***Official*** Australia vs New Zealand ODIs 2016/17

[Spark]

Home.

Did think while I was watching that while Neesham and Williamson were batting well, they weren't actually batting in a manner that would have worried Smith at all.

NZ just looked off all day in the field. Lacked sharpness and energy, and even accounting for middle over doldrums it wasn't clear once the minimal movement evaporated how they actually intended on going about their business. Warner and Smith could still be batting now if they wanted to.

Having said all this, the chances that NZ would have chased down that target were roughly zero whatever they did. No one looked comfortable against Starc, Haze or Cummins after Guptill's early burst.

 

[SteveNZ]

So the decision at the toss had nothing to do with rain being around, more that they felt it was 'tacky'. Hindsight I know but you'd have wanted it to be pretty tacky to ignore all the historical signs that batting first was the go.

 

[Moss]

Neesham and Williamson didn't play all that well to begin with. But do you really go ahead and throw caution to the wind knowing there's bugger all batting to come?

Also, you really can't budget for chasing 378 so I think discussions about whether Watling or CdG belong in the side on the evidence of these two chases are irrelevant at this point. When you have a a top heavy bowling *and* batting lineup, the frontline bowlers need to be looking to bowl the opposition out and the top 3 batsmen have to face as much of the bowling as possible, else you're toast.

 

[Blocky]

A bear has mauled you, you're facing near certain death and you've got two options.

1. Wait and die where you are, knowing no one will find you and the bear will return to maul you further
2. At least attempt to find others to help you/save you, despite knowing the added exertion puts you at higher risk of quicker death.

A lot of you are Option 1.

 

[Athlai]

Urgh. Seriously? Thats the analogy you're going for?

 

[Blocky]

It's the only one that fits.

 

[TheJediBrah]

A bear has mauled you, you're facing near certain death and you've got two options.

1. Wait and die where you are, knowing no one will find you and the bear will return to maul you further
2. At least attempt to find others to help you/save you, despite knowing the added exertion puts you at higher risk of quicker death.

A lot of you are Option 1.

lol wut

A closer analogy would be:

1. You try and sneak away while the bear is not paying attention, it might notice and kill you or you might be lucky enough to get away and find help
2. Run up to the bear with a 10 inch stick and try to beat it to death, pretty much ensuring you will die in the process and destroying any chance you had of surviving


you are option 2

 

[Athlai]

It's the only one that fits.

One that paints one party as a stupid hopeless coward? Setting platforms genuinely works. Foolproof? Of course not. We were long odds to begin that innings and their approach kept us still in it until around when Munro fell.

 

[SteveNZ]

A bear has mauled you, you're facing near certain death and you've got two options.

1. Wait and die where you are, knowing no one will find you and the bear will return to maul you further
2. At least attempt to find others to help you/save you, despite knowing the added exertion puts you at higher risk of quicker death.

A lot of you are Option 1.

That's a fairly suspect analogy. If we're using a bear, Option 1 would be to know your limitations and hide, probably the best option given you're not faster than a bear, on the off-chance it won't find you. You could run as option 2, and hope the bear trips over and you gain amazing powers of fleeing ability, but it's a 1000-1 shot. It's not a calculated move at all. To do that would ignore the majority of reason.

The bowlers - and fielders - put their side in a hopeless situation. Kane and Jimmy know that there is firepower below in the likes of the Colins etc but they've never showed it at international level for decent periods of time. They chose to get them as possible, even if it meant scoring at 10s - which remember is what Australia did. I see absolutely no issue in what those two did. Course, they could have gone the big bold Blocky approach, attempted to hit out, but given neither of them are best suited to that, 9999 times out of 10000 they would've been 4 for little more and the game was lost. They did the right thing.

 

[Compton]

Blocky's right. The best way is always #PositiveIntent

 

[Blocky]

That's a fairly suspect analogy. If we're using a bear, Option 1 would be to know your limitations and hide, probably the best option given you're not faster than a bear, on the off-chance it won't find you. You could run as option 2, and hope the bear trips over and you gain amazing powers of fleeing ability, but it's a 1000-1 shot. It's not a calculated move at all. To do that would ignore the majority of reason.

