NZ domestic season 2023/24

[ataraxia]

lol at Wellington sending in Younghusband as nightwatchman. Now the batting order is:

5 Kelly
6 Abbas
7 Blundell
8 Macewell
9 N Smith
10 van Beek
11 Snedden

How the world should be.

Of course, Younghusband, van Beek, and Snedden perform while that middle order fails.

Now Macewell with 3 wickets in the first 8 overs at the Baspin. Lol Foxcroft after his 6-fer.

 

[Bahnz]

B-but Steady sez the Basin never spins...

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

Now Macewell with 3 wickets in the first 8 overs at the Baspin. Lol Foxcroft after his 6-fer.

Foxcroft's dismissal is pretty ugly.

 

[jcas0167]

I actually wonder if batting is becoming more about "natural ability" in the T20 age. The likes of a Mark Richardson used to be able to get by with a very limited range of shots honed by, I assume, massive amounts of practice and repetition. Those shots in themselves did not involve any expansive movements and his whole job was to watch the ball closely and make accurate decisions. These days a lot of batting involves a combination of physical strength and an ability to be coordinated while swinging a lot harder and "holding your shape" through a much more expansive range of shots. Again, anecdotal, but I feel like a lot of people (e.g. me) could spend their life trying to learn how to hit the long ball and never be much good at it.

Yeah, for T20 Richardson would presumably have had to develop a ramp shot. I suspect players now are spending more time in the gym too now to develop hitting power. Even someone like Kane looks to have have bulked up. But that is one area where some players just have a natural advantage. The likes of Mitch Marsh, or Tim David.

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

5 wicket haul already for Michael Bracewell. 6 for Foxcroft, 5 for Bracewell and 5 for Younghusband in the first innings. Why did no one go for a full seam attack I wonder?

 

[thierry henry]

Another big bag for SP. Did he actually just choke against the Aussies or is the Plunket Shield batting that poor this season? The SP who played the Aussies was bowling a modest medium-fast with poor accuracy.

 

[thierry henry]

Ok I just happened across the wicket highlights and it’s basically a ‘Wagner at his worst’ collection of batsman getting out trying to bomb short balls down leg

 

[Athlai]

Stead: Four more years

 

[Ghost75]

Macewell not liking GP taking over his batter turned off spinner role??

 

[Athlai]

He wants us to say his name

 

[Immenso]

Wow. What a comeback for Macewell.

 

[Immenso]

With a bit of competition, it makes me wonder how Santner is going this round.

Oh. Must be too tired from all that 12th manning?

 

[Immenso]

It has been a good Autumn block for the spinners this season.

 

[Flem274*]

Yeah this is party time for the spin boys. Good time to see which quicks are going well like pre Xmas is for seeing which spinners still contribute.

 

[jcas0167]

Wow, Bracewell with 8/41. His uncle John's best figures were 8/81.

 

[ataraxia]

It's the best Plunket innings analysis since Mitch McClenaghan's 8/23 in March 2012.

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

Looks like the Plunket Shield will go down to the wire. The remaining 2 fixtures have win, lose and draw as possibilities. A win for ND would still see them leapfrog Wellington. ND currently trail Canterbury by 4 with 7 wickets remaining.

 

[thierry henry]

It's the best Plunket innings analysis since Mitch McClenaghan's 8/23 in March 2012.

Incredible weight of evidence in the last 20 or so posts for the proposition that the key to taking PS wickets is to completely ****ing suck

 

[Neil Young]

tbh this is only something that occurred to me relatively recently, having just assumed that "natural talent" was a very real thing, and I think there is a lot of truth to what you say. However, I do still believe that there are significant differences in "natural talent" between people, perhaps most significantly in terms of your physiology (harder for a tiny guy to be a fast bowler, fast twitch is a thing etc) but also stuff like some people having "naturally better hand-eye" at least to some extent. I'd say the latter can more easily be improved by repetition though.

What I mean is, I imagine that most "sporty" kids can think back to when they were young and how some of the other "sporty" kids just picked things up way more easily and were way better than others. Some of that will absolutely be that the good kids had obsessive parents relentlessly training them at home, but a lot will just be the variation in physical abilities between any two humans. You could say the same about a social cricket team (very much drawing on anecdotal experience) where you've got a group of guys who have all played a similar amount of cricket throughout their lives but there is still variance in ability, and in particular some guys can bowl fairly quick and others bowl garbage, some guys are good fielders and some are horrible, etc.

What I think is underestimated though is that if that middle of the road social cricketer had relentlessly practiced from a young age and stuck at it, they would've probably ended up a hell of a lot better than they did. I suspect though that part of what discourages people from reaching that potential might be their relative lack of "natural talent" at a young age. Like, if you're playing cricket all the time as a kid and there are still other kids who are way better than you, you might be inclined to give up. I think natural talent is real to that extent, it's just that the lesser player probably underestimates how good they could've been had they stuck at it.

Your last para sums up the issues. The evidence shows that no matter how poorly one initially takes to a task (comparable to someone who picks it up quicker), practice - the right type - more than makes up for that difference over time.

But, as I'm sure everyone will attest, being bottom of the pile early on is extremely disheartening (only because we all seemingly have an intrinsic belief in natural ability). If we knew it was in our control to close that ability gap, I'm certain everyone would stick at things a lot longer.

 

[Bahnz]

A pair of very ordinary looking dismissals for Will Young in this game. The guy's not an opener and his confidence looks shot. NZC should probably be straight with him and let him know that if he's ever playing test cricket again it's probably only as an injury substitute for Rachin or Mitchell.