*Official* NZ Domestic Season

[Kent]

Hopefully Butler's opening spell will be pretty fiery, after reading certain comments coming from his beloved Bracewell family.

It'll be great if Jamie How brings out his pull shot in attempting to send 'Peaheart' flying to the short square boundaries....

Bracewell pleads ignorance on brother's attack
11 December 2004

By CHRIS BARCLAY
Widespread criticism of the cricketing capabilities of the New Zealand team by former fast bowler Brendon Bracewell had his brother and national coach John Bracewell ducking for cover yesterday.


Brendon Bracewell launched a scathing attack on the current crop of players when saying they were too coach-dependent.

He slammed the New Zealand side, claiming his brother has to teach the players line and length, "cover drives, block shots and what balls to play them".

Brendon Bracewell made his comments in an e-mail to former New Zealand captain and newspaper columnist Ken Rutherford, which also reached several media outlets, including The Press newspaper.

He was particularly scathing of fast bowler Ian Butler, describing the Northern Districts player as "a pea-hearted, selfish bloke who offers the team only the ability to bowl a ball every now and then over 140kmh".

"This is the sort of character Johnny doesn't want in the team.

"He is one of those blokes who gets a dose of the sniffles and infects the whole team with his misery."

Butler was not available for comment yesterday and Bracewell deflected questions about his brother's claims by insisting he had not seen his sibling's comments.

"I have heard of it but I haven't seen it so I have no comment to make," he said after the third and final Chappell-Hadlee Trophy one-day international was washed out at the Gabba last night to leave the series drawn 1-1.

 

[anzac]

yeah but it also could be a carefully crafted piece of "tough love" from outside the team to show that it isn't just the coach being on his case about his length etc.............

whatever I hope it has the desired effect & he bowls a good line & length at decent pace..............

 

[anzac]

I was also pleased to see Fulton & Stewart got good starts to the season...............

and I know we have talked about it b4 but I'm concerned at seeing the likes of Redmond, Hopkins, Sulzberger, & Hart batting in the top 5 at State level - even if it is supposedly as a result of the absence of the intnl players from those sides...............

 

[Kent]

good news that bruce martin will be back for the opening round of state shield matches, apparently his original diagnosis was way off, also interesting that he picked up his injury from bowling the 'doosra' so we won't be seeing any more of that i suspect.

Thanks for the tip on that story, Bryce.

"It's just a biff, it's so illegal but I thought everyone else is doing it, so why not.". I always thought Martin would be a bit like that.

http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?RQT=...de=1&Fmt=3&did=000000760155251&clientId=67904

 

[Richard Rash]

Central on fire 176/0 off 30 overs. Jamie How 95* and Sinclair 62*. I must say How is looking very good for a black cap. This will be his third century in three innings. Northern are struggling as usual

Wellington will feel they have had the best of the first session snaring three Otago wickets for 85 runs. My cousin Craig out for a dissapointing 11

Canturbury have fallen to 50 odd for 7 which is almost disgrasful against the likes of Mills

As i post now How has gone through and completed his hatrick of centuries currently 101* and definetly making a statement to the selectors.

 

[bryce]

man ND cummon! it's like a one day score, CD 182/0 after 31 overs at 5.87 an over, even with pea-heart and tuffey playing.

Thanks for the tip on that story, Bryce.

"It's just a biff, it's so illegal but I thought everyone else is doing it, so why not.". I always thought Martin would be a bit like that.

it's alright, i also saw him get through about 3 cigarettes in 15 minutes at the tea break in club cricket on saturday, i was playing on the pitch adjacent to his game, he was playing as a specialist batsman aswell, not sure how much he made.

 

[Smudge]

Gaffeney out for a gutwrenching 99 - LBW to Gillespie.

Otago back on track though at about 200-4 - Hopkins on about 60-odd.

