*Official** New Zealand in England

[marc71178]

If Samoans played cricket, they could come up with some awesome players. Big, fast, powerful guys. Hence they don't play cricket - hello rugby.

And they're not that good at that if Scotland can beat them!

 

[twctopcat]

Yes, but I'm talking about NOT getting 50!

My apologies, i misread, again......

 

[Loony BoB]

And they're not that good at that if Scotland can beat them!

There are Samoans in the All Blacks.

 

[MoxPearl]

i think the 3rd test is all but lost already lol

oh well.. nz vs england in the rugby on saturday.. a chance to redeem ourselfs hehe

 

[marc71178]

Yes, we've left half our World Cup Winning side out, so anything other than a heavy defeat will be a good result for us.

 

[Loony BoB]

i think the 3rd test is all but lost already lol

oh well.. nz vs england in the rugby on saturday.. a chance to redeem ourselfs hehe

Don't jinx us on that one just yet! Seems almost anything said in this thread turns out to be jinxed!

On that rugby note, though, if the Pacific Islands was a team (like the Windies are) in rugby, they'd be able to breed the likes of Jonah Lomu, Michael Jones, Inga the Winger, Pat Lam, Rokocokocokokocockcokockco, Muliani, Caucau... they'd be one bloody awesome team. Imagine if they played cricket instead of rugby... they'd definitely have the potential to be world beaters, don't know if they'd ever have the money or resources, though - let alone the weather (Cyclone? Oh, damn, there goes another village).

 

[Loony BoB]

Yes, we've left half our World Cup Winning side out, so anything other than a heavy defeat will be a good result for us.

Of course, you have to beg the question - WHY leave so many star players out? Why, we may as well have sent over an unfit cricket team to Engla- oh, yeah. Fair enough, then.

I understand you guys left three key players out of the team, though. I think it's a bit of a joke when you take on one of the top teams in the world and don't bring your star players. It's the match that everyone wanted at the World Cup and nobody got - and I guess we'll never know now.

 

[marc71178]

They're all knackered!

 

[tooextracool]

They weren't "in charge", as shown by NZ's first score. You can't say someone is in charge when they don't know what the ball is going to do. If a bowler is in charge, the bowler chooses what the ball does. The batsman is in charge if he can see/predict what the ball is going to do. The pitch is in charge if neither of them know what the ball is going to do. You can't tell me Harmison knew when the ball was going to dip and when it wasn't..

which is still better than having a bunch of flat track bullies go out there and score 100s....its ridiculous how so many ftb's have inflated averages and fail everytime the pitch does something different. yes this is not the best wicket to play every test match on but i do enjoy to see how many of those 40+ average players manage to survive in conditions that are not favourable for batting. with the kind of bowling that i saw in the first innings i was bloody disappointed....i think martin crowe hit the nail on the head when he said that the fact that harmison, being no 2 in the world rankings, struggled to pick up wickets in that first innings(until he polished up the tail) says alot about how bad bowling is today.

If anything, yes, the batting was going to win it for us - why? Because the bloody bowling certainly wasn't! But seriously, we went into it knowing that we needed to perform in all areas of the game and our bowlers, again, did not. Don't think that NZ is so stupid as to not know that.

not at a traditional bowler friendly headingly pitch i can guarantee you that.....you cant come in here thinking you can win because you have batting depth, its a bowlers pitch so you need the bowlers to do the job not give away 500+ runs

Would it? Don't know about that. Oram was a required batsman. With Styris, Cairns, Tuffey, Martin and Vettori we had four seamers and a spinner. That SHOULD have been enough, and we shouldn't have to sacrifice our batsmen. What we should have done was not played Tuffey, because for most of the game he was as effective as a 12th man. Didn't bat - and didn't really bowl, either. What's the point? May as well have played Mills. If they play him again and don't have him bowl much again, I'm going to be so very disappointed.

correction you had 1 bowler past his prime, 1 bowler who was completely out of form, 1 bowler who is still somewhat injured, 1 part timer and 1 spinner. effectively you had 2 strike fast bowlers, which at headingly seems stupid. i dont see the need to risk an injured player or the need to have an extra batsman when you bat till no 9 anyway? looking at the performances in the first test, its easy to see that the batsman werent the ones that failed...the bowlers did. and in oram you were effectively one bowler down from the first test as well....so which department do you strengthen?

