I, too, disagree that this is the worst team we've had in a while - certainly, like BoPman said, the 92-97 period was a much darker time.
The basic problem is twofold: firstly, the batting line-up is very inexperienced; I mean Taylor is the senior batsman in the top 6 these days, and he's only 25 I believe. But there's enough there to give cause for optimism - Ryder and Taylor could potentially be very, very good players for us, and I like the look of both Guptill and Flynn in their respective positions. The issue is that all these guys are still pretty much learning on the job, but I think the batting will come right with more experience.
The bigger problem is the bowling - other than Vetorri, there's no-one there who can consistently apply enough pressure to trouble test-level batsman. Martin's a good bowler and aging, but he's not really a leader of a pace attack at the highest level. O'Brien is another one who's competent at the test level, but not much more than that really. And he's not that young either. So for me, the real onus needs to be on finding and progressing younger bowlers, and that's why I'm so pissed off with the way the selectors treat Southee - he's the one bright young bowling prospect we have, and he's not allowed a mistake/bad performance and gets dropped accordingly. It really frustrates me.
So overall, I think we have the makings of a decent batting side, with a bowling line-up that will struggle to trouble test teams on good decks. Basically, business as usual for a NZ test team, but I really think that both Taylor and Ryder COULD become very, very good players at test level and give us a bit more than we've been used to in the last few seasons. Or at least I hope so.
I, too, disagree that this is the worst team we've had in a while - certainly, like BoPman said, the 92-97 period was a much darker time.
The basic problem is twofold: firstly, the batting line-up is very inexperienced; I mean Taylor is the senior batsman in the top 6 these days, and he's only 25 I believe. But there's enough there to give cause for optimism - Ryder and Taylor could potentially be very, very good players for us, and I like the look of both Guptill and Flynn in their respective positions. The issue is that all these guys are still pretty much learning on the job, but I think the batting will come right with more experience.
The bigger problem is the bowling - other than Vetorri, there's no-one there who can consistently apply enough pressure to trouble test-level batsman. Martin's a good bowler and aging, but he's not really a leader of a pace attack at the highest level. O'Brien is another one who's competent at the test level, but not much more than that really. And he's not that young either. So for me, the real onus needs to be on finding and progressing younger bowlers, and that's why I'm so pissed off with the way the selectors treat Southee - he's the one bright young bowling prospect we have, and he's not allowed a mistake/bad performance and gets dropped accordingly. It really frustrates me.
So overall, I think we have the makings of a decent batting side, with a bowling line-up that will struggle to trouble test teams on good decks. Basically, business as usual for a NZ test team, but I really think that both Taylor and Ryder COULD become very, very good players at test level and give us a bit more than we've been used to in the last few seasons. Or at least I hope so.