*Official* Australia in New Zealand T20s 2021

[cnerd123]

may as well have a look at milne. decent chance ferguson, milne, santner and two others are our best t20 bowlers anyway.

not too worried here. nz losing to even the australian under 14s is pretty predictable. it isn't an indicator of how they'll go against other sides.

seifert saw off the fast pakistani thrower so im not going to declare him incapable against the quicks yet.

santner at #7 in t20 is fine. he's a decent biffer and it's best to err on more bowling options in this format.

we do need to work on a 3rd spin bowling option. time for my boi lennox.

guptill
seifert
kane
conway
phillips
neesham
santner
sodhi
milne
ferguson
boult

chapman
cdg/allen
lennox
southee

that's the wc squad

If NZ pick Champan for the WT20 then I'm rooting for NZ. He could become the 2nd Hong Konger after Dermot Reeve to play in a WC final.

 

[BeeGee]

They will presumably have to fit Ferguson in somewhere.

Jamieson out of the squad, Ferguson in. With Chapman able to perform that third spinner role if required, that would give a lot of flexibility around bowling and batting options.

If Jamieson wants to be a T20 bowler he needs to develop some variations (knuckle ball, off cutter, etc). Without them you're just too predictable.
Both Southee and Boult added those variations to their T20 toolkit without ****ing up their Test bowling. I don't see why Jamieson can't do the same.

 

[the big bambino]

Congratulations to NZ. Dominated the decider. Looks like Devon Conway has lived up to the impression created by Kiwi posters here. Riley Meredith looks a find for us in this format too.

 

[Moss]

NZ generally haven’t done all that well in series deciders in recent memory, so the decisiveness and willingness to change things around was great to see.

Definitely happy to eat humble pie with regard to the Guptill selection, thought he might be past it. Though he’s never been great in the subcontinent, his experience and class will be needed there. Seems to play with a lot more freedom when there’s a calm accumulator like Conway/Kane at the other end.

 

[honestbharani]

If NZ pick Champan for the WT20 then I'm rooting for NZ. He could become the 2nd Hong Konger after Dermot Reeve to play in a WC final.

Great.... More "We"s for the C(nerd)

 

[SteveNZ]

NZ generally haven’t done all that well in series deciders in recent memory, so the decisiveness and willingness to change things around was great to see.

Definitely happy to eat humble pie with regard to the Guptill selection, thought he might be past it. Though he’s never been great in the subcontinent, his experience and class will be needed there. Seems to play with a lot more freedom when there’s a calm accumulator like Conway/Kane at the other end.

I think that's a great point, that Gup goes better when there's a guy at the end who is getting off strike. He and Seifert can be too similar in that they can both be bogged down and let pressure build on them. It was the same with Munro in ODIs and some T20s.

 

[thundaboult]

santner
ferguson
milne
boult
sodhi

 

[Immenso]

Is that caketin pitch typical of a modern Indian T20 pitch? (if there is such a thing?). Or is an Indian pitch being slow and taking turn a cliche that doesn't really apply to a pitch only used for 40 overs?

I don't follow IPL, but I recall we had 3 spinners in the paying X1 last World 20 in India (2016ish?) and they did well.

So, probably a good dress rehearsal. Eventual reshuffle that a Chapman, or someone who can bowl at least 2 overs of spin will eventually be in the playing XI.

Also IIRC, in 2016 our batsmen were so crap v spin and Baz had just retired that we eventually promoted Kane to open and he was a bit of a one man show in the slow and turning conditions. So promotion of Conway over Seiffert was probably inevitable. Better now than approximately match 3 of the world cup.

Or ... it was just a 40 over bash and anything could have happened if catches went to hand etc etc .... and reading too much into it .....

 

[Howsie]

Was I the only one who thought Sodhi bowled absolute crap for five games straight. If he wasn’t bowling half trackers he was bowling full bungers. Yeah he took a few wickets but he really struggled to bowl a decent ball all series

Guess that’s 20/20 cricket though

 

[kaetor]

So many of the wickets in general this series were just mis-hits off spinners caught on the boundary. I also agree that Sodhi bowled poorly and was very lucky.

e: lol censor

 

[Immenso]

Was I the only one who thought Sodhi bowled absolute crap for five games straight. If he wasn’t bowling half trackers he was bowling full bungers. Yeah he took a few wickets but he really struggled to bowl a decent ball all series

Guess that’s 20/20 cricket though

I'm keen for some more conversation on this.

Because I watched some thinking am I watching some jammy lucky crap, or is this what effective T20 wrist spin is now all about?

