**Official** New Zealand v World XI

[cric_manic]

tuffys no good at death bowling

 

[Tim]

It's going to be 1-1, I can't wait to go to the game at Hamilton.

 

[Tim]

I suppose if NZ wanted to be harsh, they could say that they fell at least 25 runs short of what they should have made. But anyway, I think it's a good result that the World XI won.

 

[cric_manic]

I was hoping we were going to win.But to have bowlers of the class of muali and warne to bowl in the middle overs it was always going to be hard.But astle looks to be back in form and bowling well.Our fileding was of a high standard and the new ball bowlers bowled well and vettori continues to impress,so plenty of positive to come out of a lost

we look to be able to challange aus

 

[Richard Rash]

I suppose if NZ wanted to be harsh, they could say that they fell at least 25 runs short of what they should have made. But anyway, I think it's a good result that the World XI won.

Yes the games are for charity after all and its good to see competitive cricket however if you were wanting to pinpoint the reasons as to why we lost then I think you would look no further than Flemings decision making in his bowling rotations. We need to learn to defend better IMO..also it would have helped had we made another 20-30 runs which we should have

 

[Tim]

Well there's no doubt that Fleming was experimenting a little with his bowlers..but it's better to try things now than in the middle of a series against Australia.

 

[cric_manic]

Mcmillian looked good,untill he got out but that spot is up for grabs lets hope styris can play well in the 3rd game to put pressure on the players in the middle order

 

[Jono]

Its clear that Bichel still rules with the bat

 

[BlackCap_Fan]

Man. We make over 80 in the first 15 overs and we can only make a meagre 256?

But to their credit, Jayasuriya and Warne did a good job of slowing us down.

 

[Tim]

McMillan looked alright, but once again he got a start & then got out.

 

[bryce]

quite a good contest tonight, i would of liked to of seen wilson's bowling put under a bit more pressure by being brought on at the end instead of kyle mills(we all know his bowling and pressure don't mix) just to see how well he responded, pretty slack of me not to get a ticket to the hamilton game since i live only 20 mins from the stadium, i'm sure that game will be sold out anyway

 

[Tim]

Yep, I believe it is. Im driving down with some others from Auckland to see it.

 

[bryce]

they have added a bit of seating to one side of the park i think as opposed to the lawn on the other side, should be a great spectacle - a few of my mates are going aswell as my brother

 

[Ming]

Wilson's been our best bowler in this series, very economical so far. Bowling good lines and lengths.

 

[MoxPearl]

if we could get some good fast bowlers.. imho we COULD be the no1 team in the world.. not 2nd..

Our batting is fantastic
We have the best left arm spinner in the world
Some of the best hitters of the ball in the world

BUT.. our fast bowlers are hopeless.. they are "ok" but nothing world class.. with the exception to bond.. whos not even playing..

Do we have any FC players who have been in VERY good form this year ? to be honest i aint really been following them

Imagine how good we would be if we had 2 more world class fast bowlers to go with bond (If bond ever returns to his best)

Mills and tuffy are just far to incosistent

 

[Loony BoB]

if we could get some good fast bowlers.. imho we COULD be the no1 team in the world.. not 2nd..

Our batting is fantastic
We have the best left arm spinner in the world
Some of the best hitters of the ball in the world

BUT.. our fast bowlers are hopeless.. they are "ok" but nothing world class.. with the exception to bond.. whos not even playing..

Do we have any FC players who have been in VERY good form this year ? to be honest i aint really been following them

Imagine how good we would be if we had 2 more world class fast bowlers to go with bond (If bond ever returns to his best)

Mills and tuffy are just far to incosistent

Actually, in general, our bowlers are regarded as better players than our batsmen. Check the player rankings and you'll find few of our bats are in the top 30 or so, if there's anyone at all but Fleming... meanwhile, Oram and Tuffey are as far as I remember both rated in the top 20 (Oram in the top 10) in OD's. As for tests, we don't have any stars now that Richardson is gone, if I remember off the top of my head correctly.

I don't think our bowling attack is any better than our batting. I think we just need players in all areas to perform better. It's purely a case of everyone having the potential to play well in one or two games a series but nobody ever really doing it game after game after game after game... especially in tests.

 

[Loony BoB]

"I haven't seen anyone hit like that, whether it's been Lara, Tendulkar, Gilchrist ... anybody. I've seen nobody bat like Stephen Fleming did yesterday."
Shane Warne reveals the battering that the FICA bowlers were subjected to in the first match

Now I hate the UK's Sky team even more for "having a yakka" about the previous test during the many hours of the late-night cricket highlights (after the first day was rained out in SA). Great, we get to see the fourth lot of highlights of the last test instead of seeing some of the best batting Shane Warne has ever seen in his life. Thanks a lot, Sky. *******s!

 

[Loony BoB]

Upon further investigation, in ODI's we have one of the best bowling attacks on offer with bowlers ranked 6th (Oram), 10th (Vettori), 13th (Tuffey), 21st (Cairns), 26th (Styris), 28th (Mills) and then a few down the line. In tests, it's a different story - only Vettori (17th) and Tuffey (20th) make the top 20 and Martin is 27th. Wiseman is next down at 51st...

As for batting, in ODIs we have Fleming at 8th. Next down is Cairns (24th) then Astle (33rd) followed closely by Styris (34th) and - haha - McMillan (37th). To say our batting is fantastic is a huge overstatement there. Now, checking tests, we have Fleming again at the top of the NZ'ers - at 21st. Richardson is retired but still apparently sitting in 22nd. Oram (29th) is ahead of his upper order counterparts, Astle (35th), Styris (37th) and Macca (40th). Sinclair hasn't made any huge rush with recent starts and is 46th as the batsmen around the world are moving up and he's not moving up as fast as them.

This all reads that our bowling is known to be better than our batting. The main reason for this is, in my opinion, the fact that our batsmen are more inconsistent than our bowlers. Sure, each batsman is good on his day, but it's a massive rarity for our batsmen to have more than two good days in a series, and that's not good enough.

 

[anzac]

Anzac, would you have Jacob Oram in the side as a Test number 6 batsman alone?

nope.............

IMO he has only had 1 real innings at Test level - his ton v AUS, so for me it's still too soon to rate him as a genuine #6..........

I'd prefer to have him as my 3rd seamer in a containment role & play him at #8 in a 6-4 split (untill such time as he starts to put the scores together against all opposition - he still struggles on slow turning tracks)...........

my biggest problem with him is that IMO he does too much bowling in a 5 man attack...............and he's not a penetrative wicket taking bowler unlike most other allrounders...........for me to take him seriously as a #6 then he should be bowling as much as Styris IMO...........

 

[anzac]

Vincent throws this theory out the window. He scored a century on debut and went downhill thereafter. We need to stop wrapping the youngsters is cotton wool and throw them to the lions. This lack of confidence talk is what separates us from the Aussies over and above the population disparity.

disagree - Ken Rutherford..............

made his debut as an opener in The Windies along with another youngster (both around 20 or so - similar situation to this re injury & retirements from memory), had an absolutely torrid time of it & I recall a comment from him that he reckoned it put his career back by several years b4 he got going again.............

I have no problem in blooding youngsters or 'newbies', but only where there is some solidarity or experience around them...........2 new / inexperienced openers is NOT the way to go be it in ODIs or Tests...........