Cricket Thread

[TRF_stormer2010]

When does the oval ball season start again?

Late Feb for us in the SH

 

[Amobokoboko]

That NZ over was **** poor indeed

 

[Darwin]

That NZ over was **** poor indeed

And that is being generous. Being bowled out in less than 20 overs in a test match after winning the toss and batting is quite frankly disgraceful (no disrespect intended to the South African attack, who all bowled well). It will be interesting to see how long South Africa bat for. If I was them I would look at batting for another 2 and half sessions and add another 200-odd runs. That would give them a 400+ run lead, with a bit over 3 days to bowl NZ out again (though the way we are batting they would probably only need 3 overs to bowl us out ).

 

[psychic duck]

South Africa could probably declare now and they would still win by an innings if their players fancy a couple extra days off.

What has happened to New Zealand? They were never the best team, but they always used to be competent and be able to give opposition a decent match if they had an off day.

They have now gone from being able to challenge sides like England 10 years ago to now being nearer Bangladesh level.

Will Test Cricket die in New Zealand over the next 15 years with a rubbish team and dwindling crowds?

 

[Darwin]

South Africa could probably declare now and they would still win by an innings if their players fancy a couple extra days off.

What has happened to New Zealand? They were never the best team, but they always used to be competent and be able to give opposition a decent match if they had an off day.

They have now gone from being able to challenge sides like England 10 years ago to now being nearer Bangladesh level.

Will Test Cricket die in New Zealand over the next 15 years with a rubbish team and dwindling crowds?

The biggest problem with New Zealand at the moment is that probably our 4 best test players (Taylor, Ryder, Vettori, Southee) are all unavailable at the moment. A top team like South Africa would probably still cope pretty well without there top 4 players, but when you only have 5-6 test quality players, and you take 4 of them out it leaves you very weak! Consistency is a major issue with the current NZ side. We have actually had a couple of rather historic test victories over the last 12 months (away vs Australia and Sri Lanka) - unfortunately in between these victories there has been a rather large string of defeats.

I don't think test cricket will die in NZ anytime soon. Apart from a few years in the 80's (when Sir Richard Hadlee was spearheading our attack) we have always been near the bottom of the test rankings. Strangely (given our recent run of results) we actually have the makings of a pretty competitive test side for the the first time years. Southee, Boult, and Bracewell are a very talented trio of young fast bowlers, while Taylor, Williamson, and Ryder could potentially form a formidable (by NZ standards) middle order. We still lack quality openers (both Guptill and McCullum are better suited to batting lower in the order at test level), and need a quality spin option to take over from Vettori (who is already past his prime as a test bowler). Unfortunately we have a bunch of muppets in charge of NZ cricket, so all this potential will likely count for nothing.....

 

[Icemn]

I think NZ needs to start doing the HAKA in cricket

 

[psychic duck]

I think NZ needs to start doing the HAKA in cricket

"Skinny white men with glasses shouldn't do hakas" - Daniel Vettori

 

[Darwin]

Smith decides he wants tomorrow (and the following two days) off, so declares with a lead of 300. New Zealand lose a wicket in the first over. I give up - I'm going to bed.

 

[TRF_Cymro]

How I look at it, I don't think NZ domestic cricket is as strong as it could be.

You look at some of the players averages in domestic and really lot of / most would not get into other cricket teams sides. Bracewell has a first class average of 36, good player but the average should be better. Daniel Flynn is another.

They have had some good players over the years but to move on NZ cricket has got to re-develop its structure domestically.

 

[Amobokoboko]

Their second innings was a bit better, but they lack serious firepower. Bring back Ryder

 

[TRF_heineken]

Cricket: a sport invented to give other teams a chance to beat New Zealand at a constant basis...


Have to say this test went pretty much as i expected it would. Dale Steyn got to the 300 wicket mark and Jacques Kallis got to 13000 test runs. The 4th player to get to the milestone.

 

[Darwin]

Their second innings was a bit better, but they lack serious firepower. Bring back Ryder

Wow, we made it too the third day! At least it looks like we showed a bit more fight today (though according the match report South Africa did drop a few catches). Good to see Brownlie get a few runs. We need to show some more fight today, as we really need to convince ourselves we are able to compete with South Africa (even if we are kidding ourselves!).

How I look at it, I don't think NZ domestic cricket is as strong as it could be.

You look at some of the players averages in domestic and really lot of / most would not get into other cricket teams sides. Bracewell has a first class average of 36, good player but the average should be better. Daniel Flynn is another.

They have had some good players over the years but to move on NZ cricket has got to re-develop its structure domestically.

That is a fair point, though I'm not sure exactly what we can do to improve our domestic league. The problem we have is that we don't really have many good cricket players in the country. When the Blackcaps are invariably removed from the Plunket Shield (our first class competition) we are left largely with a bunch of journeymen and a few talented youngsters. The poor quality of our players is often emphasized by the fact that import players - often largely obscure journeymen from lower grade country cricket - frequently are able to dominate. We certainly don't have enough quality players to justify having 6 domestic teams. Australia only had 6 teams, and I would guess they would have well over 5 times the player numbers we have. The problem we have is that mediocrity breeds mediocrity. Many of our domestic batsmen can get good averages despite having major flaws in there technique, as they are rarely tested by quality bowlers. Likewise many of of provincial bowlers can get good averages by frequently dismissing poor batsmen. This would be fine if international cricket was full of mediocre players, but it is not. For this reason most of our players are out of there depth at international level.

