Black Caps in India
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Well, two tests in and two tests lost. Disappointing, but not completely unexpected.
Positives:
- Bowling has been pretty good in general. We've managed to bowl them out 3 times out of 4 for scores around the 250-300 mark. So they are not batting us out of the game. No real standouts but everyone chipping in which is what you need in the hot and humid conditions. Henry very good in the 2nd test and should be rated number 2 behind Boult now, with Southee injury cover.
- Ronchi has been good at 5, though he is obviously not a long-term option, but I enjoy the way he counter-punches when he gets to the crease. We've missed that at 5 post Baz.
- The start time - it's been brilliant coming home from work and settling into an evening of cricket (yeah I'm grasping for positives here...).
Negatives:
- Kane getting sick. That hurt us, bad. Strict diet for the entire team please, local cuisine off the menu.
- Losing both the tosses. Two of our innings have been the 4th innings of the match when the pitch is 1) at its worst and 2) there is the most pressure to survive. Hasn't made things easy, in saying that...
- Our batting is what has cost us the chance of getting a win. The other two innings have been the 2nd of the match when batting has been at its best, and we've folded badly conceding big first innings leads undoing the good work of the bowlers. If we don't get 350+ in our first dig we are never going to get close.
- The Indians incessant appealing with the sole aim of putting the umpire under pressure with no DRS. Some of the appeals were just 100% taking the piss. 1) it's annoying to watch and 2) as fans we are seeing an inferior product with no DRS and no proper analysis of the 25 odd LBW decisions that have been made. Makes for poor viewing - comon India pull your arrogants heads out of your asses and get into the 21st fucking century.
Bring on test number 3. If Rosco can pull finger and Kane can do what Kane does, we do have a chance of snatching a win given we have been able to bowl them out on a regular basis.
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Cancelled? Come on we're not that bad.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/cricket/84933776/blacks-caps-tour-of-india-to-be-cancelled-report
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LOL holy shit, no way they're going to cancel the tour. That'll just be a hollow threat to try and deter the banks from taking action.
Fucking BCCI.
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Something that would help our tail end batting most of the time would be getting either Anderson or Neesham on the field.
They'd slot in at six, probably BJ at seven and Santner at eight. Other than the subcontinent you've then got Henry/Southee, Wagner, Boult.
Lots better than Santner at 6 and Bracewell at 8.
Take a look at the scorecards for India vs South Africa at the end of last year - very similar pattern. India posting only mediocre scores, but whatever they posted they were able to bowl the Jaapies out for less.
They won all the tosses as well!
They're very, very hard to beat at home. What's a bit annoying about that test is that the pitch regularly helped the seamers, but theirs outbowled ours.
Was a very interesting track, though. Conditions seemed to change every couple of hours - there would be a little period where batting looked OK and then suddenly the pitch would start to turn or the ball would start to reverse. Then it would look easier again, and then the new ball would arrive.
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204 and 197.
With the risk of offering an opinion without watching more than about 12 balls of the match. I reckon that very dodgy batting lineup over performed slightly. On paper that was a terrible team, not complaining about the actual selection either, but cicumstances conspired to combine a dodgy top 7 with a 4 man tail.
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Next test I'd be hoping for something like:
- Latham
- Guptill/Nicholls (to be blunt, it doesn't matter much which one it is)
- Williamson, Williamson, Williamson
- Taylor
- Ronchi
- Neesham (is five days of fitness too much to ask?)
- Watling
- Santner
- Patel/Sodhi (I'm not convinced of a huge difference yet)
- Wagner
- Boult
And given how harsh that is on Henry, I'd be inspecting the pitch closely to see if Williamson and Guptil can combine as a second spinner - given John Wright's theory on not playing two spinners in India just for the sake of it.
Or maybe Ronchi opens, everyone else shuffles up, and Henry plays anyway at 8 ... his batting average isn't massively worse than Guptil or Nichols so far in his test career
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@Rapido said in Black Caps in India:
204 and 197.
With the risk of offering an opinion without watching more than about 12 balls of the match. I reckon that very dodgy batting lineup over performed slightly. On paper that was a terrible team, not complaining about the actual selection either, but cicumstances conspired to combine a dodgy top 7 with a 4 man tail.
Fair point, that's not our top line up or even close, so it's not awful.
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losing the toss in india is a big deal when it comes to the fourth innings.
their scores have been more than enough, so i wouldn't be congratulating our bowlers too much, especially given their tail wagging.
however, if you let a couple of pretty average indian seamers rip your batting apart over there, then that's where the blame starts. -
I actually rate Kumar, he was sharp as feck this test. Consistently over 140k, moving it both ways, changing his angles a lot. He comfortably outbowled our guys. Agree Mohammed Shami is shit. The pitches have been surprisingly good, something for everyone.
India's tail end batting is very solid at home where they play Jadaja & Ashwin bats higher up. They are stuffing us the same way they did Australia, score 300 & 250 with the tail wagging, roll the oppo for 250 & 200. Its a mile away from the old template which was score 600 & play for either the draw or an inning win.
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@gollum yeah India's ability to put on 50 odd runs for the last couple of wickets has made a big difference in both tests. We've bowled ourselves into good positions but have been unable to finish them off without conceding runs.
