Group C - West Indies, Afghanistan, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Uganda

[RMBolton]

Yeah, my issues with them are longstanding. An 8-a-side warmup on the one day when it's not raining or a game is being hosted won't do much. Sh** happens sometimes.

 

[straw man]

It's ok guys we are just using the Australia-at-ODI-World-Cup-2023 approach to winning the tournament. Can we lose to WI next and still go through if Afghanistan drop their other two games? It's a good plan imo.

 

[andruid]

I wonder how much more traumatizing it would have been Kenya not Uganda getting the shellacking.

 

[SteveNZ]

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.

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.

Six of our top seven had been playing basically no cricket. If you're serious about this tournament, there had to be an effort to get game time. Yes, Finn Allen could've (would've...) been knocked over twice, it might've rained, and all that stuff. I'm not saying it's a magic bullet. But Australia, who had a bunch of guys who played in the IPL, played two warm-up games. So did Afghanistan. Even in their own conditions, the West Indies had a quality warm-up hit out. That's the issue to me. Not that we would've won, but that we play so many bloody meaningless T20Is - they shoehorn them in like mad, we played 10 against Pakistan from January to April for ****'s sake - yet not a single one in the lead-up to a tournament.

No one can tell me it's not important to play the actual sport once or twice before a tournament, at least.

And I'm not saying we would've beaten Afghanistan, because we very likely wouldn't have. We're not a good side, the capitulations at home to Australia showed that. The pitch suited them down to the ground (Afghans). They played great. I'd also point out, they were match fit - they'd been playing cricket - 3 games in a week, even if it was against associate sides.

This tournament is indicative of the lack of quality planning and coaching nous that is a hallmark of the Stead era. Any success we've had is a fluke, as far as he's concerned.

To me, fielding is always the litmus test of the quality of coaching. We are absolutely abysmal which is unforgivable for the professional era where these guys are - or meant to be - athletes. We have a keeper that can't keep on pitches that aren't featherbeds.

So yeah I get it that seemingly blaming our lack of preparation seems like a stretch but to me it's emblematic of this regime. Mitchell Santner called our preparation 'chaotic' and 'distorted', that is poor.

 

[Flem274*]

Yeah Steve is on the right track from a fan perspective. NZC are obsessed with T20, to the point our home summer is basically one long T20 series with a couple of very token tests and ODIs shuffled in at the edges.

If they're going to do that, for whatever reasons they have, the least a fan should expect is NZC go balls to the wall to win the world championship of the format that dominates our home season.

Winning has not been NZC's main concern since July 2021. Viewing numbers in front of the TV has.

 

[Skyliner]

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.

 

[TheJediBrah]

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.

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

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Drop Michael Bracewell.

 

[SteveNZ]

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

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.

The point is this - NZC has machine-gunned us with T20I fixtures throughout home summers, played a bunch of series' overseas with different squads, and generally just drummed into us that they care deeply about T20s...but then failed to prepare adequately for what is considered the showpiece event of that format. It's just ridiculous.

Don't get tripped up that this is about losing to Afghanistan, it's about the ridiculous approach that resulted in the loss to Afghanistan, and the performance put out in terms of the batting and fielding. That loss could've been to Oman, given how underprepared we are.

 

[jcas0167]

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.

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.

 

[TheBrand]

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.

 

[SteveNZ]

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.

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).

 

[jcas0167]

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).

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.

 

[_Ed_]

The Post

www.thepost.co.nz

 

[jcas0167]

The Post

www.thepost.co.nz

Saw that. One of the only times I can recall Hesson criticising his successor?

“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.”

 

[RMBolton]

9 players at the IPL? That's worse than I thought. No wonder Stead &co turned down warmups - you wouldn't even make up an XI dragging in him, Ronchi & Oram.
With that said, you'd think enough players would've been freed up from the knocked out teams to fill out an XI.

 

[_Ed_]

With that said, you'd think enough players would've been freed up from the knocked out teams to fill out an XI.

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.

 

[ataraxia]

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.

Despite Phillips being left out for the whole tournament (incredibly).

 

[RMBolton]

From The Herald:

“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.

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.

 

[SteveNZ]

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.

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.

Also, Stead's communication is so poor. He was interviewed before the tournament and said nothing of the sort that we were denied warm-ups. If he'd said that, as a fan base, we could have bemoaned the ICC, the scheduling, other things rather than further building a case as to why this guy is a dolt. Mike Hesson also hit out at the situation, which again (although Hesson would never have gone hard at the IPL) he could redirect the vitriol away from the coach - who it seems really had no ability to change how our preparation went.