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

I dunno, it was impressive, but power-hitting by itself doesn't really do it for me tbh. You see so many 6s and 4s in T20s that a batsman doing it in an ODI on a good pitch when his team are chasing barely more than a hundred is nothing to get the blood pumping. There's no tension, no drama - if he'd got out playing like that the balance of the game wouldn't have shifted at all.

Plus, it was the second game in 3 days at the same venue, where SL batted first and folded meekly and then we tonked a few as we easily chased it down. We've played what, 8 or 9 ODIs against Sri Lanka in New Zealand in the last year or so? With 3 more to go. How does that scheduling make sense? I would rather have had a 3rd test and 3 ODIs.

Next up equally tough, Bangladesh??

Nah, it's Pakistan next. I have no idea if they'll be good or bad. Probably large helpings of both

Oh yea a close match would be far more interesting.  But I'm hardly going to complain about our bowlers doing well at stopping them score and our batsmen chasing down the target well and easily, as they are both good things.

Sure it would be great to play Aus, India and SA more but that's not going to happen, i'm sure even the organizers weren't expecting us to shark all over Sri Lanka like this.

and I always love a batsmen having a crack and having boundaryfest in a ODI more than a T20.  T20's are a bit of fun to me, nothing more.  Awesome batting in ODI's are my favorite batting, so I loved watching Guppy go ballistic (the 200 in the WC is one of my favourite sporting achievements to witness).

I mean Id rather we play Sri Lanka lots than nobody, maybe Sri Lanka is all they could get, and maybe the number of tests weren't all NZ's choice either.  

Honestly if your choices were the Sri Lanka tours in their current state or no cricket in that time, what would be your choice.  I'm just enjoying it for what it is, us doing well over a good cricketing country.

bit of a partnership happening for the West Indies right now which is scoring runs at a decent pace too. Doubt they'll chase the total down but it'd be nice if they at least make Aussie sweat. 

I don't know whose decision it was to have a 7 match ODI series and 5 match ODI series at home against the same opposition in a calendar year, but it just seems silly. Yeah it's better than no cricket, but I can't force myself to be excited about it. Part of the problem is the ICC's future tour programme system, where teams only have each other at least once at home and once away every 10 years. The big 3 just arrange games to suit them and will host a minor nation only when they have to. I think they should bring in the test championship idea and force every team to play each other twice (once home/once away) every 5 years or so, then more games would matter. In fact, you could even expand the number of test nations from 10 to 12 and have a 2 tier system with promotion and relegation alongside the current future tours programme, so the 1st team would still have to play the 12th team at least twice in 10 years.  And make all tours 3 tests/3 ODIs/3T20s. Of course that won't happen, but I can dream. 

Personally though, I've just become less interested in limited overs cricket in the last few years too - the World Cup was an exception and got me leaping on the bandwagon but generally what I like about cricket is the sort of epic drama that comes from test matches and series. Moments like Guptill's 200 in a world cup knock out game are the stuff legends are made of, but for me the context  is a large part of what makes it. 

I'm happy we're doing well in ODIs but I'd be lying if I said I was eagerly awaiting the next match.

Against Sri Lanka, I'm starting to feel perhaps how an Ausi supporter used to feel about us a few years ago. Hoping we bat first and if they do that they don't collapse too badly so there is a bit of a game.

Actually it also reminds me of primary school cricket as well.

Saying all that if we played them at their house they would probably roll us.

massive fan of the 2 division idea. You could leave it open for countries to decide how many games they want in a series too, and keep tours as a thing (just have a minimum of 3 rule to stop 2 test series). 

Particularly good for ODIs as it would allow countries such as Ireland etc to have a shot at becoming a top tier side - they basically already play a lower tier now amongst themselves, just add a couple of current test playing nations with promo/relegation and itd be great. 

It'd also allow England Australia and India to legitimately play each other often, as 2 test nations would always be in the lower division - they'd just have to make sure not to get relegated themselves of course. 

Stoked that Milne is int he side, if he can get a little variety in his bowling he could be a vicious pace bowler.

Sri Lanka. Smashed us.

Haha close enough game Conan?

Why is anyone batting first? First batters are losing sides.  was hoping Milne would have a blinder.

Well, it held my attention longer than the previous 2 games!

Haha fair.

Just gotta say had Pakistan been in that game questions would be asked about the reversal.LOL

What an astonishing "turnaround".

?  If you are implying match fixing you don't understand cricket.

Is this a quote from Chris Cairns?