 

[tooextracool]

ahh michael vaughan and his speeches.....
"Players who retire are missed but you have to carry on," said Vaughan. "Michael Atherton retired, Alec Stewart retired, Nasser Hussain retired, Andrew Caddick retired . . ."
maybe he should get someone to speak for him?

 

[anzac]

correction you had 1 bowler past his prime, 1 bowler who was completely out of form, 1 bowler who is still somewhat injured, 1 part timer and 1 spinner. effectively you had 2 strike fast bowlers, which at headingly seems stupid. i dont see the need to risk an injured player or the need to have an extra batsman when you bat till no 9 anyway? looking at the performances in the first test, its easy to see that the batsman werent the ones that failed...the bowlers did. and in oram you were effectively one bowler down from the first test as well....so which department do you strengthen?

IMO the team selected itself based upon those players able to take the field in the end..............however with respect I might add that I for one have made it plain that I do not like the 'balance' of the batting lineup, and to have sacrificed another batting role to have 5 frontline bowlers would have been ridiculous in those circumstances, what with Papps, Astle & Styris struggling for runs - the runs were coming from Richardson, McCullum, Cairns & Oram - so they had backed themselves into a corner afaic.........

bottom line for me - if 4 'specialist' bowlers can't do the job I can't see the point in adding a 5th - IMO it means you've either got the wrong balance / variety, or your initial selections aren't good enough..........or both..........

 

[Loony BoB]

which is still better than having a bunch of flat track bullies go out there and score 100s....its ridiculous how so many ftb's have inflated averages and fail everytime the pitch does something different. yes this is not the best wicket to play every test match on but i do enjoy to see how many of those 40+ average players manage to survive in conditions that are not favourable for batting. with the kind of bowling that i saw in the first innings i was bloody disappointed....i think martin crowe hit the nail on the head when he said that the fact that harmison, being no 2 in the world rankings, struggled to pick up wickets in that first innings(until he polished up the tail) says alot about how bad bowling is today.




not at a traditional bowler friendly headingly pitch i can guarantee you that.....you cant come in here thinking you can win because you have batting depth, its a bowlers pitch so you need the bowlers to do the job not give away 500+ runs



correction you had 1 bowler past his prime, 1 bowler who was completely out of form, 1 bowler who is still somewhat injured, 1 part timer and 1 spinner. effectively you had 2 strike fast bowlers, which at headingly seems stupid. i dont see the need to risk an injured player or the need to have an extra batsman when you bat till no 9 anyway? looking at the performances in the first test, its easy to see that the batsman werent the ones that failed...the bowlers did. and in oram you were effectively one bowler down from the first test as well....so which department do you strengthen?

Don't get me wrong, I agree that those bowlers were crap, I'm just saying the amount of bowlers we had was fine. The only problem with our bowlers is that there was no variety and more importantly, nobody in form outside Styris. Vettori, Tuffey and Martin - when backed up by a few part timers - should be enough. Should. SHOULD. But not because of the number of bowlers but rather because of the quality of the bowlers did we fail in that department. You should only need three strike bowlers, Styris and Cairns can come into play if needed. We just didn't have ANY strike bowlers because they were all crap. If we could magically heal Tuffey to full prime, repair Vettori's form (and take away a bit of his bad luck with the fielders and umpires) as well as have a magically healed and fit Bond back in for Martin, we would have had enough bowlers, easily. Nobody would have really complained if we had three form bowlers like those fellas.

The fact is, they weren't. The only problem we had was not the number of bowlers, but their form/fitness. I say that we needed better bowlers, not more of them.

Pity that NZ just doesn't have depth in bowling and pity the selectors don't offer young guys the chance when the old guys aren't well (Tuffey in particular - astonished at the amount of balls he's bowled over the past two tests, I really feel he's not there to bat or bowl).

 

[Loony BoB]

ahh michael vaughan and his speeches.....
"Players who retire are missed but you have to carry on," said Vaughan. "Michael Atherton retired, Alec Stewart retired, Nasser Hussain retired, Andrew Caddick retired . . ."
maybe he should get someone to speak for him?

