*Official* New Zealand in England 2021

[HeathDavisSpeed]

Cook shouldn’t have retired. England could do with his experience to guide some of these youngsters and could clearly do with his hands in the slips.

 

[Frost]

Even when you bring in some first choice players, England still have problems in their batting line up.
Top and middle looks fragile against good bowling, not sure Stokes etc will improve that.
The majority of the players left our were middle and lower order players, the problems at the top, which is essentially a first choice top order.

 

[grecian]

Even when you bring in some first choice players, England still have problems in their batting line up.
Top and middle looks fragile against good bowling, not sure Stokes etc will improve that.
The majority of the players left our were middle and lower order players, the problems at the top, which is essentially a first choice top order.

They are, but they've been the problems we've had for ages which were often recovered by our middle and middle-lower players.

 

[Frost]

They are, but they've been the problems we've had for ages which were often recovered by our middle and middle-lower players.

Sound like Nz a few years ago, feel for Root who's a class player, so much pressure on him. I still think he's best to move to 3.
So glad Henry did well, I'm a huge fan of his and think he's a much better bowler than his records suggest, first picked odi bowler but lack of back to back opportunities hurts him

 

[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.

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.

Hmmm... time to revisit this me thinks. The case for Henry and or Wagner over Boult for the WTC is getting stronger by the minute especially reflecting on the last 12 months.

 

[Zinzan]

Last 2 years also suggests Boult's red ball bowling has been on the decline, even though his white ball exploits have been top drawer

 

[grecian]

Sound like Nz a few years ago, feel for Root who's a class player, so much pressure on him. I still think he's best to move to 3.
So glad Henry did well, I'm a huge fan of his and think he's a much better bowler than his records suggest, first picked odi bowler but lack of back to back opportunities hurts him

He doesn't like batting at 3, seems bizarre to change the one part of your batting that's working, because the rest is ****. Abell should bat 3, but hey I'm probably biased in thinking that any of the raft of somerset players eligible for the team could actually play.

 

[Gremlin]

England have had a stinker. Perhaps they can go back to the counties and work on patience and discipline prior to the India series.


Oh.

 

[Moss]

Last 2 years also suggests Boult's red ball bowling has been on the decline, even though his white ball exploits have been top drawer

View attachment 28225

All valid. If he had turned in the sort of performance Henry did I’d still consider him an automatic pick but he was well off the pace and sprayed it around, to the right handers in particular. Also Wagner just seems to be getting better with each spell now.

All his scalps in this game have been left handers - and India have only Pant and maybe Jadeja in their top 7. Wonder if that’s something to consider too.

 

[nzfan]

First of the targets knocked over. Yes England batting has not been great but the analysis show we have bowled better lines and length, swung the ball way more than England bowlers and our batters have been good enough if not outstanding (barring Conway of course, he's been outstanding).

England bowling has been good in patches and can't fault them with Anderson and Broad off the boil a bit in this series. They haven't contributed with the ball as they were expected and this has coincided with bad batting and catching.

Very happy and thankful to ECB for organizing the series. We get the series win in England after a very long gap of 22 years and we're prepared as well as we could for the WTC Finals. Time to move on to the WTC with few selection headaches but a good one.

 

[Burgey]

Lol england

 

[The Hutt Rec]

Dammit, should have stayed up for the final session! Thought we were well on top, but wasn't expecting England to collapse quite that badly. Will we see some confidence from the NZ members on the board now? That England home series winning streak finished by us.

At least I'll go to work Monday not a total zombie if this finishes early tonight.

 

[nzfan]

Boult, Southee, Wagner and Jamieson will be my choice of bowlers. Bowling is in great hands. Yes Ajaz picked up few wickets and shown he can fight it out with the bat but Ajaz vs India nope... thanks. I'd rather shore up our batting right now than bowling. Often we have shown our bowling will take care of itself, we have the skills. We can fight with the bat but cannot dominate yet in these conditions against dukes ball and post a very big total when we are in a position to do so. I still think we missed a trick in not playing Ravindra in the two test matches. Hope we're not going to rue that. Just hoping we don't go back to Santner to shore up our batting in the wtc finals. High chances we're going to do that. If we take Santner over Ajaz or Ravindra, it's like parking ferraris in the garage and taking corolla to formula 1 racing.

If we only go with 4 fast bowlers I'd go with Young in the line up with the bat over CDG or Darryl Mitchell. It'll take me 2-3 years of Darryl Mitchell in the side averaging over 35 with the bat and 40 with the ball to even consider him for crucial games.

 

[Zinzan]

First of the targets knocked over. Yes England batting has not been great but the analysis show we have bowled better lines and length, swung the ball way more than England bowlers and our batters have been good enough if not outstanding (barring Conway of course, he's been outstanding).

England bowling has been good in patches and can't fault them with Anderson and Broad off the boil a bit in this series. They haven't contributed with the ball as they were expected and this has coincided with bad batting and catching.

Very happy and thankful to ECB for organizing the series. We get the series win in England after a very long gap of 22 years and we're prepared as well as we could for the WTC Finals. Time to move on to the WTC with few selection headaches but a good one.

I'm waiting for the fat lady to start clearing her larynx myself. Call me a paranoid cynic, but I wouldn't put it past England to jam 50 runs for the last wicket, set us 87 to win, take a few early ones & make a game of it tomorrow, as far fetched as that sounds.

 

[MW1304]

Cook shouldn’t have retired. England could do with his experience to guide some of these youngsters and could clearly do with his hands in the slips.

I know Root dropped one this Test but he's a much better first slip than Cook was.

 

[grecian]

Boult, Southee, Wagner and Jamieson will be my choice of bowlers. Bowling is in great hands. Yes Ajaz picked up few wickets and shown he can fight it out with the bat but Ajaz vs India nope... thanks. I'd rather shore up our batting right now than bowling. Often we have shown our bowling will take care of itself, we have the skills. We can fight with the bat but cannot dominate yet in these conditions against dukes ball and post a very big total when we are in a position to do so. I still think we missed a trick in not playing Ravindra in the two test matches. Hope we're not going to rue that. Just hoping we don't go back to Santner to shore up our batting in the wtc finals. High chances we're going to do that. If we take Santner over Ajaz or Ravindra, it's like parking ferraris in the garage and taking corolla to formula 1 racing.

If we only go with 4 fast bowlers I'd go with Young in the line up with the bat over CDG or Darryl Mitchell. It'll take me 2-3 years of Darryl Mitchell in the side averaging over 35 with the bat and 40 with the ball to even consider him for crucial games.

Probably not for this thread, but you should probably look at the records of English spinners against India in England recently, different type pitches seems to befuddle them a bit. Definitely would go Ajaz over Boult or Wagner.

 

[Prince EWS]

I was thinking this earlier, thought they must have been too focused on his batting.

But then I saw him bat.

I think he was actually relatively close to making the team as a specialist opener, despite how dire he's looked in his couple of Tests.

He's not even the best wicket keeper in the eleven though.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

England should have picked Darren Stevens for literally any batting position including wicketkeeper.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Probably not for this thread, but you should probably look at the records of English spinners against India in England recently, different type pitches seems to befuddle them a bit. Definitely would go Ajaz over Boult or Wagner.

Doesn't Moeen have some ridiculous stats against them at home or something

 

[Immenso]

Well they do for the Test final, but in the end, like with India, it seems the way to be successful in Modern Test cricket is to have a settled batting line-up, and plenty of bowlers to rotate, as long as they all know they're being rotated rather than dropped, and don't get uppity about it.

Cough, Stuart Broad, cough, bye bye Ed Smith.