*Official* New Zealand in England 2021

[jcas0167]

I thought Young looked the most suspect against spin, usually Joe Root's, all day. That was a very good ball from Lawrence even if he's a part-timer - fascinatingly jerky runup but puts some revs on the ball. The type of part-time spinner you love to be able to roll out on a tour of the subcontinent.

Hussein observed Young's hands are quite low in his stance and that might increase the risk of him being caught in close. This was when he was looking slightly vulnerable against Root. Watching the highlights he hits the most classical drives you could hope to see. I hope Conway's wristy flourish on that shot he got out to catches on.

I felt sorry for Root as Stone was getting smashed around. I wonder how much say he has in the selections.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Must have been sunny

Nah Latham didn't pack a sad and tell his partner to walk off with him

 

[Frost]

Pleasantly surprised by Will Young, always thought he looked ok but may struggle against class quick swing bowling. He looks very organized defending.
Contrast him to some of England's young players, I think the nz domestic competition isn't as weak as it gets made out to be. Guys like him and Mitchell would probably make other middle orders around the world currently.
I just wish Mitchell was a better bowler.

 

[Flem274*]

the plunket shield and especially ford trophy have been reliable for 10 years now

being good in them isnt a guarantee of international success but it is a guarantee of being one of nzs best players, unlike the days of the classic kiwi slow green seamer

 

[Bahnz]

Yeah, we’re seeing the benefits of having guys like kugz and Sears playing regularly in the Plunket Shield. In the old days NZ’s top order would’ve been constantly calling out to the dressing room for fresh trousers against a bowling attack as quick as this (even Broad was pretty consistently operating around the 140kph mark.

just finished watching the replay of the day. Good stuff from NZ, they were a little lucky that the blustery nature of the conditions seemed to neutralise the low clouds and prevent much swing. But Conway will be filthy with himself and rightly so. If he’d batted through to stumps and seen off the 2nd new ball in the morning, NZ would’ve had the game in the bag.

As it is, I feel the game is way more evenly balanced than the scorecard suggests. If England nips out Taylor in the morning, then there’s a long tail behind him. Given the forecast is set fair for days 3 and 4, NZ need a 100 run lead to feel confident of wrapping this up.

 

[mr_mister]

Conway > Crowe

 

[Bahnz]

By the way, is Will Young NZ’s Ian Bell? Let’s hope he’s not NZ’s James Vince! Can’t remember a more attractive stroke maker playing for NZ since young Jesse.

Having said that, tended to agree with other posters that he looked ill at ease against England’s part time spinners. Something to ponder when considering the XI for next week.

 

[Days of Grace]

It would have been awkward if Young got a huge score and Taylor failed again.

 

[nzfan]

For the record nz bowlers have swung 30% more than English. Bbc 5 said that yesterday.

 

[Aritro]

When you get all excited to see 6 notifications, and then it just turns out to be jcas liking 6 posts that aren't even good.

jcas, the new cnerd.

 

[nzfan]

Yeah don't think this particular NZ attack will bowl out England so easily in the second innings, they could definitely use some scoreboard pressure.

New ball tomorrow in 3 overs with a new batsman in and Taylor, so while a good position to be in it's job half done.

Given our overseas results of the past we find it so hard to accept our standing in this series. We're not accustomed to winning consistently overseas. We're accustomed to fight hard, cause upsets and give up when finishing line is near. Then rue the missed opportunities. Always the bridesmaid.

Take for instance the first test. Looked at England bowling and our non starters with the bat, thought the second test will be hard for us to win with so many changes. We've adopted, the replacements performed and we're in a state of dominance but somewhere deep inside find it hard to accept it. We'll fall back on seeing what are the chances of us dropping the ball. We want to wait and watch where this leads us.

I won't lie, I'm already wondering if the two tests are like honeymoon and divorce is going to follow soon facing India in the finals. The thoughts the English side is not at their full strength and we'll be found out when we face India in the finals That's our fuel to watch, follow and be surprised by the team. Then quietly glee at how did we even manage that? But we won't say that loud just in case the next series is round the corner.

We're never for gloating or brash in acceptance that this bunch is good. We quietly raise a glass and as usual surprised when things fall in place.

The great kiwi black caps followers culture. Not sure how many agree with this take but that's me I can see that trait in lot of black caps followers. That's our undoing, that's our doing too. Hard to make peace with this mindset but that's our fuel to follow and be passionate sigh...

 

[wpdavid]

I don't want to completely dump on the bloke so soon into his tenure, but not been massively impressed with Silverwood so far.

