*Official* New Zealand in Bangladesh Thread

[bryce]

They were better off blooding a new opener IMO rather than doing a patch-up job with Sinclair.
I think Jamie How was his own worst enemy though...Im sure that if he had put the runs on the board in South Africa that he would have been selected for Bangladesh.

Sinclair deserved to go to Bangladesh because he scored runs..BUT not as an opener in South Africa. I can't believe Sinclair is willing to be thrown around the batting lineup once again...but I guess he's desperate to prove himself anywhere.

i strongly agree with you about sinclair being an opener, but what options were the selectors left with? as you said the NZ 'A' side which was supposed to be the pool of players to be summoned if injuries do occur to the 'top' players, the openers in that team (how & bell) didn't fire any shots and bracewell hardly wants to pick a terribly out of form opener, so then where does he go to ? he cannot pick a bolter like mcintosh or cumming(no!) because it would throw the whole NZ 'A' brainstorm out the window.
about that cumming thing anyway why did they ever pick him ? because they thought he had potential as an international ? surely if they actually believed he was any good they would pick him for tests because he never looked at home in the one day game - domestic or international so his selection seemed very irrelavent i guess.

n.b - i am strongly against craig cumming just so anyone thinks the opposite

 

[Macka]

Once again Sinclair gets screwed around by the selecters. In an ideal world he would be batting at #4-5 because of his lack of foot movement. But yet because of NZ"s lack of top order batsman he has to fill the void. Fleming needs to take responsibility and open the innings because he is the only batsman left who is capable of doing so.

I really don't know what they're doing with Sinclair. Surely they can't be thinking of playing him against Australia if they're asking him to open.

 

[bryce]

the main proviso is that we have wicket takers amongst the 4 specialist bowlers (two of whom would be Oram & Vettori).............leaving the likes of Butler, Franklin, C Martin, Tuffey (Mills & Sherlock) to fight it out..........

what are you talking about?
i couldn't beleive sherlock was even in south africa when there were so many bowlers deserved of a tour ahead of him.
here are a few of the reasons he only got 2 championship matches and no one day matches for cd districts this year and couldn't get a pace bowling berth:
*Ewen Thompson(25 wkts@16.76 in 03/04 SC)
*Lance Hamilton(25 wkts@28.28 in 03/04 SC)
*Brent Hefford(11 wkts@29.54 in 03/04 SC)
all of them should be ahead of sherlock in the pecking order, aswell as Michael Mason(11 wkts@24.00 in 03/04 SC) who was on the tour anyway, i thought Mark Gillespie(31 wkts@23..77 in 03/04 SC) or Bradley Scott(28 wkts@25.39 in 03/04 SC) who also performed very well in the one day matches would of been much more logical choices than sherlock who spent most of the season playing club cricket and as i expected performed poorly in South Africa (1 wkt@78.00 RPO:4.29) in his only four day match and 0/37 of 6 in his only one day match.
i cannot even warrant his selection for the NZ 'A' side let alone the national side and i don't see how anyone else can either.....

 

[Kent]

'A' sides are primarily picked on international potential rather than strictly merit, and I would've thought it's obvious a guy who's tipped to bowl at 140+ has more potential in NZ's pace-deprived situation than yet another medium-pacer.

I'd also dispute that Sherlock performed that poorly - taking 5/27 in the first match of the tour (against the Highveld Lions, with all 5 of his scalps being former Proteas) arguably represents a more impressive game than Ian Butler has ever recorded at FC level, including his 7/146 against PAK where he wrapped up the 1st innings tail.

 

[Kent]

Here's one for the other Kiwis on CW - do you think Bracewell will pick Marshall or Astle initially?

A lot of fans would still prefer Astle, but what about everything Bracewell said about dropping McMillan to get a variation of tempos in his middle-order? Wouldn't Styris-Astle-Oram give him the exact string of hitters he said he's trying to avoid, only with a longer tail?

IMO if Braces really believes Oram is his #6, things look pretty grim for Astle, in the short-term at least.

 

[Craig]

Injured Papps to miss tour



Just thinking about it, this accident pretty much forces Bracewell and co. to quickly decide between the lesser of three evils -

A) Bring in Fulton or Sinclair to bat at #3, doing a backflip on their "Fleming shouldn't open" stance.

B) Shaft those two and open with How. If he scores a test hundred over there....Rodney Redmond, anyone?

C) Play McCullum as a makeshift opener solely for the BAN tour, bringing in McMillan/Fulton/Sinclair to fill out the squad.

I wouldn't say Michael Papps is a undroppable certainty, if How gets the runs, then he may have pushed himself ahead in the pecking order.

 

[bryce]

'A' sides are primarily picked on international potential rather than strictly merit

ummm did you make that up yourself ? so the idea is to pick the guys who are 'tipped' to have international potential and 'pace' even if they have played almost no cricket at a domestic level rather than reward the players who consistently perform all season against new zealands best players?
adam bacher has played for the proteas for 5 years and probaly should never of anyway and the same goes for justin ontong, your trying to make it sound good but i can easily put it in retrospect by saying jamie how also bagged 2 proteas in that game, top bowler isn't jamie ?
yes your right that it is ian butler all over again i think and if the selectors are so focused on pace my old school mate te ahu davis must already have his NZ 'A' kit now ready for the next 'A' series.

 

[Tim]

Those are impressive averages..but Thompson, Gillespie, Hefford etc are all more of the same. Medium pace bowlers who would find it difficult to take wickets on sub-continent tracks.

NZ badly need some fast bowlers who can produce moments of brilliance. So I don't mind seeing Richard Sherlock being trialed. However I will say that he is very far from being the finished article.