In the late 90's we experimented with 3 team competition (in addition to the 6 team competition) but that didn't last too long. One option that is often considered is getting a team or two into the Australian competition, but I can't see Australia ever being keen for this (as there would be no benefit for them what-so-ever).

One things that has been improving over recent seasons is the quality of our pitches, though there is still some way to go. We need to develop pitches that reward quality fast or spin bowling. Though our pitches are getting faster the bowlers who are most successful are still those medium pace (120-130 km/h) bowlers who just put the ball in the right spot and let the pitches do all the work. It works fine on our pitches against mediocre batsmen, but against quality batsmen on good pitches these bowlers just get hammered. We are starting to see a few quicker bowlers starting to come through now as our pitches are starting to reward these bowlers more, but there is still room to improved pitches at most grounds. Due to our climate we will always struggle to develop pitches that favour spin bowling - ideally we just need to get some good leg spinners coming through, as quality leggies can be dangerous on any pitch....

 

[InsaneAsylum]

The problem with NZ cricket is the same problem we have with our rugby. lack of depth and a missing tier. ie. NZ first class is about the equivalent of our state 1st grade club competitions. I'm not denying that NZ have some world class players, but it just makes the jump to Test cricket even bigger/harder to suceed.

With our stupid new Big Bash League, I was really hoping that Cricket Australia partnered with NZ cricket and created a combined competition including the current Aussie teams plus ND, CD, Otago, Canterbury and Auckland.

 

[Amobokoboko]

Easy win by the proteas.

 

[Amobokoboko]

The issue with NZ cricket is that the fishing pond is indeed very small. They have some talented players but for the SA series only McCullum is playing and even he didn't get that many runs on the board.

Bringing in new players that just have received NZ citizenship might jeopardize the future of cricket in NZ a bit. In Belgium we have lots of sub continental players and ex-pacts running the national side as well playing in the domestic competition. Making it difficult for local people to join clubs and discover the sport.

Ideal NZ should stall some talented youngsters abroad during winter in other countries and let them grow there.

 

[InsaneAsylum]

any idea how Luke Ronchi is going? he left WA for NZ with the intention of qualifying and playing for NZ as a keeper bat?

 

[Darwin]

any idea how Luke Ronchi is going? he left WA for NZ with the intention of qualifying and playing for NZ as a keeper bat?

He has surprisingly struggled a bit in the T20 comp with the bat, but has been very dominant in the 4-day comp (averaging 70-odd, with 3 centuries in 5 matches). I haven't seen his keeping at all, so I can't comment on that. He is eligible for NZ at the end of the month (he was born in NZ, and hasn't played for Australia for 3 years), so it probably wont be long before we see him in the blackcaps. It wouldn't surprise me if we see him in all 3 formats over the next year or so - his strike rate means he can be a real game-changer in T20 and ODI cricket.

Incidentally I am currently watching the Australia vs Sri Lanka test, and I have to say Matthew Wade is struggling a lot behind the stumps. In this innings alone he has dropped 2 catches (off Lyon), and recently completely stuffed up a run-out. The commentators have been going on a lot about his keeping throughout the test, and I definitely agree he has a lot of work to do in this area. He just doesn't look like a natural keeper to me - he is certainly a talented batsmen (as seen be his 100 in the first innings), but unless he makes big improvements in his keeping I'm not sure how long Australia will persist with him at test level (as I'm sure they have plenty of quality wk/batsmen around in Australia!).

 

[InsaneAsylum]

Yeah wade's keeping is an interesting topic as a lot of people think he makes too many mistakes with the gloves, quality bat though.
we only really have two options tim Paine - returned from a long term hand/finger injury, possible risk of reinjury, or brad haddin, out of form 2 years ago and rightfully dropped. Peter Nevil and Chris Hartley rough chances bUt haven't really proved themselves at state level. Nevil is young though.

 

[psychic duck]

 

[Darwin]

2nd NZ vs South Africa test starts later today. Hopefully we will perform better than in the first test (maybe we will make it to day 4 this time, or - dare I dream - make South Africa have to bat twice!). We have been spared somewhat with Philander out injured, though I'm sure Kleinveldt will be itching to prove himself. We have made a couple of changes ourselves - namely the addition of two South Africans (Munro and Wagner). Not sure how Munro will go - he is a big hitter, but I feel is still more suited to the shorter form of the game (though does have an impressive first class average so far - 58 from 18 matches). Wagner is a good addition I feel - he hasn't been in the best form this season, but when he is firing he can be devastating (he took 5 wickets in 1 over in a FC match in 2011!).

Quite looking forward to the Australia vs Sri Lanka ODIs starting today too. I may be one of the few people these days who still enjoy ODI cricket (not as much as test cricket but far more than T20). They should be far closer than the tests. Indeed I would even suggest that Sri Lanka would be favourites with the addition of ODI/T20 specialists like Malinga, Mendis, while the Australian side is very green looking (top 3 all on debut).