@dogmeat said in Cricket: NZ vs England:

We have 6 guys averaging 40+ with the bat and 3 less than 30 with the ball.

Quite often a batsman will start off well and their average slowly declines but even CdG has played 28 innings - next lowest is Nicholls with 42.

The three bowlers have 693 wickets between them!!!

Our two "passengers" are Santner and Raval - hardly surprising as openers and spinners are our biggest traditional weaknesses but look at the match Santner had and Raval has the 7th best average of any Kiwi who has opened in 20+ innings and is our 11th highest scorer as an opener He also almost invariably succeeds in the main job of an opener - he sees off the new ball and thus makes it easier for the classy batsmen who follow.

We have won 32 tests this decade. It took us until March 1994 to record our 32nd test victory in our history!!!!!

Two CWC Finals as well. I never imagined we could have it so good. Hadlee's 17 year career only encompassed 22 victories - Fleming had 31 in 14 years

Raval is the kind of opener that would be singled out and dropped in past black cap team for 'not scoring fast enough' or 'creating pressure' while we ignore the fact that our middle order might look great but are wildly inconsistent.

In this team Kane and Ross protect Raval by being consistent enough to take advantage of the hard graft Raval does. He's the kind of role player that does the dirty work most don't really notice but is key to our wider success. I'm sure both Ross and Kane will average more with Raval and Latham opening.

He remains the tempting candidate to drop for the up and comers (Will Young), but I hope we resist the temptation to slot a promising middle order bat in as a makeshift opener. If an opener is bashing down the door by all means try him out, but we need to recognise that being a test opener requires a specific set of skills that not all batsmen will posses.

The Silver Fern

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