Its Summer! - the Fever Cricket Thread.

Expecting that Vettori will need to bowl 40 overs, Jeets about the same. Kane and Gup will have to share a few overs as well. and 20 Zimbabwean wickets too don't forget...

Considering Patel got dropped by Wellington, I have no idea how he is playing in a test. Still, hopefully he does well

Just quietly I think there is more to that than what's on the surface. Wasn't so much on playing performance.TopLeft072011-11-02 22:23:42

Interesting... has he been hanging around with Ma'a?

riveting viewing and the same old depressing news from the NZ camp, half our batting lineup does ok 401 - 5. then the remaining batsmen fail miserably when we are looking like scoring a dominating 500+. Bowlers will struggle to take 19 wickets for the win.

How only one batsman in that team got 100 when all of them got starts is astounding.

Ha... in years past it was always the opposite. We'd stagger to 80/5 then Vettori and co would scrape is through to 350.

Not really, it is the Black Caps after all.

It's more surprising that one of them actually got to a 100.

Just wait till we get to playing good teams - this will be back

When you give us enough of a road we do tend to go alright though, I give you the India tour last year.

Occasionally, yes. But the overall pattern is that our players struggle to get to three figures, even in good batting conditions. The number of hundreds each of batsmen have testifies to that.

And actually, we have been bucking that trend in this tour - 4 100s in 3 ODIs, and now a 100 in the first innings of the Test. But that has more to do with the opposition than anything else I'd say.

Stephen Fleming ios/was a classic example of that, posted multiple great starts (50+) but his conversion rate to 100's was terrible

I'm pretty sure it was due to an on-field incident involving Mark Gillespie, Jeets got punished for his reaction but it was Gillespie who instigated it. Jeets is a good c**t and I think he was hard done by tbh. He's always one of the most proffessional players on and off the pitch, I won't comment on the other guy. TopLeft072011-11-03 11:56:38

Yeah, I went to school with the other guy, so that doesn't surprise me at all.

Chris Martin got his 200th test wicket last night, well done that man. Massive fan of him, a true cult-hero for NZ test cricket tragics.

Also, Dan's 5-wicket haul took him to 350 test wickets, anyone think he has a chance of getting to 500?

It's a pity we don't play more tests, because otherwise I think he would. As it stands he might struggle playing just 5 or 6 tests per year. He already has 4000 runs. 5000 runs (which he surely will do) + 500 wickets would put him right up there as one of the great allrounders.

I was thinking about this this morning - think 5000 runs is pretty much a given (assuming nothing bad happens in terms of injuries, etc), but I think he has a shot at 500 wickets too.

If we play around 6 tests a year (which seems to be about the norm), he needs 5-6 wickets a test over the next 5 years (when he will be 37-38) to get pretty close. And I think he's a pretty statistically driven player, and if he's body hasn't fallen apart by then I think he'd probably keep going to get there. Think a major injury is the main obstacle he's facing in getting to 500.

Mark Richardson broke it down on CGW one night about how Dan could go about reaching the 5000/500 milestone and he was pretty sure he will do it.

i think given the fact that he only plays test cricket now for us will help his body go longer. and yes, he is a very stats driven player so one would think he may already have thought about it a little bit

Congrats to Martin on the 200!

Personally I think both of those are optimistic, but I'd love to be proven wrong! Currently he has 345 wickets in 105 tests so averaging a bit over 3 per test. And then there's the issue of his back...hlmphil2011-11-04 16:14:42

He's got 350 right after the Zimbo's first innings.

But yeah, how his back hold us up is the big issue.

I really dont want to jinx him but this is perfect chance for kane to tick up a ton. Actually i will be really disappointed if he doesn't.

If none of you had guessed i'm a huge fan of his, think he is the future of nz cricket.

Ps also hiding in here away from what i can only imagine is some severe nix angst

Is vettori captain? I could be wrong but asuming he is i would almost think he's better off stepping back and just playing as a bowling allrounder. Think he might perform better without the extra responsibility and (even though i don't rate taylor as a captain) we might as well let the next guy start his tenure m.

