**Official** New Zealand in England

[Richard]

O-****ing Diren. **** u!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For crying out loud, apart from possibly getting Ian Bell dropped from our team for the next game he could've done no good by taking that catch.

 

[Days of Grace]

Are you kidding me?? Losing 6/30 on this pitch is not out of the question.

 

[wpdavid]

For crying out loud, apart from possibly getting Ian Bell dropped from our team for the next game he could've done no good by taking that catch.

Gotta love your faith in Collingwood, Ambrose & the bowlers.

 

[_Ed_]

Are you kidding me?? Losing 6/30 on this pitch is not out of the question.

That's true.

We needed them to be 7 down with 15-20 runs to get. Not going to happen.

 

[99*]

For crying out loud, apart from possibly getting Ian Bell dropped from our team for the next game he could've done no good by taking that catch.

Should not matter if the game is lost, the catch should still be taken no matter what.

 

[_Ed_]

That won't help.

 

[Richard]

Are you kidding me?? Losing 6/30 on this pitch is not out of the question.

It's not OOTQ, but even we'd be incredibly hard-pressed to do so after it's already happened near enough twice in the game.

That Collingwood lbw was a different matter, mind.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Are you kidding me?? Losing 6/30 on this pitch is not out of the question.

Not at all. England warm favourites, but if anyone can choke from here, it's us.

22 needed now.

 

[Swervy]

For crying out loud, apart from possibly getting Ian Bell dropped from our team for the next game he could've done no good by taking that catch.

England lost 8 for 61 in the first innings...NZ went from 85/2 to 114 ao. Don't know how you can just dismiss that drop as being of virtually no consequence

 

[Neil Pickup]

This is painful to watch. Colly looks in such bad nick just now. He's nothing if not a fighter tho.

Watching him bat at the moment reminds me of watching Wildlife on One as a kid, and seeing a pair of lions picking off a lone, invalid wildebeest from the back of the herd, chasing it down and encircling it, before ripping it to pieces.

...and here, you can see the endangered Paulius Collingwoodus, scratching around an alien habitat inside which it clearly feels uncomfortable. It is tense, nervous and tentative, shuffling and prodding as it eyes the crowding gaggle of preying Kiwi, their eyes tightly focused on their prey...

...yet now, into their midst, comes the O'Brienii Butterfingerii, a quite remarkable beast, one that thrives in windy climes, but has a quite remarkable power to sap the life force from the prowling Kiwi with a simple, inexplicable loss of simple motor co-ordination...

 

[Richard]

Should not matter if the game is lost, the catch should still be taken no matter what.

Oh, of course it should. No questions about that. But DoG was suggesting NZ could've won had it been taken, which it couldn't have. No more than NZ could've won had Southee not taken that single to let Martin get bowled at McLean Park in April.

 

[Richard]

England lost 8 for 61 in the first innings...NZ went from 85/2 to 114 ao. Don't know how you can just dismiss that drop as being of virtually no consequence

Because the pitch is playing completely differently to how it was in either innings - hence the ease England have batted with today.

 

[GGG]

England lost 8 for 61 in the first innings...NZ went from 85/2 to 114 ao. Don't know how you can just dismiss that drop as being of virtually no consequence

But England has a spinner in there team, and not so many slog and hope batsman.

 

[Stapel]

Even England cannot screw this up now. And the new ball won't change that!

 

[99*]

I find the fact that there's still talk of England losing this the best part of this last day.

 

[Swervy]

Because the pitch is playing completely differently to how it was in either innings - hence the ease England have batted with today.

and a wicket there and you can guarentee England would start papping themselves, and when that happens, anything can happen....its called pressure, but then again, you don't really beleive in the concept of pressure in cricket do you?

 

[Days of Grace]

Oh, of course it should. No questions about that. But DoG was suggesting NZ could've won had it been taken, which it couldn't have. No more than NZ could've won had Southee not taken that single to let Martin get bowled at McLean Park in April.

Define 'could have'.

Totally different from 'would have'.

Anything is possible in this great game.

 

[Swervy]

But England has a spinner in there team, and not so many slog and hope batsman.

have the teams changed since the first innings??

 

[Richard]

and a wicket there and you can guarentee England would start papping themselves, and when that happens, anything can happen....its called pressure, but then again, you don't really beleive in the concept of pressure in cricket do you?

Nonsense. I don't believe that good batsmen feel pressure because of a slow scoring-rate in limitless-over cricket, the rest is just a twisting of words.

England wouldn't have started papping themselves needing 30 to win with 5 wickets in hand. As I said - the Collingwood lbw with 44 still needed, though, different matter entirely.

 

[Richard]

Define 'could have'.

Totally different from 'would have'.

Anything is possible in this great game.

Of course it is, but I am talking about "realistically speaking".