Some of his selections have been rather wrongheaded (why we're playing our umpteenth choice keeper whilst Buttler and Bairstow are cooling their heels baffles me) and his handling of some of his charges has been a little, shall we say, old school.

I'm listening to Alex Tudor on comms for the Pears/Steelbacks T20 and the way he was handled back in the dark days of the 90s (basically dismissed as a malingerer until a scan showed he'd been bowling through a stress fracture of his back) is not too dissimilar to how Jofra has been dealt with.

The boy clearly has a long standing issue with his elbow, which has probably been worsened by the mammoth stints he's had to bowl, and we've had few whispers from "sources" that he doesn't much fancy hard work when his aching body rebels.

The eagle eyed amongst you will note that Alex and Jofra share something else other than the RF assignation...

And, as grecian observes above, the decision not to play a specialist spinner in either test of this series seems almost wilfully obtuse and, with all due deference to Stone's creditable 20, it's not like a 4th seamer lengthens the batting. Leach is a tailender but he's a serious bowler and does have a test 92.

Hints of Moores 2.0 I fear.

Completely agree with all of that. What I find odd is that his initial impact after he was appointed in the winter of 2019/20 was positive. The overall team selection started to look far more sensible, but not this summer. Maybe he's one of life's number 2s who needs someone a bit smarter above him.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Given our overseas results of the past we find it so hard to accept our standing in this series. We're not accustomed to winning consistently overseas. We're accustomed to fight hard, cause upsets and give up when finishing line is near. Then rue the missed opportunities. Always the bridesmaid.

Take for instance the first test. Looked at England bowling and our non starters with the bat, thought the second test will be hard for us to win with so many changes. We've adopted, the replacements performed and we're in a state of dominance but somewhere deep inside find it hard to accept it. We'll fall back on seeing what are the chances of us dropping the ball. We want to wait and watch where this leads us.

I won't lie, I'm already wondering if the two tests are like honeymoon and divorce is going to follow soon facing India in the finals. The thoughts the English side is not at their full strength and we'll be found out when we face India in the finals That's our fuel to watch, follow and be surprised by the team. Then quietly glee at how did we even manage that? But we won't say that loud just in case the next series is round the corner.

We're never for gloating or brash in acceptance that this bunch is good. We quietly raise a glass and as usual surprised when things fall in place.

The great kiwi black caps followers culture. Not sure how many agree with this take but that's me I can see that trait in lot of black caps followers. That's our undoing, that's our doing too. Hard to make peace with this mindset but that's our fuel to follow and be passionate sigh...

Judging by the posting in this thread I think there's a lot of truth in this.

You chaps genuinely do seem to have a hard time accepting that the Black Caps are really quite good nowadays and, whisper it, but actually have strength in depth in some areas.

 

[nzfan]

Judging by the posting in this thread I think there's a lot of truth in this.

You chaps genuinely do seem to have a hard time accepting that the Black Caps are really quite good nowadays and, whisper it, but actually have strength in depth in some areas.

We probably need few wins overseas and a major tournament win like you guys have had (ashes win in Aussie, test series win in India, T20 and one day WC wins etc) to start accepting this maybe a world class team in the making or they're nearly there. While I type this in wondering if I'm getting ahead of ourselves the usual trait

 

[Zinzan]

I'm torn in contemplating NZ's XI for the WTC, and feel I'd probably do the unthinkable given the creditability he's established in the last few years and leave our lion-heart Wagner out. I'm just not sure Wagner's bowling is as suitable in English conditions as some of the others.

Let's see how the rest of this test pans out but I'm leaning towards the following XI assuming all are fit and the wicket is as expected to be good, but also likely to dry out.

Latham
Conway
KW
Taylor
Nicholls
Watling (if fit)
de Grandhomme
Jamieson
Southee
Patel
Boult

Wouldn't life be easier if Jamieson was good enough to bat 7, and then we could include Wagner, and have the 4-pronged pace attack plus Patel.

Feels tough on Wagner who's given so much blood and sweat over the last 7-8 years, & has been such an integral part of NZ reaching the final. I do recall while Henry had that awesome county season with Kent a few years back, that Wagner had a very ordinary county stint in either 2016 or 17 suggesting he's not quite as suited to English conditions and the duke ball as some of the others.

The other consideration is Mitchell over Lord Colin since Mitchell is arguably puts a higher price on his wicket, but I just feel Colin offers more with the ball, especially if Wagner isn't playing.

