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***Official*** India in New Zealand 2013/14
- Thread starter BeeGee
- Start date
I'm not usually one to advocate the taking of candy from babies, but if you're a betting man we can look at something around this.
Blocky
Banned
Considering the incompetency of our selection process in all usual circumstance, I'd never bet on anything to do with the administration of NZ Cricket, even something as simple as not selecting a guy who usually scores 7.5 off 20.
Days of Grace
International Captain
Can someone just not mention the word Guptill, because I will open the thread at lunchtime and it would have advanced 10 pages due to this ****.
Seriously hoping Guppy scores 120 off 70 balls in Auckland with 10 boundaries, 2 sixes, to go with 68 singles. i.e. not a single dot ball, just to shut this guy the **** up. Ruining the thread IMO.
Seriously hoping Guppy scores 120 off 70 balls in Auckland with 10 boundaries, 2 sixes, to go with 68 singles. i.e. not a single dot ball, just to shut this guy the **** up. Ruining the thread IMO.
ohnoitsyou
International Regular
you guys should so do a sig bet. Avatar would work as well.
Bahnz
Hall of Fame Member
Blocky
Banned
It's a sound theory if you trust your batsman to handle pressure over your bowlers which India clearly do, but they've got to get ahead of the game more, something we're guilty of far too often too. Being able to chase down big totals means controlling the run rate, chasing seven with wickets in hand will give you a great chance moving forward, chasing nine for anything other than the last five overs will give the other team the upper hand and mean that losing a wicket has a huge impact.
Both sides have been guilty of slow starts and not being able to get out of the blocks. I feel India have been worse than NZ here. The consolidation stage is also crucial and in the first game, both teams were probably guilty of extending that phase a little too far before starting to go. Kohli is an amazing player and someone who can probably chase eight an over down without really risking his wicket, but for that to occur he either needs the lion share of the strike with someone who can rotate, or someone at the other end who is butchering the bowling.
NZ have the same situation, only Anderson seems to be able to hit from the first ball and also doesn't seem to lose momentum if he doesn't receive the strike for a couple of overs, Ryder seems to have major issues if he's starved from the strike and feels the team scoring rate isn't high enough, he went from playing fluent aggressive cricket with high reward to the risk, to chasing boundaries because he didn't see the strike for a few overs.
As long as NZ continue to select Guptill, we're going to have this issue. Taylor also varies from being brilliant at strike rotation or absolutely terrible at it which can stagnate us. Which means (as we've seen) - we're relying on Corey Anderson and Luke Ronchi being able to come out and put on 100 off the last ten overs in order to reach a competitive total but as we saw with the West Indies, the moment runs were on the board and the team was expected to chase down a total, they just couldn't work with that pressure.
For me, India have had the better bowling attack in the series so far, it's really been the late order hitting and momentum shift that players like Anderson and Ronchi bring in the lower order that accelerates us into a match winning situation, even more so than what Dhoni and Kohli have provided. We look stuck for options, we're only using five bowlers and all of them are bowling to a short pitch plan with no care or thought to what the situation is or how the pitch has performed.
Blocky
Banned
It's a cricket forum, we're discussing cricket. Guptill is playing horrible cricket in amongst a team that is starting to play some pretty decent cricket. You're an utter goose if you think Guptill will ever hit 68 singles, even if he faces 200 balls.
Days of Grace
International Captain
i just don't like posters that get on a hobby horse and just become a complete bore by going on and on about it.
Bahnz
Hall of Fame Member
You're a good poster, but this is where you go a little off road. Try to refrain from references like "naive", "uneducated" and "goose" and I think you'll get a lot less antagonism coming back your way.
Blocky
Banned
Hardly a hobby horse when it's a consistent issue in every game we've played this season.
Bahnz
Hall of Fame Member
Good post, but I think the other critical factor that has swung things New Zealand's way has been Williamson's batting. He's done such a fantastic job in the first two ODI's at nudging the scoring rate along and maneouvering us into a position from which Anderson and Ronchi can feel comfortable to launch. He's basically been our Kohli in that respect and has greatly helped to narrow the difference in quality between the two top orders. Guptill also looked far more at ease once he had KW batting with him. His is a calming influence that helps to bring the best out of those around him.
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ohnoitsyou
International Regular
The other thing about Guptill is that he's alright at rotating the strike when he's set. Its just when he's fresh to the crease, the balls moving and theres a packed outside field that he's hopeless, as he seems reluctant to play his shots early on. I would like to see him try to play more like a Warner or Sewhag and play a few shots from the get go. IIRC thats what he used to do and it worked for him then
Another thing i forgot to mention, how good were McCullums field placements. He only had 2 fielders out on the boundary for the first 10 overs (fine leg and third man), meaning he had another man stopping the singles, with Williamson and Guptill at point/cover which is a big factor in why India were unable to get away at the start
Another thing i forgot to mention, how good were McCullums field placements. He only had 2 fielders out on the boundary for the first 10 overs (fine leg and third man), meaning he had another man stopping the singles, with Williamson and Guptill at point/cover which is a big factor in why India were unable to get away at the start
Blocky
Banned
I dunno about that, I think having part time bowlers bowling spinners that bounce half way down the wicket and give anyone time to moose the delivery allowed him to get a six and a few fours away which boosted his strike rate and made him look a little more comfortable out there than he ever was. The majority of his singles came when he squirted the ball away and it found a gap, rather than placement or intent. He has a major issue in hitting hard shots straight to fielders and not really think about "where is this ball going" - shown ironically by his dismissal where he had no clue or feel for where the ball had gone when he top edged it to get out (to Raina) - he's never been anything more than a guy who hits the ball, with no consideration as to where or how hard.
