** Official ** Sri Lanka in New Zealand tour

[anzac]

Neither of those players will ever succeed for NZ at test level.

They might as well take over Sherlock or Davis with Butler if they want to develop depth. Those three guys could take wickets against the best at test level

and isn't Burtt the 3rd of the youngsters they are keen on as the future seam attack????

but neither Davis nor Sherlock are likely to go having both missed the end of the season thru' injury...............

 

[anzac]

He has been facing some of the best bowlers the world has ever seen from AUS though

and in nearly every innings he has hung around until the new ball has been seen off. He could potentialy hold down the openers role for 5 years or so, so age is not an issue. I would persevere with him until at least the end of the year

the 1st priority for the openers is to see off the new ball attack - I doubt that Hamish, Astle & Vincent would have been so consistant if Cumming had not been doing this...........

and he's only 29 so he's got another 5 years if he wants................

 

[anzac]

Mills can't even get his ODI bowling right. He wouldn't make a full strength NZ ODI team

agreed re Mills but I think you are being tough on O'Brien..............Mills has been on the ODI scene for years to hone his craft, yet O'Brien has only just arrived..............

IMO it's a bit tough to expect players to debut v AUS & then discard them, esp when I feel that the likes of Wilson & Hamilton could be better suited to the longer game rather than LO...............

 

[anzac]

I was only kidding. Poor guy needs a few wickets in the second Test, otherwise he is going to get dropped out of the Test Team. But Tuffey deserves that spot IMO.

not on form since the PAK series last season he doesn't...........................

 

[anzac]

Anzac you have to remember that they have been many middle order batsmen around the world that have been converted to openers and had success at it Atapattu, Jaysuriya, Langer, Shewag, Gayle to name a few current ones.

very true, except in the NZL case IMO the domestic pitches are not condusive to players developing the skills required for such a specialist role..............

as mentioned earlier the NZL pitches are lower & slower than most, so batsmen tend to get on the front foot more than anything...............and middle order players tend to go at the ball.............

this technique has been part of many 'failures' at the top level - Vincent, Papps, Sinclair (lack of footwork) - most of the players in the side play off the front foot - Cumming, Fleming, Astle, McMillan...........and Bracewell has the gall to single Fulton has having back foot issues..............

until the standard of domestic pitches improves I can only see the mistakes being repeated as long as they persist in trying to convert middle order specialists...........and the other issue has been their pairing with a defensive specialist opener in Rigor, so the converts have to try to make the running at the top of the order...............

in all honesty we possibly want a specialist opener to go at the bowling like Spearman, but hopefully with some more consistancy................

 

[marc71178]

Darrell Hair is producing an interesting pattern when it comes to results for certain teams. In matches that his umpired that involve Australia, England, New Zealand and South Africa the W-L-D ratio is this:
36 (W), 23 (D), 18 (L) W/L - 2

Then in matches that involve the other teams (not including Zim and Ban):
8 (W), 10 (D), 21 (L) W/L - 0.4

Maybe some teams play better with him umpiring then other, or maybe it something else .

What a load of rubbish.

 

[psxpro]

Just had a look at Shane Bond's stats
for his FC comeback games this season. One thing that really surprised me is that he scored a hundred, is this an indicatation of his improved batting or the standard of bowling in State Cricket in NZ.

His bowling wasn't too bad either 9 wts @ 28.7, he bowled 83 overs in 3 games not a bad workload, but the hundred blew me away

Also interesting was Matthew Papps stats with the bat 7 Mts, 137 runs @ 12.45. There was a 74 in there so i wonder how bad it would have been without that, is he still in contention for the squad to Africa after that bad season. I would say Bond would be a better reserve opening batsmen then Papps looking at those stats.

Yes, Bond scored a 100, apparently he batted well, as we only get the one day domestic finals on tv so I don't know. Bond has always been able to hit the ball, If you remember the serie svs india where he hit a few sixes, maybe he has learned to bat a bit of time as well to go with his big hitting.

His bowling started off badly according to the commentators but in the later game he was said to be very impressive. taking 4 wickets in an innings on what the commentator said was a really flat pitch.

 

[Ming]

I'm actually more concerned for James M than Cumming....................not that I don't think he's doing badly or anything - just that he's not a specialist opener - he's another convert like Vincent, Sinclair, Fleming, Fulton etc.................for too long IMO NZL has monkeyed around trying to convert middle order batsmen into openers instead of persuing specialists.....

What are you talking about? James Marshall has opened all his life, and has always opened the innings for ND bar this season where he played a few games at 4.

 

[psxpro]

Yes, if i remember correctly, james and hamish used to open together for Nd in 4 day matches.

 

[marc71178]

But I will say this - If Murali had played this Test series, we would have been better off because 1. Our number one strike bowler would have been playing and 2. Hair would not be umpiring for obvious reasons.

Since when has a team had more authority on the umpires who officiate than the ICC?

 

[psxpro]

play to start at 10:00 today.
Nz will need to build a good lead because it will be harder to dimiss srilanka in the nz innings and I thinkw ith our recent stuff ups in test cricket, chasing anything over 180, we could be in trouble.

 

[psxpro]

NZ now 294/4
Fleming on 88
Vincent 92

Vaas has all 4 wickets. He has bowled well again this morning but no wickets.
The other 2 srilankan bowlers used so far have looked very flat.

 

[Macka]

Wish I wasn't at university. Thank God for Vincent. Vaas for all 10?

 

[Zinzan]

Fleming may have made 88 but he clearly still looks out of nick.

Well done Lou Vincent ...A fighting innings

 

[shaka]

326/6 Vincent easily past the century mark

 

[chaminda_00]

Since when has a team had more authority on the umpires who officiate than the ICC?

Well they did until recently, all the Asian sides didn't want Hair umpiring in their matches. but that changes when the 'Elite' Panel was formed and indiviual countires didn't get control over who umpired their matches.

 

[Natman20]

Go the kiwis

 

[chaminda_00]

Disappionting effect from the Sri Lankan we should have rolled the tail after after we got McCullum wicket, over 100 runs add since then. Well batted to Vincent and some brillant bowling from Vaas, too bad he has had no support. Malinga look short of match fitness, i think the back to back and the lack of cricket before th tour seem to be effecting his game. Maharoof has shown some glimises of promise but looks very raw ATM, i think at this stage in his career he is more suited to ODIs. Dispointed in Atapattu and how he has under bowled Jayasuriya and Thilan. There have been many times throughout this innings where we could have bowled those two.

 

[Robertinho]

Vincent one run away from 200..

 

[Blakey]

well past that now. wonder how far he can go