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

Nah you're ok Surge, it just sounded like you were being incredibly defensive before. Obviously you have quite an interest in him which is good. I would love for him to come good at test level, for years we have had "spinners" who get piss all turn. So if Sodhi could work on his control whilst keeping the ability to truly get some turn and grip out of the ball it would be fantastic. At the moment it is really a game of give and take though while he is still developing.

Having watched Ish for a good two/three years now, he is improving rapidly. I wasn't a fan of his inclusion at first, I thought it was far too early, but he's really progressed, and will continue to, as mentioned before he's a bit expensive like all leggies, so not really adept for short-form bowling, but his consistency has really shot on over the past season, he had a ripper spell for ND just recently.

The fact he won't be in any short-form squads is good as it means he can still play a decent amount of domestic Plunket Shield and Ford Trophy cricket, and although he hasn't been overseas, he'd definitely get an opportunity if he wanted to at county level, no doubt about it. He'll continue to develop, and he has significant opportunities to do so.

I guess we're a little cursed by our isolation, our very limited player pool, and the limited exposure said players get to play cricket - particularly with a red ball. Hopefully he'll get more out of this series off the park than on it... by that I mean using the opportunitity to talk cricket with the likes of Dhoni, Kohli, Jadeja - all of them. Seeing, hearing, and learning first-hand how they approach the game, their preparation, mentality, psychology, anything he can gain from them can only benefit him and hopefully does.

I recall an interview with Warney (v3.4 pre-botox) where he said the biggest learnings in his early 20's (and first 50-odd tests) were mental, not physical. He could already bowl a half decent ball, and the more he played the more variations and better his consistency became, but the true value came when he learnt to read batsmen, and game situations and adapt his starategies accordingly.

Sure, he has a long way to go but he's heading in the right direction... I just hope more than anything he doesn't become another (T) Astle or Nethula. 

Where's the best place to watch the IPL auction and the Aussies v Saffas this evening?...

https://cricfree.tv/sky-sports-1-live-stream.php

Hope the Saffas throw first and Steyn puts a good length ball through his visor (obviously anything short will go well over his lid lol).

Wow! That's a green looking track. How Macca breaks his form with the toss.

Yeah, there's grassy and then there's green. I think I would be surprised to see us put up a good score if we're put in this time. Indians will be lambs to the slaughter if we win the toss.

Apparently Cricket SA wanted 100k for the series, without knowing what you pay for this kind of stuff normally I could see why Sky passed on it. That figure comes from a tweet from Sommet Sports.

I was at the test in Hamilton in 02/03, against India, where 21 wickets fell in a day and I don't remember it being that green.

Game could be well and truly over by the time the Nix are playing.

This could be absolutely disastrous.

This perseverance with Peter Fulton has gotta stop.  Bloody hopeless.

Whenever I see Rod Latham, all I can think about is THAT 'attempted' cover drive of a Waqar Younis in-swinging corker-yorker.  Poor.

A terrible shot that.

Haven't seen the others yet, but that was a terribly soft dismissal from McCullum there.  One more wicket and India are right into us.

Bad toss to lose. Very loose shot from Mc Cullum.  3 down @ lunch would have been good on this wicket.  200 + will be a good score on this wicket...Hopefully Kane Williamson can bat through with support from the middle to lower order!

Poor session, so close to being worse! Good crowd at least, gotta love the basin!

Got lucky there with Williamson. We really need to try to survive and get through to 200 or maybe 250. Even just with that score I still think we could be in the game. If we get blasted out for 100 green pitch or not, we're in real trouble.

Teehee and again!

Wow. What a non performance from our batsmen. And if you're trying to get wickets. Bowling bouncers(which they are ducking) + leg stump lines(which they are flicking off with ease) just makes no sense.

Have not seen any play up until now. Is 192 a reflection on the pitch or did we revert to a more typical Black Caps batting performance?

The pitch and not having Ross Taylor. And BJ Watling failing to hold the tail together. Overall 192 is better than we might have expected tbh. 

McCullum's was a soft dismissal, but Williamson was out twice off no balls. 

the stats there: innings, not out, runs, highest, average, 100s, 50s

The worry I guess is that we haven't had a lot out of them lately- 3 fails against India, and 3 fails out of 4 against the Windies- all 6 of these innings worse than their average. Rutherford also of late has been the biggest worry, getting out on good batting tracks to silly shots and seemingly unable to bat time, after such a promising start to his test career. Still the memories of good innings may hold their places for a bit longer, especially considering the woeful figures of other recent test pairings.

If I said typical NZ batting performance, what would you assume?

I wouldn't engage in discussion with you in this thread.

Pull your nose out of McCullums ass TL. It's not a personal attack on him.

Yeah you're a groundsman of some note and yeah you know these guys, but you're not a Black Cap as much as your want to defend them EVERYTIME someone paints it like it is. They underachieve consistently and the fact they had yet ANOTHER poor display (2nd innings on the trot) yesterday and you feel slighted by that, well it's probably you who should bugger off from this thread.

I painted a picture (typical batting display) and let others draw their own conclusions. I bet your bollocks to a barn dance that every person would go 'oh out cheaply aye'. You need some serious perspective.

You really are the Steve-O of the cricket thread

Sharma gone. Still not looking pretty though. Need a few of the batsmen to step up in the 2nd innings or we're toast.

Need Kohli soon i feel. Ideally prior to lunch. Any deficit above 100 will be hard to recover from.

Agreed. If we can get them for 250 we're still in the game, but we need to keep taking wickets to do that. There's not much batting below Dhoni so another couple of wickets and we could get there.

We are still bowling poor lines for mine. Good to see we had a bit of luck with wickets this morning though. These two batsmen are looking settled. Need a quick break through after lunch

Wagner is such an asset. Not the flashest average but he is so important to our attack.

Boult at it again! Sublime.

Revert to previous comment JV. Waste of time.

Where are the McCullum haters?

Here.  (Although I don't think I would have described myself as a hater).  This innings, on the back of the double hundred, has shown some real guts.  I think this is the best innings he has played for NZ.  A previous McCullum might have just 'played his natural game' (God I hate that term - it's used as an excuse for shark cricket), but he knuckled down and ground it out.  Even if we lose the test from here, i'm happy that our captain is at least going to make them earn it.

My main issue was where to fit McCullum in given that I felt Ryder needed to come in and bat at five.  This problem has now gone away.

I'm not a McCullum hater, but i'm not a massive fan. However, that innings today. An absolutely great knock.

Given we get ourselves into positions like we were at lunch today quite often, can anyone remember the last time we put a partnership like this one together to give ourselves a chance to get out of it? Williamson rear guard v South Africa at the Basin, Vettori did it a couple of times. But doesn't happen very often!

Right here and giving credit to him cause he finally stood up for a change, played a smart innings AND backed it up. It's all I've asked for is consistently before we start having a wank over them. Taylor and Williamson are, Southee, Boult and Wagner are. They need the others to do the same. Agree Aitkenmike re: natural game. It's bullshark for 'no brains cricket' Either way, this will be a thrashing.

Where's TL? Only sings when they are winning?