With our long tail those have been runs we couldn't afford to give away.
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It's not just this test, we've had a few where tail runs are the difference. our tail is shit, while others, particularly Australia, find ways to get another 50-60 runs out of the last 3. We suck at bowling to tail enders because we lack the pace to blast them out, or the spin to tie them in knots, or we mentally clock off at 8 down and start thinking about batting.
I'm not too disappointed in this tour so far, we've showed some good patches, in a place that's really fucking hard to win, with a team that's got a lot of "not quite good enough" players. I just really wanted a test win to shove it up Australia's nose again.
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@mariner4life said in Black Caps in India:
It's not just this test, we've had a few where tail runs are the difference. our tail is shit, while others, particularly Australia, find ways to get another 50-60 runs out of the last 3. We suck at bowling to tail enders because we lack the pace to blast them out, or the spin to tie them in knots, or we mentally clock off at 8 down and start thinking about batting.
I'm not too disappointed in this tour so far, we've showed some good patches, in a place that's really fucking hard to win, with a team that's got a lot of "not quite good enough" players. I just really wanted a test win to shove it up Australia's nose again.
This is just wrong. We have had the best tail in test cricket since 2014. In the past year our tail has been relatively poor but Australia's has been the worst.. I can't work out how to provide a link to this but teams against us have scored 616 runs off of 33 tail end wickets at an average of 18.7. So on average other teams are scoring about 10 runs a game more with their tail than we are scoring with ours, in 2016.
It's easy to look at a team like India and marvel at their tail. The truth is, of course they have a good tail. In India you probably always want to pick two spinners. If you pick two good spinners then you should only need two quick bowling options. What India does is pick two good spinners. One of those spinners happens to be a good batsman, too. Therefore they can put their keeper at 8 which gives them a good tail. In the first test we picked 3 spinners because we didn't have a clue who our best two were. Plus Sodhi is a leggie and could go for plenty. We can't just pick our two best spinners and have them bowl all day (because they aren't good enough) so we had to pick three quicks in the 2nd test.
If India were playing in New Zealand then suddenly they need another bowling option because you can't just bowl Jadeja and Ashwin all day. Therefore they would drop Rahane and move Ashwin to 6, Saha to 7 and Jadeja to 8. All of a sudden they have an average tail.
The real problem with our team is that we have a few players who probably aren't up to it. Guptill we know isn't good enough. Ronchi we know isn't good enough but happens to be good in Asia so he'll do for one more test. Nicholls probably isn't good enough. Santner isn't good enough to bat at 6 for now. Latham is good enough but his record isn't quite as good as it seems. Ditto Watling. Taylor is more than good enough but not so good he can carry a line up. Williamson is good enough to carry a team but will fail or be injured from time to time.
The tail is very easy to fix. All we need to do is put Neesham at 6, Santner at 8. Then you have Henry at 9 who has a FC average of 24. Wagner and Boult are good enough. The real concerns are who we bring in to bat at 5 and whether Raval is actually any good.
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@hydro11 well, fuck me. Stats aye?
Of course, if you change the search to v NZ only, suddenly every average goes up between 2 and 3.5 runs.
Mark Craig, and batting Neesham at 8 that time he got a hundred certainly ups that average. So it's a real pity Craig can't bowl for shit, because he would be very handy down the order.
Just shows how off anecdotal impressions can be i guess
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@hydro11 said in Black Caps in India:
It's easy to look at a team like India and marvel at their tail. The truth is, of course they have a good tail. In India you probably always want to pick two spinners. If you pick two good spinners then you should only need two quick bowling options. What India does is pick two good spinners. One of those spinners happens to be a good batsman, too. Therefore they can put their keeper at 8 which gives them a good tail.
The tail is very easy to fix. All we need to do is put Neesham at 6, Santner at 8. Then you have Henry at 9 who has a FC average of 24. Wagner and Boult are good enough. The real concerns are who we bring in to bat at 5 and whether Raval is actually any good.
Yeah, outside India their tail is shit.
The problem with our tail (which has been terrible the last year), is it only looked good with Neesham (who will never be fit enough to play consistently & wont bat there ever again anyway) & Craig (who is only an option on rank turners), if you look at the 2014+ stats you ran, its Craig & Neesham padding those, the only ton & 3 / 6 50's.
Dropping Santner in at 8 would help hugely, but as you note, who bats 5. And where does the occasionally fit Anderson play
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If I can interrupt for but a moment:
Waugh ton lifts NSW Metro to U17s title | cricket.com.au
A timely century from Austin Waugh set the tone for NSW Metro before a brilliant performance with…
Austin Waugh (son of Steve) racked up a century for NSW Metro U17 as they took the final against QLD (by 152 runs) in the final today. There is a highlights vid in the link above.
He bats 4. Can hit. No pressure
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Did we do the Saffas hitting the 2nd biggest run chase of all time yesterday to stuff Australia?
SA vs AUS Cricket Scorecard, 3rd ODI at Durban, October 05, 2016
Get cricket scorecard of 3rd ODI, SA vs AUS, Australia tour of South Africa 2016/17 at Kingsmead, Durban dated October 05, 2016.
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