 

[bryce]

poor old gaffers, from memory that's not the first time he's been out in the nineties(or 99 for that matter), that fish and chip paper Herald on Sunday called him the cricketer to watch this season, hopkins out for 83 re-enforcing the point that he is our second best 'keeper/batsman, jimmy franklin currently has 4/51.
ND are going horribly including tuffey and butler while styris has only bowled seven overs.
mills got five wickets - i hope that doesn't get him into the test team and adams got four aswell, auckland are 5 down in reply to canterbury's poor total with promising allrounder andrew ellis picking up three of the wickets.

 

[Smudge]

I've been waiting for Gaffaney to string together a good season of performances for years. The bloke has all the ability in the world, and all the shots, but he lacks the temparament or patience to step up another level. Some of the shots I have seen him play are unparalled in NZ, but he lets himself down time and time again. He's now in his late 20s, so this season or next will be the last chances for him to push on IMHO (regardless of other players who have represented NZ in their early 30s).

 

[bryce]

yeah, the way he plays you would think he is a one day batsman but he actually has a much better first class record than one day record, another thing i found interesting is that he scored 2 cricket max centuries(10 over innings) but does not have a domestic one day century, i agree with you that he has the potential to play international cricket and this is the time he has to shine.

 

[bryce]

nzcricket.co.nz has added a new statistics feature on its website which allows you to view every match ever played by new zealand(including youth matches and womens internationals) aswell as every nz domestic match that has taken place since otago played canterbury in 1863/64 including season averages aswell as every womens domestic match since their inaugral season, it also has details of every player ever to play first class cricket in new zealand aswell as player details of every women first class cricketer.
gotta love it

 

[Kent]

Yeah, that statistics section is very impressive. You can even see what players have done at each FC ground in NZ.

Meanwhile, can Ross Taylor start consolidating some FC innings please? 46 off 42 today, which is such a typical RT score!

I guess being LBW to Tuffey is better than caught in the deep slogging, although I've noticed him making a habit of walking across his stumps going back to last year's TV games.

 

[Tim]

Im quite pleased with myself because I've thought for a while now that Jamie How has got big potential.

Not only is he scoring centuries, he's also scoring them very quickly which is most pleasing to see.

How I believe is going to be the start of a new talented bunch of batsmen coming through...with Peter Fulton not far behind & Ross Taylor who probably needs to collect himself a little at the moment.

 

[shaka]

They have really made the site much better from its old format. Sinclair made 102 off 149 deliveries or something, so this could mean a determination to improve his chances of retaining his position in the black caps squad, while trying to improve his strike rate. I am amazed that Vincent was not given a bowl considering some of his success at club level.

 

[Tim]

Im not. There is a big difference between club & domestic cricket.
Vincent seems to have developed his bowling but he doesn't need to bowl when Walmsley, Canning, Mills etc are creating carnage already.

 

[Tim]

It appears that today either Butler was extremely knocked back by the comments made by Brendon Bracewell or, he went out fired up and suffered the consequences of 2 openers wanting to push their case for international selection.

The fact remains that after all the training he did in Australia recently...his figures today were totally unacceptable & perhaps back up Mr. Bracewell's recent comments.
Infact I wouldn't mind him being swapped for Te Ahu Davis at the moment.

 

[bryce]

funny you mention him, i played against him on saturday and caught him out at square leg for 0 , he also bowled very well off a short run(he is still injured which is why he isn't playing for ND) and had 4/43 by the end of the days play.

 

[Tim]

I found out that BJ Watling was actually born in South Africa!...but still, he looks like a really good opener.

NZ won't have to worry about Wicket-keeper batsmen in the future. We've got McCullum & then you only need to check the Auckland club cricket stats to see Derek De Boorder & Doug Winger up among the type 5 run scorers so far, and then of course there's Watling who is the current NZ U19 keeper.

Spin is still ultimately the biggest concern...fortunately Vettori's still only 25.

 

[bryce]

so he was, i had no idea of that until now......
don't worry about spin mate, we've always got jeetan patel

 

[Tim]

Hopefully Bruce Martin has a successful return.