I know it's Watling's swansong, but I really hope we don't play him if he isn't fit since we don't lose a lot with Blundell. Let's hope BJ is fit as he deserves this as his last test.

The only other option as touched on above is we take the enormous risk in batting Jamieson at 7 to include Wagner as well to strengthen the bowling, but that just feels a bridge to far for me.

Great problems for the selectors to have with the depth & options we currently have, and I'm yet to even mention Matt Henry yet who was quite impressive in the first innings and is clearly a different bowler with the duke ball.

Lastly, I'm honestly feeling Boult is a bit lucky to be ahead of both Wagner and Henry based on recent test form, but I guess he is Trent Boult, and has to play.

 

[Moss]

Given our overseas results of the past we find it so hard to accept our standing in this series. We're not accustomed to winning consistently overseas. We're accustomed to fight hard, cause upsets and give up when finishing line is near. Then rue the missed opportunities. Always the bridesmaid.

Take for instance the first test. Looked at England bowling and our non starters with the bat, thought the second test will be hard for us to win with so many changes. We've adopted, the replacements performed and we're in a state of dominance but somewhere deep inside find it hard to accept it. We'll fall back on seeing what are the chances of us dropping the ball. We want to wait and watch where this leads us.

I won't lie, I'm already wondering if the two tests are like honeymoon and divorce is going to follow soon facing India in the finals. The thoughts the English side is not at their full strength and we'll be found out when we face India in the finals That's our fuel to watch, follow and be surprised by the team. Then quietly glee at how did we even manage that? But we won't say that loud just in case the next series is round the corner.

We're never for gloating or brash in acceptance that this bunch is good. We quietly raise a glass and as usual surprised when things fall in place.

The great kiwi black caps followers culture. Not sure how many agree with this take but that's me I can see that trait in lot of black caps followers. That's our undoing, that's our doing too. Hard to make peace with this mindset but that's our fuel to follow and be passionate sigh...

I hear you. My post was more out of scepticism that an attack which includes Henry, Mitchell and a finding-his-mojo Boult would find it easy to run through England in the second dig, but yeah a lack of bullishness is something that unites us all - won’t disagree there. Well done to the replacements in this test so far!

 

[Starfighter]

Apparently Root's dropped catch last night wasn't important enough to show in the highlights. I see this quite often especially in the ECB's highlights and whoever is responsible needs a dong on the head.

 

[Moss]

I'm torn in contemplating NZ's XI for the WTC, and feel I'd probably do the unthinkable given the creditability he's established in the last few years and leave our lion-heart Wagner out. I'm just not sure Wagner's bowling is as suitable in English conditions as some of the others.

It’s been noted that because it doesn’t get soft over time as much as the Kookaburra ball that the older Dukes doesn’t provide the sort of up and down bounce that Wagner likes to work with. I think he’d still be able to employ his usual mode of attack but obviously in the team’s interest needs to keep the ball hard and shiny. It’s the tradeoff he’s having to make for being a team man. Some real selection headaches coming up for sure.

 

[straw man]

Fair enough. I suppose the other thing is if the pitches are too green, then the batsman's just in survival mode too often which isn't particularly useful.

The point about going into survival model relates to one extra thing others haven't mentioned, which is about developing batsmanship where the randomness of seam movement dominates everything else. If noone short of Rahul Dravid can trust their defense and their strokeplay because randomness from the pitch still dismisses you, then it pushes batsmen to be either:
a) permanently in survival mode - extremely restricted like Mark Richardson, putting away every single shot that can get you out and leaving a leg glance and not much more, or
b) YOLO chancers who will biff because they know one with their name on it is coming anyway.
It's not good for the thoroughbred batsmen who want to build on a basis of solid defense but also play strokes. If playing the percentages, driving the ball, good footwork etc give you no reward or are too risky because random seam movement wins, then batsmen won't develop those skills.

Also, too many pitches in NZ domestic the last two seasons have gone back to seam-heavy dominated by 125km/h very-mediums. Needs to be corrected next season.

 

[straw man]

Wagner has bowled well when full and swinging it this series anyway i.e. doing Boult's job. Boult a little flattered by picking up 4 wickets and Wagner only one in the innings just gone - 2-3 each would've better represented how they bowled.
Wagner also has the meme bouncer attack to fall back on. On both form and numbers in the last 12-18 months, Southee, Wagner and Jamieson are all ahead imo. Of course Boult is quality and I'd love him to be back in top form, but if I was forced to choose one seamer to sit out tomorrow it would be him.

More difficult question for me is whether Ajaz is worth playing over a seamer in the WTC final - I honestly don't know.