Its Summer! - the Fever Cricket Thread.

The chokers are rolling the auzis here.  Somewhat mixed feelings...

Lolstralia are back folks.

Wow, South Africa are batting pretty f#$king good.

Ending Day 2 of a test 292 runs ahead with 8 wickets in hand.....in the THIRD INNINGS of the match!!!

What was that about them choking?

Taylor or McCullum?

Taylor.

Gosh I hope Ricki Ponting gets a golden duck.  Saffas by 500 please.

Have to make do with 8.  

Having said that, no doubt he was one of the top 5 batsmen of his generation of cricketers.

Yeah he was. He was also a massive wanker though.

South Africa on the verge...

 Of course he is a wanker and a dick head, but rated the second best batsman behind Tendulkar. Played international cricket for  15 years, over 12000 runs and 39    100's.

What a loser.

Ponting is a world-class cock but boy his pull shot was good to watch.

I'm looking forward to further evidence of the lack of depth in Australian cricket as they recycle one of Marsh, Kawaja or Quinney to replace him. Also, John Hastings?! WTF!

NZ Cricket. Shambles.

Warne has called for Quinney to be the replacement.

Funny given he has only just been dropped.

In regards to the original decision to appoint Taylor, the below part of the Stuff article intrigued me. 

"McCullum has high-powered backing, notably from two former skippers.

Daniel Vettori is a McCullum supporter and Stephen Fleming is McCullum's manager and business partner, and sat on the panel that appointed Hesson."

Particularly the last half of that sentence. Roots of it go deeper still. 

this is a FIFA-size shambles of an admin structure. Minus the FIFA-size income stream :(

Wow... just when you thought cricket in NZ couldn't get worse...

There is something seriously wrong with the culture in that team. E.g. Tim Southee having a pop at the "fickle supporters who'll jump back on the bandwagon"... perhaps some truth in it but just doesn't seem right after the debacle they have been... http://www.3news.co.nz/BlackCaps-shrug-off-critics/tabid/317/articleID/278841/Default.aspx

I kept getting involved in debates about the best way to play test match cricket, so I've tried to test the concept of batting for time and whether it works compared to having a hit. Also crunched the numbers on who has been at the crease the most so far this year, and whether they're worthy of a call-up to the national team. If you're interested or think it's totally incompetent and worthless, take a look:

http://fromthecarpark.blogspot.co.nz/2012/12/batting-time-myth-or-magic.html 

Word is Colin Munro and Jimmy Neesham will be getting BC call-ups. New keeper too.

Yuck, Neesham, no. BJ will be keeping I've hard, apparently Brownlie might be back too.

The best bat should always be the captain in my opinion.  Unless he's always injured (i.e., Martin Crowe) or he's a bit of a numpty (i.e., a Miandad type)...also our tail is way too long...that needs to be sorted, quick smart!

Fuck it, give the captaincy to Williamson and start a new 5 year plan. Weed out these fuckwits who put themselves before the team. or something like that.

Wouldn't mind this. Talent isn't worth it if they're going to screw with the team as much as this. 

Not sure if anyone follows Ross Taylor on twitter 

Also Jesse Ryder calling it like it is 

Can't open the link but if that is what he said, get fucked and get fucked now. The shit this team puts its dedicated fans through is unbelievable. And for him to come out and have a pop is awful.

Yeah there will be some unhappy people as a result and that's what I meant when I said:

"Now no matter what happens there will be an unhealthy feud between McCullum and Taylor and McCullum is obviously just buds with Hesson which could cause other problems within the team." 

Everyone in the team and around NZC is going to be fucked off about the way it's happened. People will hold grudges and the team will be split. How the fuck are we meant to crawl our way back to some sort of semi-respectable cricket nation with this happening?

Arguably, England did it post Pietersen/Moores but they had a great leader like Strauss to bring the team together. We don't really have that.

Now, there is absolutely no way this ends well. The only way I can see would be for Hesson to go and Taylor to keep the job but if Taylor has lost the changing room then that doesn't really solve that issue.

I quite like the giving the job to Williamson and putting together a 5-year plan job, similar to what happened with Fleming in 97 really, but we aren't good enough that we could afford to lose McCullum and Taylor from the team. Not saying that would happen but it's a risk.

We basically need to find a path that keeps Baz and Rosscos egos in tack while keeping the team together. Not so fussed about what happens with Hesson but if we could find a way to lose Hesson/Buchanan and Littlejohn and get John Wright back that would be great!

If Wrighty stayed, two things:

1. None of this would have happened and we wouldn't be talking about this. Wouldn't say everything would be sweet but at least we would only have our mediocre performances to moan about.

2. Williamson would probably have got the captaincy position within two years anyway. 

So basically FUCK YOU BUCHANNAN.