I stand corrected.
Has barely played a first-class game despite being hyped by various ex-players, members of the media and the like since he was about 17. There's plenty of other bowlers who I'd rather see in there - Gillespie, James McMillan, Leighton Burtt etc.
Swap Fulton and Fleming around and bring Patel in for Tuffey who is nothing more than a green top bully. Then that team would be my ideal 1st XI.I stand corrected.
Ok I'll be more conservative this time
Vincent
Fulton
Taylor
Fleming
Styris
Oram
McCullum
Vettori
Mills
Tuffey (back to peak form)
Bond
Patel if required can slot in somewhere
Though i have misgivings about a middle order player opening Fulton seems to be making a decent fist of it.
BTW Patel in the other side was just a continuation of my raving about his batting in the semi final thread
I did consider Flem opening but Fulton is doing better lately so i gave it to him
Fulton has been a middle order player all of his life until John Bracewell decided he had "the tools" to open the innings, big mistake. Put him back at #4.
So? He isn't an opener, simple as really.
But not Fulton, who is going to be a good #4 batsman for New Zealand in both Tests and ODIs.
Barnett can't play for us since he has represented Canada I think. I have no problem with Vincent and Papps opening the batting although both aren't very strong against short pitched bowling which could cause problems, Fleming isn't an opener by trade but has done a fair bit of it in both ODIs and Tests so he can definately bat their with Vincent in our next ODI series. How isn't ready yet, but I'm not sure if going back to score runs in the State Shield will make him a better player, he has looked pretty average almost every time I have seen him.
Stop pretending you know anything about New Zealand cricket.
Why? I think his comment was pretty fair, Martin Crowe and Stephen Fleming are both very tactically astute leaders but Crowe often did more with the bat and lead from the front compared to Fleming.
Agreed. I'm hoping he hits the form of his life in his last few years though so he can shut up all those critics.
he's actualy a kiwi. John Bracewells selection of middle order players opening constantly pretty much squeezed out guys like Papps, Vincent, Cumming and Barnett (How should not be playing international cricket). However we have already seen the reemergence of Vincent and Papps is probably next on the list. And yes he played for Cananda, but if he's scoring runs at international level then thats very good for us incase the prefferred options fail.Barnett
Vincent himself is a middle order player though.
Oh yes, i forgot about that. Vincent has the skills though, ever since his return to the ODI side he has been an instant success opening however in tests i agree and it's something the selectors will have to nut out. IIRC Vincent got dropped from the test side because he said he didn't want to open. No idea whether thats the case now though. If he is not going to open then Papps and Cumming is our best bet. Not world class by any stretch of the imagination but its a start. We'll just have to pray that an opener puts his hand up at FC level before Cumming calls it quits.
Crowe was vain. As vain a captain as you'll ever see. Maybe you had to see it for yourself, but his heroics were vanity.
