The Silver Fern

The only time Conway has looked like recapturing his form lately is when he plays aggressively, so I hope the plan is for him to go out and play a few shots. Like @Chris I'm concerned about his footwork though, even at his peak he was never a big mover of his feet but these days he seems to be stuck in concrete. You get away with that more in the shorter forms though, and he still has an incredible eye.

Oh man I hope that injury isn't serious, he is batting so well

@KiwiMurph I am not sure why the played the ODI in Wellington at the Basin, but I am glad they did. Much better atmosphere when the ground is packed.

Looks like we'll have a score to chase today

@mariner4life said in NZ Cricket:

@Yeahtheboys said in NZ Cricket:

Babar and Kohli are the biggest myths in this world. Kane is criminally under appreciated globally

pffft haha what?

A guy that scores an ODI hundred every 5 and a half innings is a myth? he's probably the best 50-over batsman of all time.
His test record is not "all time great" but he still averages 48 and has 30 test hundreds. More importantly than the numbers, his attitude is what dragged this Indian team forward to a side that could win anywhere. How many players go to Australia, play four test matches, score 4 hundreds, and average 86?

He's definitely on the downhill slide out of the test arena, but lets not overdo it aye?

As the discussion is about tests I took it to mean he's a myth in the test arena. He is the GOAT 50 over batsmen no doubt with Babar right on his heels there.

Myth in tests is a bit over the top (but hey it's the Fern) but the hype he has gotten given his record is not even the best Indian player of all time, let alone a world GOAT test batsmen has also been over the top, but that's largely due to him being Indian so he has 1 billion people talking him up.

I do take your point about attitude though, he has been a player that has risen to the occasion against the big teams in hostile conditions where his teammates have just rolled over. But his average in the past decade is 16 runs less than Kane's, 14 less than Smith's, so he's not really in the same conversation in tests.

@dogmeat said in NZ Cricket:

Plus I see little evidence of Kane being underappreciated so wrong on both counts

Kane is definitely under appreciated globally, and I've heard more than one commentator say the same thing. As already posted statistically he has been the best batsmen in the world for the past decade which you wouldn't know unless you look closely at the numbers. It's just because he's from NZ, and we play fuck all tests compared to the "big three", so he's not in the headlines as much as the others from those teams.

Needed more from Mitchell at the end there. Need Henry to smack 20 odd off this last over and then come out and roll them.

Hard to say what a par score is in a 37 over match, but it feels like we've ended up with about that. Competitive, but Sri Lanka will more than back themselves to chase it down.

I am even later on this, but a very professional performance from the Black Caps.

I took my eldest boy (11) to the game, and it was fucking freezing lol, but thankfully having grown up in Wellington and having memories of freezing my tits off at the Basin I booked us tickets up in the Museum stand so we had some shelter from that insane southerly. My boy hasn't taken a lot of interest in any sports to date in his life, but this year he's taken an interest in cricket and he loved seeing them play live, which warms my heart.

On the game, Henry and Young the obvious stand out performers. Echo the sentiments above, Henry MOTM by miles as bowling in that wind with strong gusts that throw your runup off is a nightmare, his control in those conditions was absolutely world class. I thought the other bowlers went short far too often, the majority of the Sri Lankan runs came from short deliveries.

Ravindra and Young looked very assured as an opening partnership, they got us away to a very fast start with little risk. Ravindra once again looked world class until he got himself out, again. That's his biggest work on; other sides have not found any obvious weakness in his game, he just gets over confident and throws it away. If he can show even half the application and concentration that Kane does he'll end up with a fantastic record.

Young showed why leaving him out for Conway against England was an absolutely absurd decision. As talked about during the Indian series, he's really refined his technique and has a much better feel for where his off stump is now, so is not getting nicked out the way he was earlier in his career.

On Sri Lanka, their body language went to shit in the field pretty quickly. They really didn't enjoy that cold southerly and once Young and Ravindra got a good start it became a bit of a formality.

