Its Summer! - the Fever Cricket Thread. (Part 2)

 At least we won't be batting on day 5 on a truning wicket. #accentuatethepositive

punk of a dismissal for Williamson. Fulton and Rutherford also in the to do better camp. Brownlie undone by a good 'un, well set up and really the first one to start to reverse. 

About the runs I wanted from the first session, just too many wickets...!

Reckon it's worth a guy with a severe dose of manflu heading down to see McCullum get 100? Or do we think he won't get there? Its a toughy.

I think it'd likely just end up to be depressing, even if he does get it.... If it was a local guy then maybe it'd be worth it, but I'd say it's more likely he doesn't reach it. Hope I'm wrong though!

sold out man. snooze you looooose!

fantastic for the game. Hopefully we'll see more home 3 test series and some at a respectable time of the year!

I have a match pass :p

Just bought my ticket for tomorrow, to avoid missing out. Hopefully I can actually get to see us bat.

Tim Southee really is a retarded batsman.

Until he learns that as a number 8 he has a responsibility to actually take his batting seriously depending on the situation (and one of those situations is when chasing a follow on total and batting with an actual batsman) he should be at number 11.  Just a horrible attitude with the bat.  And this is a guy that is touted as a potential vice captain.  I sure as hell hope not.

Great catch from Bell.  Start up the rain dances fellas.

Good morning session. Think play will be intermittent today, will be interesting if that works in our favour.

It'd usually suit the bowling side more. Think we just need to bat out the day as forecast is far from good for tomorrow. 

Yeah, but it can be hard for bowlers to settle into their spells in those kind of situations, and fielding becomes a lot more tricky on a wet ground and with a wet ball.

Think he's been given licence to hit out, witness his partnership with McCullum. Don't know if he's able to defend.

Also as someone just pointed out, it might be his place under threat from Bracewell! Though I'm still unconvinced by Wagner's ability to threaten consistently and in all conditions.

No Simon Doull, this is bad news.

I better not tell you the full story then.

No not poisoned.

I'm intrigued...

Chinese whisper. No cricketer was involved but a cricket ball was. A short-tempered member of the groundstaff is the culprit and has shown no remorse despite the media attention. 

HB?

Correct. 

Hilarious. 

Yeah I think the whole thing is quite funny but you can see how animal lovers won't be quite as ammused. What I thought was really funny was what drove him to do it - the ducks were persistently eating the grass on the block and in turn kept sharkting all over it as well which was frustrating for him while he was preparing the Wgtn v Nd one day pitch and he snapped and threw a cricket ball at them and is obviously a decent shot.

Haha awesome. Also not expecting to hit obviously. 

Would have had a good dinner that night...

It actually took two days to die. We called the SPCA and they didn't turn up so it eventually died. By then we weren't too keen to eat it because it could have been in pretty poor shape. 

Wow. Rezpekt.

Ha. Great stuff.

 We're gonna win 1-0, we're gonna win 1-0!

Fulton incredibly lucky so far.  Playing the same shot that got him out in Wellington 6 or 7 times now - just going with the hands away from the body.

Edit: And Ian Smith agrees with me, as I am typing this.

After the first hour he seemed to stop chasing at it and sorted his judgement.  Hopefully it continues.

Williamson must be so weirded out to have openers in front of him this series who actually do their job (i.e. battle through the first hour, and do the hard yards for the easy runs later). It certainly weirds me out watching.

This could potentially be the dullest test series since NZ versing Pakistan 88/89.  

I'd take a dull 160/1 over and exciting 220/7 any day of the week.

Hopefully we won't find out until an hour before stumps tomorrow.

 

Another note

Guptil to bat 5 ahead of Brownlie in England?

I've always beleived he is better there in test matches