We'll never win another test series overseas (excluding Bangladesh & Zimbabwe) with the current crop of bowlers we've got.

 

[Kent]

ummm did you make that up yourself ? so the idea is to pick the guys who are 'tipped' to have international potential and 'pace' even if they have played almost no cricket at a domestic level rather than reward the players who consistently perform all season against new zealands best players?

Bracewell and Sneddon have both said the main reason for the 'A' programme is to best benefit the future of the Black Caps.

IMO it's pointless just funding guys to go on overseas tours as 'a reward' for hitting the seam on domestic green tops at 125kph. We had supposedly our best four of those in England, and it got us nowhere.

adam bacher has played for the proteas for 5 years and probaly should never of anyway and the same goes for justin ontong, your trying to make it sound good but i can easily put it in retrospect by saying jamie how also bagged 2 proteas in that game, top bowler isn't jamie ?

I didn't say they were great 'former Proteas'! I was just showing readers they're a decent provincial franchise, not some joke team.

Bracewell is actually investigating How's off-spin, but it's fair to say games needed to descend into a joke before he had any success. 16 overs for 27 runs from Sherlock suggests it wasn't all a barrel of laughs for the Lions though. Frankly it's once in a blue moon that Butler is ever near that economy rate, anywhere.

Ask BC fans who their big hope is this summer and many will still mention Ian Butler's name. That's how desperate we are for a genuine spearhead in Bond's absence, rather than watching more medium-pace cannon fodder.

 

[Tim]

The writing may well be on the wall for Nathan Astle, which I find hard to believe...he's still far and a way our best test batsman alongside Mark Richardson IMO.

 

[bryce]

i agree that the medium pace thing is a big problem, they perform on NZ tracks but as soon as they leave NZ they are liabilities.
ian butler was picked for NZ far too early IMO and was supposed to carry on where bond left off, sure sherlock is a name for the future but i am a firm believer that players should not live on reputation and 'potential' and be thrust into national sides but should prove themselves on the domestic front, otherwise young players lose confidence aswell as getting big-headed.

 

[bryce]

The writing may well be on the wall for Nathan Astle, which I find hard to believe...he's still far and a way our best test batsman alongside Mark Richardson IMO.

that would be too much if that happened, whats the rush to give hamish marshall a test spot anyway?

 

[Dydl]

True, exactly what I think

 

[Tim]

It seems as though there's a teachers pet situation going on with Bracewell....first Kyle Mills, now Hamish Marshall.

I think Marshall might do well, but not at the expense of Astle..that would be bizarre.

 

[Smudge]

I think he will go for Marshall - if Fleming is opening, they will need a steady player, which Astle can provide on occasions, but not to the regularity I would imagine Marshall would provide.

 

[Kent]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sports/sp...section=cricket&thesecondsubsection=blackcaps

However, he did hint that Hamish Marshall was favoured to claim a spot in the batting line-up.

"Hamish has performed extremely well in one-day cricket in the opportunities he's had in the past 12 months and we want to look and see how he goes at test match level."

Bracewell was also quizzed on what the local scribes thought was a lack of pace in the New Zealand squad with the absence of speed merchant Shane Bond while Daryl Tuffey is recovery from a knee injury.


Incredibly, it seems if Marshall does as well as he should on this tour, Astle's last test innings in Australia could've been his 150-odd and 40-odd in Perth!

Which begs the question, how much different might our batting line-up start to look from that match three years ago?

Richardson - Richardson
Vincent - ?
Sinclair - Fleming
Fleming - Styris
Astle - Marshall
McMillan - Oram
Cairns - McCullum
Parore - Vettori

 

[Tim]

It would be criminal to drop Astle, considering he's hardly had enough game-time with all his injuries to prove that he is starting to fall away with his batting.

If anything it should be Styris who suffers. He was probably the most out of form batsman during the England tour alongside McMillan.

 

[shaka]

The problem with dropping Astle, is there is not a lot of people who could fill his place. Astle has been improving his scores since he came back from the injury.

Styris (and McMillan) pull off big scores when they are not critical to the outcome of the match, ie in recent times. Both are probably on the verge of being dropped.

 

[Mingster]

Styris had an awful England series, but if you look back over his past 5-10 matches, his form has been pretty consistent. Should be continued with, but I'm not sure if batting at 4 in Tests is his spot. Seems a little to high for him, 5 or 6 is better, but of course there are Marshall, Oram and Astle to contend with there....

My Test XI:

Richardson, Sinclair, Fleming, Astle, Marshall, Styris, Oram, McCullum, Vettori, Franklin, Butler

I see no point in playing Wiseman, waste of time. I would much more prefer the Black Caps develop Franklin and Butler as our pace bowlers on this tour. People might say the pitches will suit a second-spinner, but if Fleming does not bowl him, what is the point? And with the Australia matches coming ahead, I doubt NZ will play two spinners on the tour.

 

[Mingster]

*Lance Hamilton(25 wkts@28.28 in 03/04 SC)
*Brent Hefford(11 wkts@29.54 in 03/04 SC)

i cannot even warrant his selection for the NZ 'A' side let alone the national side and i don't see how anyone else can either.....

What a joke you are. You make Anzac look too good (Anzac mate, your posts have been great recently ).

Lance Hamilton? The purpose of the NZ 'A' tour, was partly to develop up and coming players, and Hamilton does not fit the criteria I'm afraid. He is 31, nearing 32 next year, and will struggle to make a full-strength CD attack.

Hefford' statistics are nothing to proud of, especially an average of 30 in NZ seaming conditions. Sherlock was picked on potential, and has delivered in parts of the tour.