The bowlers - and fielders - put their side in a hopeless situation. Kane and Jimmy know that there is firepower below in the likes of the Colins etc but they've never showed it at international level for decent periods of time. They chose to get them as possible, even if it meant scoring at 10s - which remember is what Australia did. I see absolutely no issue in what those two did. Course, they could have gone the big bold Blocky approach, attempted to hit out, but given neither of them are best suited to that, 9999 times out of 10000 they would've been 4 for little more and the game was lost. They did the right thing.

You're all missing the point here.

• The bear was David Warner mauling our bowling attack, then he bought his cubs out in Mitchell Marsh and Travis Head to have a bit of a chew too.
• We lay there dying, although brave Guptill at the very least attempted to get away from the scene of the attack so that the other cubs (Starc and Cummins) wouldn't come back to finish the job.
• Williamson and Neesham decided that instead of risking a quick death to potentially survive, they'd rather ensure they had a pretty corpse so they stuck around the scene of the crime slowly bleeding out.

The bear had already mauled us, because we made a stupid mistake to send Matt Henry at the bear and his cubs in the final stages of the match... at that point, we couldn't run and hide, we were already bleeding out.

The end.

 

[Athlai]

This is a bad analogy.

 

[Blocky]

Not as bad as bowling first, or bowling Henry in the death, or batting Travis Head out at 4.42 an over, or taking the score from 1-50 after 6 to 2 for 100 after 20 chasing 380.

 

[srbhkshk]

The basic problem was that KW and Neesham both pretty much batted identically, one innings like that would have been gold, 2 like that is just shooting yourself in the foot. One of them needed to go better, if you get out during that so be it.

 

[SteveNZ]

In regards to the batting, it's got nothing to do with a pretty corpse. As I alluded to, they took the approach they believed had the best chance of working with the ability they, and others had. Going like a bull at a gate for 50 overs would have come off once in a blue moon with our side. The way they played, the Colins, Santner etc were afforded a shorter period of time - as suits them - to find the rate. That it failed was not an indictment on Kane and Jimmy. If we played Blocky ball every game, we'd have a lot of guys out of form and confused, trying to play in a way they're not suited/able to.

As for the bowling, forget bears - we just bowled like pussies. We're still a good bowling side, just are getting things hellishly wrong in terms of plans and lines/lengths when guys come hard at us. And we do boneheaded stuff like bowl Henry at the death when he has no change up and continues to hit his natural length - which usually ends up in Row F. So I'm interested to see how we approach it in Melbourne, because they'll come bloody hard at us again.

 

[SteveNZ]

Not as bad as bowling first, or bowling Henry in the death, or batting Travis Head out at 4.42 an over, or taking the score from 1-50 after 6 to 2 for 100 after 20 chasing 380.

Those things (minus the last one) I'll grant you. I didn't see Head bowl but I'm going to believe a few more risks could've been taken against him. 280 off 30 with 8 wickets in hand is not the end of the world.

 

[Blain]

Our batting line up doesn't have the ability to chase 330+, especially vs a class Australian bowling line up. We lost the match when we let Smith and Warner do what ever they wanted, and carve a big partnership at a good clip. Then Henry and co bowled length balls at the death which got punished. If we could have kept them to 300-330, we would have been well set to get it with Neesh and Williamson at the crease. The weight of runs causes you to lose wickets in blocks, to come in and go at 12 an over is impossible for most.

 

[Jord]

I can't believe people are honestly defending NZ batting

 

[mr_mister]

Neesham needed a solid knock to play himself into the team. KW should have been more aggressive for sure

 

[Bahnz]

Not as bad as bowling first, or bowling Henry in the death, or batting Travis Head out at 4.42 an over, or taking the score from 1-50 after 6 to 2 for 100 after 20 chasing 380.

I'm confused, how are any of those analogies?