I don't know. And I don't want to have to watch enough T20 to know the answer, so I am prepared to be told.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Unpredictability is good for bowling in T20. One way to be unpredictable is to have a lot of variations which you execute properly and keep the bastman guessing. The other way is for you (and also the batsman) to have no idea what's going to happen when you let the ball go.

 

[thierry henry]

Was I the only one who thought Sodhi bowled absolute crap for five games straight. If he wasn’t bowling half trackers he was bowling full bungers. Yeah he took a few wickets but he really struggled to bowl a decent ball all series

Guess that’s 20/20 cricket though

100% correct but it’s so consistently effective you start to think there’s method in the madness

This is really where I wish we got better analysis from the commentators than just ‘wow Sodhi is bowling well, he has taken x number of wickets’, then trying to find a few good balls to highlight how well he has bowled. How about acknowledging the unusual areas he has bowled and then trying to explain his success from there rather than pretending he has been bowling beautiful classic leg spin.

 

[SteveNZ]

Was I the only one who thought Sodhi bowled absolute crap for five games straight. If he wasn’t bowling half trackers he was bowling full bungers. Yeah he took a few wickets but he really struggled to bowl a decent ball all series

Guess that’s 20/20 cricket though

Nah he bowled like he has for a while to be honest - really inconsistent lengths. Line wise he seems to get it right but length he was all over the show. COVID played right into his hands. He got pumped in Dunedin, then benefitted from playing three games in Wellington on the same deck (as well as women's games on it). He benefits from being tall, the ball was sort of holding in the wicket and bouncing a bit which made him hard to hit, hard to sweep etc. But yeah his pitch map was all over the show and even with his full tosses he probably benefitted from the fact he was hard to score off on that pitch.

Although contrast that to Zampa who actually seemed to hit the lengths he was trying to bowl in the decider, and was horrendous. He'd seen that Sodhi was getting grip and purchase from a length and was really hard to time, then bowled floaty full balls that were the easiest to deal with. To me that was where we won the game. His first over wasn't great then his second was awful.

 

[thierry henry]

I would add that not only did Sodhi bowl crap line and length, his bowling was aggressively bad from a technical standpoint with little in the way of a recognisable legbreak, googly, slider etc

Again, this may all be part of why it works

 

[SteveNZ]

100% correct but it’s so consistently effective you start to think there’s method in the madness

This is really where I wish we got better analysis from the commentators than just ‘wow Sodhi is bowling well, he has taken x number of wickets’, then trying to find a few good balls to highlight how well he has bowled. How about acknowledging the unusual areas he has bowled and then trying to explain his success from there rather than pretending he has been bowling beautiful classic leg spin.

Honestly, this is why I come to this site. It's refreshing to have the conversation when I don't get it from the comms and god bless her, my mrs isn't going to be able to analyse wrist spin in T20s either.

I don't think there's any particular method in what Ish is doing. In the third T20 there was a definite method in bowling wide of off stump, and most of the time he seemed to execute his length pretty well. He was bowling away from the short square boundary, bowling wide leg breaks and not daring to get straight (we saw little or no googlies). But throughout the 4th and 5th T20, and the 2nd as well, his lengths were all over the shop. Stoinis dismissal was almost a no ball as was the Agar one. His lengths have really gone wonky over the last couple of years, Plunket Shield included.

 

[Binkley]

In Sodhi’s defence, there was a spell in the 3rd or 4th match where he bowled to an obvious plan (wide outside off) reasonably well.

Edit: SteveNZ beat me to it


His effectiveness through the series was such that I actually wondered whether my view that he bowls too short too often was wrong - and that it is a deliberate tactic. But that is probably an overly rosy perspective based on an Aussie side that doesn’t play slow long-hops well.

 

[SteveNZ]

I would add that not only did Sodhi bowl crap line and length, his bowling was aggressively bad from a technical standpoint with little in the way of a recognisable legbreak, googly, slider etc

Again, this may all be part of why it works

Only my guess, but I feel like that was partly planned in Wellington to do with the short square boundaries. He probably stuck to what bowled away from the targeted boundaries (ie leg side to RHers means less sliders/googlies). But when it's not coming out well, as I don't think it is, the ability to pull out the full repertoire probably isn't there either and maybe he's just trying to land leggies and keep it simple. Dunno.

 

[SteveNZ]

Probably been missed in all of this but Boult had an outstanding series. His death bowling was excellent in particular

 

[thierry henry]

Spicy take - Jamieson was also advised to bowl wide and full to Finch in the 20th over game 4, did exactly that, and got pumped over cover for 6

You also have to look at Williamson/coaches there too surely, as it’s gotta be a deliberate and probably wrong plan