***Official*** Pakistan in New Zealand 2016/17

[BeeGee]

Nup, and I guess you can't necessarily blame them. You'd expect them to be better prepared for the next Test.

Interesting puff piece on Tom Latham in one of the papers this morning, saying hes already better than Richardson and Sutcliff, at least stats wise. I dunno why but I can't remember a player who's exasperated me more, not McCullum/McMillan or anyone. I don't think he deserves near the praise he gets, not yet anyway.

Facts are, 2 of his five Test centuries are against Zimbabwe. Averaging 36 is nowhere near good enough for a guy of his ability, as I keep pissing on about. He averages an absolutely woeful 26 at home, and his average year on year has declined since his debut. He's undroppable because there's noone near his talent. But gee it's frustrating as hell, he's nigh on played 50 Test match innings now and it's not good enough.

Stats are always misleading when you compare across eras. They play more games now and scores/averages are generally higher due to flatter decks. If you're going to compare players on stats it needs to be within the same time period.

 

[Flem274*]

latham isn't as annoying as either Mc was at their peak annoyingness but he's pretty annoying

 

[Flem274*]

despite his 2002 green top masterclass i think rigor played in a flatter era than latham does tbh. pitches have changed for the better this decade.

 

[SteveNZ]

Nice stats piece in the SST today on Latham:



Digging the data: Tom Latham is already one of NZ's best ever openers | Stuff.co.nz

Ha, the link was two posts above me and I didn't see it.

There's no point comparing Tom to past openers. Richardson for example squeezed every inch out of himself. I don't know a lot about Sutcliffe but I presume the war, a pretty average side and uncovered wickets had some bearing on his numbers. Latham should be averaging 45+ and converting starts, but isn't.

I dunno Flem, I'm fairly sure Latham annoys me more because of the dearth of talent we have in his position. Gup never annoyed me because I knew he wasn't up to it at Test level as an opener. Tom looks as good as anyone getting to 20-50 or in between then finds a new way to get out. It's holding us back from winning Test matches.

 

[hendrix]

Latham definitely annoys me. He hasn't improved in 25 tests. That's unforgivable as a young batsman, particularly someone in the same team as Williamson, who steadily and methodically improved his game during the same period of his career.

 

[Blocky]

I think Latham and Williamson both have a tendency to give away soft wickets when we're in periods of ascendancy. It's made to look even worse by the fact that our 4-5-6-7 hasn't been up to scratch since McCullum retired, Taylor became "Only when it's Zimbabwe, Windies or Sri Lanka at home" batsman and Watling has fallen off the boil. We forgive Kane because he had a period of centuries, but even he's gone back to days of old, converting only 1 out of 6 scores of 50+ in the last 8 tests.

It's an issue in our domestic cricketing scene, so many potentially good players who get breezy nice 30-60 run scores and give it away in the worst ways.

 

[hendrix]

Yeah but we've seen Williamson recognise and fix his mistakes. I know it's ODI cricket, but look at the way he improved his ODI and t20 game in a short period of time.

I'm not expecting that from Latham but at least fix the obvious things. The mental stamina problems for a start.

 

[Blocky]

It's still something we need to instill in our guys from club onwards though, don't feel "Well I'm in now, let's start playing all the shots" - keep working the things that got you in, don't worry about smashing it just because you're in your 60s and 70s, make a hundred and then make it a big one.

 

[Blocky]

This sounds weird in my own head, but I think the pitch has played into Jeet's hands in this game. He's very susceptible outside off stump, people who know his game and bowl to him know you go away, away away in the channel and play the patience game. He's got out that way 4 or so times already this summer, 3 at domestic and in the first innings in this game. Trouble is, Pakistan haven't had the runs on the board nor the patience, possibly neither the knowledge of his game to execute that. That'll be where teams will target him when they have more vision of him at that level. You don't have to get straight at all. Sort of like Hamish Rutherford but Jeet doesn't have the cover drive, he just waits until you get a bit short or straight.

To be honest, that's a far easier mistake to help a batsman correct than technical deficiencies against the straight ball or the bouncer. It's more about planning and getting into the right mental state to leave repeatedly, like he did in his first innings well. He's very sound in defense on anything on his stumps, or on the 4th stump line from what I've seen in this match and the Pakistani's haven't bowled that badly to him.

What you need to ask is if that's well known by bowlers around Auckland cricket (as it is) as well as our domestic scene, why aren't his coaches at Auckland working with him to correct it? We have such a ****ing dearth of coaching talent in this country, and even the people who eventually gravitate towards coaching don't tend to be the types of guys you'd want to be coaching (McMillan for instance)

 

[Flem274*]

i can kinda see why they hid raval from india

 

[Flem274*]

i was going to make a post about how this is such an underwhelming win since it doesn't feel like NZ have really improved at all, just done the job on the back of a professional bowling effort and a 5th bowler having the day of his career.

but then i remembered 5-6 years ago winning a test match at home against the world #1s (india can suck it) would have been impossible.

in fact beating anyone was a tough ask for vettori era NZ.

 

[Zinzan]

You could feel that coming.

 

[Stace]

I think Latham and Williamson both have a tendency to give away soft wickets when we're in periods of ascendancy. It's made to look even worse by the fact that our 4-5-6-7 hasn't been up to scratch since McCullum retired, Taylor became "Only when it's Zimbabwe, Windies or Sri Lanka at home" batsman and Watling has fallen off the boil. We forgive Kane because he had a period of centuries, but even he's gone back to days of old, converting only 1 out of 6 scores of 50+ in the last 8 tests.

It's an issue in our domestic cricketing scene, so many potentially good players who get breezy nice 30-60 run scores and give it away in the worst ways.

Gave it away again.

 

[Gnske]

Reminds me of that World Cup match where Williamson came in after McCullum's blitzkrieg and decided to utterly ruin the mood with like 10 runs to get.

 

[Flem274*]

lol nichols sent in ahead of ross

 

[Blocky]

Williamson lost his head; that's pretty funny - I loved the Pakistani laugh afterwards.

 

[Blocky]

lol nichols sent in ahead of ross

Yeah, what's that **** about?

 

[DriveClub]

Time to visit pakpassion

 

[Gnske]

But I thought Raval didn't exist.

 

[nightprowler10]

Well played to the Kiwis. We never really had a chance once the ball started moving we landed in New Zealand.