Lonegunmen you are always crying match fixing in this thread. Don't understand it personally, regardless of match fixing and spot fixing that has plagued the game in the past. I've never seen you suggest the same about football. One could easily reach the conclusion Durante was on the fix when he gifted CCM a third goal on a plate the other night.

The Pakistan tour is a weird one. Just a couple ODI's and T20's squeezed in between playing Oz, similar to when they came last year before the World Cup. We need a test series against them here, haven't had one for years.

The only match fixing in football might be the suggestion by the powers that run it, suggesting to block all efforts by the Nix to be part of it. I think they call it "Metrics". Sadly, Cricket has been fixed as you said. it is a shame as it is a game I have loved for many years. I think when England and the West Indies and Australia were very strong in the 70's. I was spoiled.

2013 English match fixing scandal

2006 Italian football scandal

2011–12 Italian football scandal

Italy police arrest 50 in football match-fixing probe

Marseille arrests and match-fixing probe rock French football

Soccer-Porto president to stand trial for alleged bribery

And thats without even going into what goes on in Asian, Eastern European, and African Football.  You are incredibly naive if you think this is solely a cricket problem.

Our administrators don't give a shark about test cricket Buffon.  We traded away the third test against aussie for a few ODI's over the next few years (which the Aussie's will probably cancel in a couple of years anyway), and don't play them again in a test until 2020 at the earliest!

One gets pissed off with the reasoning that T20 & One dayers are where the money is. Money is not everything in cricket. EVERYONE knows that the real challenge is test cricket - especially if it can last longer than 3 days.

sports selling themselves out for a short term money grab is a sad trend these days 

Read Kevin Pietersen's book. It's a good insight (beyond the munted Pom dressing room stuff lol) around Test v T20.

Now this game is more like it!

Also, I was having a look at Statsguru today after having a conversation at work about Guptill, and man he has an impressive record in ODIs - so much so that I'm surprised he isn't rated more highly generally. he's got a better average than a string of guys (Ponting, Lara, both Waughs, Sehwag, Martin Crowe, Chanderpaul... And a bunch more) - in fact, of guys who have played at least 100 ODIs only 14 have better averages and only one of those is a kiwi (Taylor). Plus his strike rate is around 85, way better than a lot of those guys around him. And of course he has the second highest ODI score ever too.

I guess his struggles in tests have kind of masked how good his ODI record really is.

Sri Lanka put up a good chase but thank fudge guppy gave us some good ground to stand on.

It could have gone either way at the end there.

Didn't realise guppys stat's were that good.

I'm generally a Guptill fan, I think his perception issue is based on the fact he is either very very hot or very very cold. You don't tend to get much middle ground. He gets into runs of form and makes them count, he's in one now, the one he had in England a couple of seasons ago. But he equally has some pretty disastrous slumps, the one before the WC being the obvious.

I think he also suffers in the same way that (in a silly way) Taylor suffers. They both belong to the same generation as KW. If KW didn't exist, we would all be going nutty about Ross Taylor and Martin Guptill given the numbers they are racking up. But because KW exists, and his numbers are absolutely stupid, they suffer in comparison.

They all suffer from being peers with Trent Boult I reckon! They're just batsmen!

This game could swing any direction.

We were looking dangerous as hell.  Then it rained wickets.

Modi cans Cairns case

Interesting, I wonder what Modi has got to lose? If he is innocent, he has millions and can afford to prove it, but he stops it? Just perhaps Cairns might have been right and was telling the truth all along. What does this make the others look?

I think that would be defending the impossible position saying Cairns was innocent cause that then makes Bond, Vettori, McCullum, Harris and a whole host of others a pack of liars. Common sense would say that's extremely unlikely

You are right, common sense would but what does the truth say? Just asking. Would love to know the real reasons the case has been dropped.

Short boundary.  With 7 overs 100 more is possible.

Shark if they bat like those last 2 balls it'd be easy.

So Guptill and Williamson just got a world record 20-20 partnership of 171 runs - nice work.

12 runs were extras.

Kinda weird that the partnership total includes extras - it's not as though the batsmen were responsible for those ...

Extras can include byes, leg byes etc which can be influenced by a batsman's actions. It can be argued that the pressure of bowling to certain batsmen can cause bowler mistakes. 

in real cricket, those partnership scores are usually a testament to how long (and for how many runs) a batting pair managed to stay out in the middle for. It doesn't really matter for Hit and giggle. 

Does anyone want a game with my team on Saturday? 12:30pm start at Macalister Park - we can supply whites and all gear (even a box if you're brave)

Don't disagree, but surely by that logic the extras should be credited to the batsmen's scores also?