Just wanted to have another bitch about our schedule this summer. Our last game against Sri Lanka is the 3rd ODI on 11th January, then there is zero Black Caps game until 8th February, when we play Pakistan in fucking Pakistan?! Then that is followed by the Champions Trophy between 19th February and 9th March. Then finally, on 16th March, we get some international cricket in NZ with Pakistan touring.

So between 11th January and 16th March, I.E. the NZ summer, we have zero international cricket being played in NZ.

Fucking absurd.

Do they employ an "umpires call" for caught behind? That was probably out but not sure it was conclusive enough to overturn the umpires decision

Pant is one of the biggest tin arses in world cricket. He doesn't often last that long, but is entertaining to watch.

@NTA said in Australia v India:

Cummins with 2 quick strikes.
Starc with a rank piece of bait which Kohli swallows.

Advantage Australia

I think it was pretty smart bowling from Starc in that he was putting them short of a length up to that point, and then threw that one up for him to have a nibble at knowing Kohli doesn't like to be tied down. And it worked. Very poor cricket from Kohli though, him getting out seemed a bit inevitable, it's been a long while since he's had any real decent patch of form in the test arena.

Some leg side full tosses that the batsmen would have put into the stands in the last over there, but it was their tail batting due to the flurry of wickets we took.

Sri Lanka dominated the first and third quarters, we dominated the second and fourth. We did well to stay in the fight and win it at the death, though Sri Lanka will feel they should have won and will take some confidence.

@NTA said in Australia v India:

Smith with a second ton in two matches. That's 34 in Tests, and not far from 10k

You can thank me for that! I said in the first test I thought age was catching up with him, and that his dodgy technique walking across his stumps would finally be found out now his eye is not as good... so he goes and scores two superb tons! Incredible player.

@booboo said in Black Caps vs England Series:

@Crazy-Horse said in Black Caps vs England Series:

I fail to see the point of Philips. Not good enough at bowling, doesn't contribute enough with the bat and has brain farts I the field. Second thoughts, he's a traditional Black Caps all-rounder

He's made me think he's a really promising batsman. Just not delivered on that in this series.

The bowling and fielding is a bonus.

I want him to deliver on his primary role, which because of my fanboi-ing I'm sure he can ...

We haven't used Phillips well. He's at best a part time bowler, and his first class record suggests that - decent enough averages but has never bowled a huge amount of overs. So batting him at 7 just makes no sense. It makes even less sense when you consider we've been insisting on playing Blundell as an all rounder and batting him at 6 when leading up to that century he'd been averaging about 14 for the past year, on top of his glove work being generally untidy.

Swapping them around would benefit both players. It'd give Phillips a chance to bat with batsmen more instead of managing the tail, to see if he can replicate his 40 FC average at test level. It would also mean he can come out with a license to play his natural attacking game knowing there is still enough batting left to eek out some more runs if needed. For Blundell it'd take some pressure off his batting and hopefully allow him to focus a bit more on his glovework which is his primary role in the team.

@KiwiMurph said in Australia v India:

Would Travis Head be the best cricketer in the world right now?

Head has been going well but his record even in recent times is only very good without being great. For me Bumrah is at the top, conditions at home don't often suit him and playing overseas is always challenging, but he just continues to carve up and his record just gets better all the time. Incredible player. After that I have Kane, he has been consistently the best batsmen in the world for a number of years now but just doesn't play as much as the others. He is aging like a fine wine at the moment, consistently knocking out 50s and 100s whenever he gets the chance, which won't be for a while now as our summer of tests appears to be over already...

@barbarian that BMac wicket really derailed us, he was so dangerous that tournament and if he'd gotten away even just a bit and got a quick 30 or 40, our confidence would have been right up. It wasn't just that he got him out first over as well, the manner of the dismissal put us on the back foot; BMac didn't even look like hitting it, the ball was just way too good for him.

What a stupid shot from Pope

@Gunner he averages over 50, so statistically speaking Latham has dropped an easy 50 runs there, probably more. It still grates me how dismissive he was about our catching, it's not even club level standard at the moment.