Even with Williamson in the early stages, there was a risk that we could've got stuck, he faced several periods of ten balls or more only getting a single at the end of the over and it just so happened that Williamson is in some great form at the moment and played some amazing deft touches against the spin bowlers to keep the scoring rate high.
At the moment I just feel we're asking a lot of the other players by having him in the side, he hasn't got any recent history of performance in this format and his confidence is getting worse and worse and worse. I'm not even joking when I feel like he's in a Trott/Trescothick risk situation.
Blocky
Banned
Again I dispute this, simply because when he's "set" - the power play overs are generally gone and the field placements move more into controlling boundaries rather than singles. I think an astute captain would probably bring the field up on Guptill and ask him to hit through or over because like my post above states, he has no clue where he's actually hitting the ball, except to say that he knows how to hit it.
You touched on McCullum's captaincy in terms of restricting Sharma (another guy who seems to be incapable of finding singles or gaps) - just think how he'd go about restricting Guptill if he came against him. He is a major risk of tying us completely down against a side like Australia or South Africa who have much better thought behind their field placements and would probably be as cynical as giving him a single at the end of each over simply to starve other players.
Ryder just needs to learn to be a bit more selfish in my view and stop taking it on his shoulders to keep NZ competitive while Guptill faces double the deliveries for no output. Ryder is a guy that can find singles as easily as he finds the boundaries but at the moment, he feels like the two balls he gets to see an over, he has to moose out of the park.
Blocky
Banned
Other areas we need to look at are our bowling plans. I think Bond has been great at getting some technical things ironed out and improved in our bowlers and he's done some great work in particular with Southee and Boult, but our bowling strategy this series doesn't seem to have Plan B which worries me.
We're placing a lot of stock in bowling short at the Indians to try and force a mistake, however on a slowing pitch like Hamilton that's not as great an option... and in Eden Park with those boundry lines, it'll be pure suicide. The other issue is it's much harder to set a field for short pitch bowling because good players will have so many more options for hitting and can go legside or offside of the ball.
When we finally started bowling fuller, we started placing scoreboard pressure back on the Indians which lead to wickets. Someone at the pace of Bond and the control, swing and variation could bowl to the plan he's asking his guys to bowl at, but with exception maybe of McCleneghan, short pitch bowling has caused us as many problems as it's solved.
We also need to be putting miles on the legs of our sixth and seventh bowling options, I get that McCullum backs his players to perform at key moments and I think that's one of his strongest traits as a leader and I'm all for it, but in some match situations, Williamson and Ryder would simply have been better options than what was bowled. We got into a situation against India where we needed a badly out of touch bowler (Anderson) to come back and bowl four overs at a team that were going after him during the death stages, again, this is McCullum seeking wickets and bowling his lead choices early in the innings to create space for himself, but we were only two to three shots of better execution from Kohli and Dhoni away from losing that match when realistically, we had no rights to lose from about the 15th over onwards.
We're placing a lot of stock in bowling short at the Indians to try and force a mistake, however on a slowing pitch like Hamilton that's not as great an option... and in Eden Park with those boundry lines, it'll be pure suicide. The other issue is it's much harder to set a field for short pitch bowling because good players will have so many more options for hitting and can go legside or offside of the ball.
When we finally started bowling fuller, we started placing scoreboard pressure back on the Indians which lead to wickets. Someone at the pace of Bond and the control, swing and variation could bowl to the plan he's asking his guys to bowl at, but with exception maybe of McCleneghan, short pitch bowling has caused us as many problems as it's solved.
We also need to be putting miles on the legs of our sixth and seventh bowling options, I get that McCullum backs his players to perform at key moments and I think that's one of his strongest traits as a leader and I'm all for it, but in some match situations, Williamson and Ryder would simply have been better options than what was bowled. We got into a situation against India where we needed a badly out of touch bowler (Anderson) to come back and bowl four overs at a team that were going after him during the death stages, again, this is McCullum seeking wickets and bowling his lead choices early in the innings to create space for himself, but we were only two to three shots of better execution from Kohli and Dhoni away from losing that match when realistically, we had no rights to lose from about the 15th over onwards.
Wow. You're something special Blocky my man. Keep it to the on-field stuff eh, you're getting out of your wheelhouse there I would have thought.
I'm also interested as to why you don't think the short stuff will be at all effective at Eden Park, a ground with long square boundaries and a decently quick/bouncey pitch?
Bahnz
Hall of Fame Member
Probably because miss hits from the hook shoot tend to go fine, and the fine leg boundary at Eden park is only about 50 metres from the batting crease.
Blocky
Banned
Having played various levels for thirty years and seen professional players develop mental blocks and huge anxiety issues, I can tell you every single sign about the way Guptill is playing and the way he is reacting after his dismissals and even his usually high fielding standards dropping indicate that he's suffering from depression out there. Hell, there is more than enough history with our cricketers of the last ten to fifteen years to make this statement and it is an on-field thing, because thats where his performances are.
And Bahnz pretty much nailed it on the head, also because shorter pitch bowling at 130KPH opens up all boundaries being honest, it's not hard to pull infront of square for guys like Dhoni and Kohli.