Hahahahaha, brilliant.

 

[chris.hinton]

15 for the Natwest series iMO

Vaughan
Trescothick
Stauss
Collingwood
Clarke
Read
Flintoff
Batty
Anderson
Harminson
Gidman
Gough
Sajid Mahmood
Davies
Powell

 

[marc71178]

Davies?

Powell?

I think Bell will get a call-up, and no matter how hard you try Giles will be in there (and likely ahead of Batty still)

 

[chris.hinton]

davies has taken the most wickets this year, and Powell the most runs. Also bell is Shite in one dayers

 

[Loony BoB]

They're all knackered!

Oh, come on! Tell 'em to harden up! Your guys wouldn't know a tight schedule if it hit them in the face. One week should be more than enough to clear the bruises!

It should be considered an honour to play for your country agains the toughest opposition in the world, and right now that means England, France, Australia and New Zealand are the teams you go full throttle against. It's not like cricket, you don't rest players - the players say "No, I want to play!" and play they do!

It's on par with resting a few players on an Ashes tour. Confusing.

 

[anzac]

ok so they have announced that Butler will replace Bond in the Tri-series.........yet another bloody selection mistake IMO...............

as much as I hold out hope that he will eventually 'get it right', Butler's game as it stands is NOT suitable for ODIs, as his figures would suggest..........

IMO both Mills & Mason are better prospects & even Franklin has better stats........

I guess they are trying to fight fire with fire & bring in some pace, but they are forgetting that NZL did well enough without pace b4 Bond.............

For me Butler should have been brought into the Test squad as soon as Bond hurt himself bowling in the 1st innings in the County game, as he would have been a better prospect at Headingly than he is for the NatWest Series...........

 

[anzac]

so what of the selection prospects for the 3rd Test..........

Richardson, Fleming, Sinclair, McCullum, Styris, Oram, Cairns, Franklin, Hopkins, Mills, Martin..............

Not considered due to injury:
Papps, Vettori, Tuffey, Astle, McMillan.......the last 3 more as a precautionary measure to assess their ability to recover for the ODIs or if further replacements are required..........& certainly not to run the risk of further aggravating their existing conditions any further...........

By his own words Oram was close to having a bowl in the 2nd innings, so I'm hopeful he should be able to do so by the 2nd innings at Trent Bridge..........at the least he still shows for with the bat & Macca / Astle are struggling for form as well as injury.............

Martin keeps his place because he is fit & there are no other bowling options available..........

Hopkins gets the gloves as he's going to do so in the ODIs & now would be a good time to get into it in a 'dead rubber' - mistakes / nerves not so costly in terms of result.............

I have a sneaking suspicion that Fleming won't be hanging around for the ODIs - as much to do with his mental state as the injury, as per his comments about not being on top of his Captaincy & ODIs are less forgiving than Tests...........

if this is the case & Flem lets them know b4 the Test, then I'd bat Sinclair no lower than #3, as he is likely to have to Open in the ODIs - as it's a dead rubber I'd even consider him Opening with Richardson & Flem down at #3.......depending on what the pitch looked like..............

McCullum has done reasonably well up the order, and I'd want to give Styris as much protection from the new ball & fresh bowlers to give him the opportunity to play himself in with the ODIs in mind..............

because we have no spin bowler available in ENG, I'd have Richardson & Styris working hard in the nets at the moment - didn't someone say that Bracewell had reported that Styris can actually bowl spin reasonably well?????

 

[anzac]

believe it or not I'm actually more concerned about the team prospects for the ODIs.........

I have grave doubts that Fleming will stay on..........
I am concerned that Astle is still having trouble with his knees (ODIs being more punishing in style than the attrition of Tests).............
same story for Tuffey.........
if Papps has broken a knuckle then this would surely take longer to heal being a joint as opposed to a broken finger..........
Macca & Oram should be ok by then..........
Vettori won't..............
and at this stage we have Hopkins, Marshall, Harris & Butler to join the squad to replace Bond, Richardson, Martin & McCullum...............
if Vettori has had a decent tear than IMO he should be flagged & a replacement brought in..............& I think they will go with Wiseman for his experience & batting.............& the need to salvage something from the ODIs for the Tour.........