Bahnz
Hall of Fame Member
Well, in the end that more or less went as expected. Very similar to recent series actually, with the kiwi's playing well for the first couple of days, before the aussies broke them on day three of the first test, and then going on to utterly dominate the rest of the series.
Plusses
O'Brien: doing a fine job as first change seamer. Hard working, accurate, aggressive and determined. Pretty much exactly what we heard about him from his Wellington days, but dismissed as a result of New Zealand green tops. Really pleasing.
Taylor: went better than I thought, and had he not run out of partners at Brisbane, he probably would've gone on to grab a third hundred. Real problem with dealing with session breaks and playing round his pad though.
Vettori: So unlucky not to get 4 or 5 wickets at Adelaide, and even managed to be a constant threat at Brisbane. Batting was disappointing but you can't always ask for everything.
McCullum: Slick glovework and he batted well in the second test. The annoying thing is, that if he was able to play like he did in the 2nd innings, every time that he went out then he would be perfectly capable of succeding as a top order batsman. Frustrating player.
And that's about it. Flynn clearly has massive issues with the ball slanting into him, Ryder isn't a number three batsman and seems to be even worse at throwing away his wicket in tests than he is in FC cricket, Fulton was unimpressive, Martin and Southee (with the exception of a couple of spells) were generally unpenetrative and I don't really think I need to say anything about the openers.
On a different note, I was really shocked to see just how much Australia has slipped. In terms of the difference between the two sides, it was no greater than it was 4 or 5 years ago, when these two teams last played, which means Australia has declined as much if not more than the kiwi's (which is obviously A LOT). Not too surprising I suppose when you lose 3 legends and 2 very good players in the space of 12 months, but still rather startling all the same.
Plusses
O'Brien: doing a fine job as first change seamer. Hard working, accurate, aggressive and determined. Pretty much exactly what we heard about him from his Wellington days, but dismissed as a result of New Zealand green tops. Really pleasing.
Taylor: went better than I thought, and had he not run out of partners at Brisbane, he probably would've gone on to grab a third hundred. Real problem with dealing with session breaks and playing round his pad though.
Vettori: So unlucky not to get 4 or 5 wickets at Adelaide, and even managed to be a constant threat at Brisbane. Batting was disappointing but you can't always ask for everything.
McCullum: Slick glovework and he batted well in the second test. The annoying thing is, that if he was able to play like he did in the 2nd innings, every time that he went out then he would be perfectly capable of succeding as a top order batsman. Frustrating player.
And that's about it. Flynn clearly has massive issues with the ball slanting into him, Ryder isn't a number three batsman and seems to be even worse at throwing away his wicket in tests than he is in FC cricket, Fulton was unimpressive, Martin and Southee (with the exception of a couple of spells) were generally unpenetrative and I don't really think I need to say anything about the openers.
On a different note, I was really shocked to see just how much Australia has slipped. In terms of the difference between the two sides, it was no greater than it was 4 or 5 years ago, when these two teams last played, which means Australia has declined as much if not more than the kiwi's (which is obviously A LOT). Not too surprising I suppose when you lose 3 legends and 2 very good players in the space of 12 months, but still rather startling all the same.
). 14 wickets @ 11, and scored a fairly important 30 odd in the 2nd dig at the Gabba to help Katich whilst the rest of the batting was rather dismal.
