NZ v SA Test Series
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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.
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Well after putting the knife into Nicholls yesterday, he did a magnificent job. If he'd gone cheaply - game over.
Hope our bowlers get a few early scalps this morning to keep things interesting.
Gee Southee cops some flack on here. Wasn't he man of the match in 2 of his last 3 games before this series?
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I think Neesham is a good enough bat to justify selection at number 6 without even thinking about his bowling. At worst he's about as good as any of the alternatives plus is a 4th bowling option. That makes his selection a no brainer for me, at least until we have someone clearly offering more with the bat. Corey Anderson might be a challenger as I think he's closer to being a genuine allrounder than Jimmy.
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@Gunner said in NZ v SA Test Series:
Well after putting the knife into Nicholls yesterday, he did a magnificent job. If he'd gone cheaply - game over.
Yep! Same here. I like nothing more than being proven utterly wrong when I am anti a player.
It wasn't just a century, it was a century under intense pressure where someone had to turn the innings around. Doing that along with getting the 'Century monkey off his back' means that he has test fortitude and I don't mind summing that up after one good innings
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@gollum said in NZ v SA Test Series:
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.
I think even the biggest Ryder fans ( like me ) have given up hope he'll ever have another go
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Southee gets Rabada early to give us some momentum and, more importantly, to expose Duminy to the new ball. Need one of these two quickly so we can get Faf in against it as well.
Fat Jesse is surely nowhere in the frame. A part of our cricket resurgence has been founded on giving the boot to his many distractions and we are reaping the benefits of a "no dickheads" policy. Added to which, he's not even scoring runs so there's not even a slight temptation to hand out another chance.
I reckon his chances of ever playing for the Black Caps again are only slightly better than the chances of me getting a call-up - and that's only happening if there's a nuclear war and 99.9 percent of the population is wiped out!
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Follow on passed, but another 182 runs to tie it up is a long way away
