being more a white ball specialist and Smith red ball. Just find it hard to see on what basis you'd expect Smith to do better in yesterday's game.
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I imagine most people agree. That was an ultra conservative selection that is typical of Stead. We could have also played 2 seamers, with the spin options + Chapman/Mitchell bowling cutters. I wouldn't have minded three seamers if they were KJ/O'Rourke/Henry, but when it's Smith who has proven to be cannon fodder on hard decks, India would have wanted Smith to play. But obviously steady as she goes Gary thought Smith's ability to hold a bat was worth investing in.

India had the advantage and we did nothing to negate that by picking Smith, who was unlikely to contribute anything.
 
S

SteveNZ

International Coach
Skyliner said:
At the end of the day we lack that touch of ruthlessness that would see us winning more tournaments. When you see how India selected their team with the bare bones of seam resources then there was probably a case to be made for selecting DC instead of Smith; every single run was always going to be vital on a slow spinny deck like that.
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I agree with the first sentence. Maybe not ruthlessness, but willing to be daring. Bit different with India because they have four spinners who would make all sides in the world, but the point stands. Smith was surplus to requirements and would have been even more so had we lost the toss.
 
Skyliner

Skyliner

International Debutant
I went to bed last night about 10:45, then couldn't sleep, then checked my phone, thought KW and Rachin were resurrecting things, went back to the lounge to watch only to see Rachin bowled, went back to bed, couldn't sleep, checked the phone to see Daz and KW going at some pitifully slow rate, pulled the covers over my head, couldn't sleep, grabbed the phone, KW was out, finally faced the fact that we were going to get smoked so pushed the phone out of reach....woke up with with India needing about 5 off 10 balls, felt sad about how close we'd obviously come. Resolved to never watch the highlights. Felt the faintest sense of the pain of 2019.
 
Skyliner

Skyliner

International Debutant
SteveNZ said:
I imagine most people agree. That was an ultra conservative selection that is typical of Stead. We could have also played 2 seamers, with the spin options + Chapman/Mitchell bowling cutters. I wouldn't have minded three seamers if they were KJ/O'Rourke/Henry, but when it's Smith who has proven to be cannon fodder on hard decks, India would have wanted Smith to play. But obviously steady as she goes Gary thought Smith's ability to hold a bat was worth investing in.

India had the advantage and we did nothing to negate that by picking Smith, who was unlikely to contribute anything.
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Even O'Rourke had proven more expensive than KJ across the tournament yet they still gave him more overs. But anyway.
 
A

ashley bach

International Coach
thierry henry said:
I know Smith is CW's boi but I find it hard to understand him being selected over Duffy, particularly for a one-off final. Duffy has been better in his recent international opportunities and there is a pretty significant gap in their domestic records, with Duffy being more a white ball specialist and Smith red ball. Just find it hard to see on what basis you'd expect Smith to do better in yesterday's game.
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Always felt like it was going through motions sadly as he was never going to bowl much. Probably should of strengthened the batting
by adding Conway or Chapman.
 
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