NZ v SA Test Series
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Well done Henry Nichols i have been a little critical of you in the past but that was a quality century and virtually chance-less till you got to the late 90s but unlike last time you made it.
Well deserved century this time and sealed your place at 5 for a long time cause this is a good bowling attack and the others looked clueless, Watling is still struggling although valiantly.
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@Bovidae said in NZ v SA Test Series:
Shit, I go out for an hour and we lose 3 wickets. We could have written Latham's mode of dismissal before he took guard.
Although I desperately wanted Broom to succeed I'm not surprised he's gone early. Time for Nicholls to stand up (hoping I'm not putting the mockers on him).
Any other predictions needed?
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Aarggh - and now BJ gets an incredibly unlucky caught behind.
He's down on one knee sweeping - gets a bottom edge onto his front pad, which instead of then bouncing harmlessly on the ground, bounces on the flap of his back leg pad and is caught.
So the ball bounces on both pads and not the ground.
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fuck i hate it when we play a good attack and get out to the part-time dobbly bowlers. fucking hell lads.
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268 all out. Not bad considering I thought they would be all out for 100 this morning.
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SA 12/2. Grandhomme and Southee causing trouble.
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Knocking over the two openers helps to even up the day a bit, but it would have been better if that first ball of Southee's final over had knocked over Rabada, instead of leaking 12 off the over.
He had the new ball hooping about, but that will fade pretty quickly, so it's imperative to knock over three or four more tomorrow morning.
For us, going from 217/5 to 222/8 was pretty disappointing and especially losing six wickets to the spinners. Raval, Neesham and CdGh were all pretty soft. Watling chronically unlucky.
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Congrats to Nicholls for bringing up his first century. We really needed it today. Nice support work by Watling too, and the cameo by Southee at the end got us up to 268 which is short but not dreadful.
Getting the two wickets at the end was a big bonus. The quicks will be licking their lips at getting into their work first thing in the morning. Oh, to have Boult. Ah well.
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Didn't catch a ball today, fucking work, but great to see Nicholls confirmed as our number 5 batsmen for the next 6 years. I still think there's some defensive flaws that need work but you can't deny his potential, mentally he appears pretty strong, some good knocks against quality opposition under his belt now. 118 against SA on day one of a test is nothing to be sneezed at.
CDGH to take another 6 tomorrow...
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Great from Nichols, shows the bonus of picking a good young guy who can tweak his technique & grow into being a test player. Anbd has the time to be in that team for 8 more years.
As opposed to picking mid thirties guys.
Odd lack of "what would Guppy do at 5!" this morning...
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@gollum I think it's understood that he'd be better than Broom ...
I would like us to only play one of Neesham, de Grandhomme, and Santner per test at most.
Is it so strange to play 6 batsmen, 4 bowlers, and a wicket keeper?
BTW, Santner's test averages are 25.11 for batting, and 39.70 for bowling.
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To be honest I'd play Guppy in the middle order ahead of Broom too. 3
But ideally I'd find the guy in NZ cricket with the best leave & best backfoot plaay who is under 25 & pick him. He can learn to play shots, learning to leave is the bit our guys cannot get their head round once they've played domestic for a while.
I'm a little surprised Jesse Ryder hasn't been mentioned. He's a year younger than Broom & bowls well. If we are picking guys in their 30's he's in the frame.
Actually I'd maybe rather him than guppy too. Despite his batting for the last 3 years being shithouse.
@Tim said in NZ v SA Test Series:
Is it so strange to play 6 batsmen, 4 bowlers, and a wicket keeper?
Issue there is we usually only have - at best, 2 strike bowlers. So if we play 4, one is a spinner who is of little use for 3 days on NZ tracks (if then) & the other is a dibbler. So we need a 5th to try vary things. It briefly looked like Boult-Wagner-Southee might give us 3 strike bowlers, one with stamina (Wagner), but Southee is back to being eratic pigshit after an 18 month golden period a couple of years ago.