Taylor is captian I thought?

Could be, just lazy and cbf looking it up

Also while im on the i <3 williamson crusade look at his bat, notice the red marking right in the middle of his bat? Think that indicates how well he sees the ball against these bowlers and how well he times the ball

He is a key player for the future, I just hope if he goes thru a lean patch he doesnt get cast aside like they have done to players in the past.

I don't think they will. Kane has been watched by nzc for a long time and i think they realise his ability. They will stick with him. Remember he is a lot younger than guys like vincent, sinclair, cumming, marshall, ingram etc when they were given up on. Kane is already performing pretty well in comparison to them when they had their chances and his age gives more reason to invest time in him. I've seen john wright working with him, you can tell wright loves him and is really keen on making sure he becomes a great batsman. All that along with kane's attitude makes me confident he will be.

f**k it! Gutted, let me down! That will about do it for me tonight.

One thing I really miss about not living in NZ anymore is seeing the progress of up and coming cricketers. Used to love getting down to the Basin and watching the 3 and 4 day stuff, even though there were usually only 3 men and a dog there.

Having read and heard a lot about Williamson I was interested to finally see him on TV. You could see immediatly that he has a very sound technique and likes to play in the V. Often with our young batsmen they seem to have great early promise but some quirk or flaw in their technique is ruthlessly exploited once they hit test level. From there they are in and out, in and out of the team, and finally simply out. Mighty frustrating to see so much talent fall by the wayside because they can't be coached out of playing the same old out-shot, or can't play straight bat defensive shots .

how the f**k did we manage that

Slight embarrasment while watching 3 news last night, they referred to it as "Test of the Century". Hmmmmmmm.

Yeah, I could not quite believe my ears when I heard that.

Nz media for you.

Plunket sheild under way this morning. Wellinton getting pumped in napier at the moment.

Crowe's comeback.  Surprise surprise.  Still got "injury niggles". 

Wellington made a bit of a comeback after lunch with 19 year-old debutant Scott Kuggeleijn taking three quick wickets to kick off the CD collapse. Other than Ingram making 81 the rest of CD didn't fare too well. CD were 252 all out and Wellington will be disappointed having undone their good work in the field when they finished the day on 59 having lost three wickets. Score card.

Trent Boult (24     7 48 5), Tim Southee (12 5 34 1) and Brent Arnel (24 6 54 2) bowled well in Whangarei with Boult and Southee at one stage having bowling figures of 13 13 2 and 8 8 1 respectively. I would expect both of these two to appear in the national side at some stage this summer. Southee looked to have a lighter bowling load in his first game back from injury. Auckland finished the day on a disappointing 250/5. Score card.

Rob Nicol hit 16 fours and one six on his way to 107 off 203 balls to throw his name in the hat for a test spot after his recent good form in the one day side. Canterbury ended the day in control on 286/4. Score card.

Some more of the same names doing the business in the Plunket Shield again. The NZ selectors will feel the pressure from these guys some the Aussie tour.

The whole Crowe comeback thing is a joke. Ego maniac throwing himself back into the limelight. I reckon Crowe has been challenged by someone to put his money where his mouth is after all the criticism he has been giving the NZ players lately and he has decided to take it on because of that ego. He wants to be able to turn around and say "if I can do it at 49 what is wrong with our current crop?". Hope he get's rolled in club reserve grade.

TBoult is better than Aldridge, who is a better option to McKay and Patel. Get him in the black caps. Good Day 1 for my ND, bit short on top-order batting though

Not to mention he is a left armer too - we've been missing a decent lefty for some time now. I think that Wright and co are aware of his talent but aren't keen to rush him in to international cricket the way Moles tried to. The kid needs to get some domestic first class overs under his belt first. I agree though, he is inching his way to a selection every game and can't be far off now.