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

I play occasionally for Stokes Valley, after my withdrawal from the lower(lowest) 2 day grade.

Williamson out, Rosco captains, NichoLOLs in. 

We are so screwed.

Rosco to ground his bat, score 500+

Jeets to take 15 wickets in the test

Great first session after being asked to bowl.  Hopefully we can keep the pressure going.

Wow! Huge cricket news...Blackcaps tour may be called off as the BCCI have had their accounts frozen by a court in India. Looks like some big issues ahead for them. 

Just read that too. WTF is that all about as such. What is going on underneath. Not enough time to organise a substitute scenario.

BCCI finding yet another way to fudge cricket over

Not saying it is untrue, but I will believe it when it is better sauced - all reports at this stage are being sited back to the one Indian newspaper.

Although it may put us out of our batting misery.  Can anyone remember the last time we were 250+/4 or better outside the Zimbabwe tour?  It feels like we are always around 200/5 trying desperately to claw somewhere near 300.

The test arena is still a frustrating one and even more so now that we're a real force in both limited overs versions of the game. Guptil is all at sea and Taylor isn't anywhere near his best - Latham and Williamson are the only batsmen I trust right now. It's been a shame to see Watling struggle as he seemed to be on the up and up. 

The problem is, we have other options in New Zealand right now in the first class arena but for some reason they aren't seen as options. 

• Is Popli from ND able to play for New Zealand or is he an overseas player? 1149 first-class runs last season but you never hear his name in BlackCaps discussion. 
• Ben Smith? FC average of 41.50 and 61.13 last season including a 244. 
• McClure from Canterbury. He's only 22 and scored 667 runs @ 60.63 with a high score of 193* last season

It's our opening stands. There is never any base for the stroke makers to come in to. That perhaps and the increase of quality of bowling with the old ball...

Those names mentioned will get their chance but they are still quite raw. Don't forget it's a big step from NZ first class to test match cricket. You have to be really special to get a crack in test cricket without a few first class seasons under the belt. Some are good enough to learn their game at test level but very few. Can potentially be a case of lambs to the slaughter. The thing about guys like Guptill that tend to fail a lot have actually proven they have the mental edge to cope with failure (in his case his technique will never be good enough for tests) but a young guy might not be able to bounce back from the mental blows as easily.

Now it is back on??

Can't tell but still some doubt - maybe refer it to DRS?

Was never off.

Game tracking says it was always going to miss

Fraudtill picked again.

How on earth can they justify dropping Wagner!?  I can understand playing Neesham, but Wagner has been our best bowler over the last 18 months.

And how can we lose so many fudgeing tosses :@

Wagner would be handy to have about now.

Did Bangladesh beat England? They were cruising it and then lost 4 quick wickets.

Ouch.

That is all. 

Looks a flat wicket - can't judge it until we've played our 1st innings. We can still rack up a shark ton - though obviously cant win it from here

What an absolute shambles. Same backbone as the team pre-Bazza/Hesson era. Need to bounce back in the ODI or we are in for a loooooong, sad summer. 

:'(

showed as much resistance as a wet round wine biscuit.

Is the excuse going to be "It was India on the sub-continent so it was bound to happen"?

Another series we fail to win a test, and another whitewash on top of that. In the space of 12-18 months we have gone from being 3rd in the test rankings and seemingly capable of giving anyone a competitive match on our day, to a distant 7th and being comprehensively outplayed in all three departments on a regular basis. Not good enough.

I'm catching up with Gav Larsen this arvo in regards to some local club cricket stuff. Any messages you'd like passed on?

Get Bondy back asap.

Just so we're clear...as a player or as the bowling coach?

I'd almost be happy with both at this stage.

Get Allan Donald back - that's who started the bowlers going down the right path.

Cool...so Allan Donald, Shane Bond...anyone else?

Even at his age Paddles would have at least gone down fighting and not without so much as a wimper. Question for Gav? "Why?"

Why our best bowler in the past 12 months by a country mile did not play this game.

I'd hazard a guess that it was loading/fatigue. He flogs his body more than most and it was some pretty tough conditions over there. But as I said, just a guess. 

I struggle to digest the fact that kohli has won 7 consecutive tosses at home. I refuse to cry conspiracy but that's some extremely good luck!  

As for us, not good enough really but it was tough over there losing all three tosses so always getting the worst of the conditions is never a good start, albeit most will say that's just an excuse - it's also a legitimate factor. Remember SA feared worse than us in their most recent test series in India - which funnily enough kohli also won all three tosses! 

By SKype, clone him, whatever...private jet...

Kohli- a good tosser, but still a tosser

The one thing about this NZ team though it that they will bounce back from this, they won't dwell on those performances and while they'll be gutted right now, it'll be swept away come the ODI's

I've lost 14 tosses in a row over the course of a season before, this sort of shark can happen.  Even 'tails never fails' couldn't help me.