They're both more than good enough at home. But both of their disciplines are much weaker away. Classic case of players who are good in two disciplines at some level, where they're amazing players, and not good enough in either at another, where they're then pretty useless, and at the moment half of the tests they play are the wrong side of that divide.
Yeah. That is the reason why you can't blame selectors for sticking by them for so long.
Has anyone ever figured out why rotation, so common to other sports, is seen as so unthinkable in cricket. Moeen doesn’t travel so switch him out for someone else in Australia who might be more suited, how did this become the ultimate taboo?
In the selectors mind the horses for courses approach and the constant swapping of players goes back to the bad old days of the 80s and 90s so they stick with players for too long now.
We'll most likely win both series handily this summer. With TRJ and Jimmy taking hatfulls. I'm not sure it will solve much though.
Wagner has almost 150 and is also averaging 27
Yeah, it's just a fluke at the moment that we happen to have four world class players all playing at the same time. In the past we were lucky to have just one.
Choice: Williamson, Taylor, Boult, Wags
I'd recommend not being sure about CDG honestly. I don't think he'll still be in the team in a few years time. I reckon he fails the Andrew Ellis test.
Yup, CdG isn't a great option long term and his presence in the team throws out the balance of the side imo. I don't think he's really a good enough batsman to succeed as a test no. 7, though I concede he's been fine in that role so far. The problem is his presence forces us to pick a second all-rounder in the spin-bowling roll, which means we have to probably weaken the bowling attack to accommodate his presence (no disrespect to Santner and Astle who've also done fine in recent times).
Who would you replace him with? A similar type player, or a bowler?
Woakes is just one summer at home though and he really needs to justify his place with the ball alone, always thought he should make more serious runs than he does but his role in the sides does not really allow that anyway. Moeen for sure though, he is pretty great at home but just contributes nothing away, makes it really hard to know what to do with him, we all love him but it is probably time we did look at Leach.
Definitely not a bowler - we've got plenty of bowling. Southee, Wagner and Boult are probably the best pace trio NZ has ever had. I'd almost be prepared to say a specialist bat at 6 would be fine, but ideally we'd have someone to play the role that Jimmy Neesham did so effectively for the first 18 months of his career: a batting all-rounder, good enough to justify being in the team on his batting alone, but who can also bowl 10 overs a day when required and pick up the occasional wicket. It's a shame that Munro seems to have given up on tests, as he's definitely the type of player that we're looking for to bat 6, smash runs and help the team out with some wobblers every now and then.
