The Silver Fern

@booboo said in Black Caps vs England Series:

@Crazy-Horse said in Black Caps vs England Series:

I fail to see the point of Philips. Not good enough at bowling, doesn't contribute enough with the bat and has brain farts I the field. Second thoughts, he's a traditional Black Caps all-rounder

He's made me think he's a really promising batsman. Just not delivered on that in this series.

The bowling and fielding is a bonus.

I want him to deliver on his primary role, which because of my fanboi-ing I'm sure he can ...

We haven't used Phillips well. He's at best a part time bowler, and his first class record suggests that - decent enough averages but has never bowled a huge amount of overs. So batting him at 7 just makes no sense. It makes even less sense when you consider we've been insisting on playing Blundell as an all rounder and batting him at 6 when leading up to that century he'd been averaging about 14 for the past year, on top of his glove work being generally untidy.

Swapping them around would benefit both players. It'd give Phillips a chance to bat with batsmen more instead of managing the tail, to see if he can replicate his 40 FC average at test level. It would also mean he can come out with a license to play his natural attacking game knowing there is still enough batting left to eek out some more runs if needed. For Blundell it'd take some pressure off his batting and hopefully allow him to focus a bit more on his glovework which is his primary role in the team.

@KiwiMurph said in Australia v India:

Would Travis Head be the best cricketer in the world right now?

Head has been going well but his record even in recent times is only very good without being great. For me Bumrah is at the top, conditions at home don't often suit him and playing overseas is always challenging, but he just continues to carve up and his record just gets better all the time. Incredible player. After that I have Kane, he has been consistently the best batsmen in the world for a number of years now but just doesn't play as much as the others. He is aging like a fine wine at the moment, consistently knocking out 50s and 100s whenever he gets the chance, which won't be for a while now as our summer of tests appears to be over already...

@barbarian that BMac wicket really derailed us, he was so dangerous that tournament and if he'd gotten away even just a bit and got a quick 30 or 40, our confidence would have been right up. It wasn't just that he got him out first over as well, the manner of the dismissal put us on the back foot; BMac didn't even look like hitting it, the ball was just way too good for him.

What a stupid shot from Pope

@Gunner he averages over 50, so statistically speaking Latham has dropped an easy 50 runs there, probably more. It still grates me how dismissive he was about our catching, it's not even club level standard at the moment.

How is our catching so, so poor. That's just regulation, should be taken 10 times out of 10. Awful stuff.

@Chris-B said in Black Caps vs England Series:

@MN5 said in Black Caps vs England Series:

All out for 347.

Actually a pretty handy enough score, much better than I thought they’d get to

Middle order really bailed out by Santner (and WOR).

Here's a thought.

In a five day test match, why not hit most of the balls along the ground. Especially if you're supposed to be a specialist batsman!

Bradman would be turning in his grave watching players with so much talent repeatedly throw their wickets away, he averaged 100 because on top of his talent he absolutely never hit the ball in the air, because why would he? The way batsmen play today is certainly entertaining and we get results in test matches far more often due to the higher run rates, but at the end of the day absolutely none of them are going to get close to Bradman's stats if they continue to hit the ball in the air all the time, no matter how talented they are.

Yet another ton for the great man, incredible player

This is what should have happened in the first test but instead we dropped 8 catches in one innings

@tubbyj said in Black Caps vs England Series:

ffs the only time England looked comfortable was when Southee was bowling. He also undermined the spells of Henry and ORourke when bowling in tandem with them. He really was a shocking selection when you see Santner come in and make England look all at sea. Geoff Boycott was right NZ should have picked Henry, O'Rourke, Santner, Patel and Phillips and prepared turning wickets and we might have won this series.

Traditionally the Black Caps have been very poor in turning conditions, but he's right this current lot are very effective. Latham and Young are very good on the sweep which makes it difficult for spinners, and Kane and Ravindra thrive on it. We've also got enough fire power and variation in Santner, Patel, Phillips and Ravindra alongside a good seamer or two to take 20 wickets easily enough.

Is it possible to prepare decks that really turn in NZ? I don't know much about it, I know the Indian spoil is quite different though.

Has Aus ever lost a pink ball test? Opposition batsmen can't seem to handle it

@Nepia said in Nomination - Best supporter (NTA Trophy):

@NTA said in Nomination - Best supporter (NTA Trophy):

@Nepia said in Nomination - Best supporter (NTA Trophy):

@NTA said in Nomination - Best supporter (NTA Trophy):

@Virgil said in Nomination - Best supporter (NTA Trophy):

Nominate the ferner who does the best job at supporting their team, no matter how shit they are.

Given I support the Tahs, you're all playing for second at this point.

Pffft, have you heard of a little team called the Warriors?

Nope. Do they play soccer?

Possibly, they might be more successful at it than league.

I'm still gutted we lost the NRL grand final where Stacey Jones scored that incredible solo try. I was sure the game was ours after that. That was meant to be our year!

I'm surprised Bumrah has only played 41 tests, feels like he's been around a lot longer than that. His numbers so far are frankly ridiculous, best bowler in the world at the moment.

I can't overstate how costly those dropped catches in the first game were, and it still really grates me that Latham was so dismissive of them. Instead of giving England a good smacking in the first test to destroy their confidence, which we actually played well enough to do, we instead gave them a good practice session to get them into form with confidence sky high going into the 2nd test.

That coupled with the idiotic continued selection of Southee and Blundell, and to a lesser degree Conway, and we're not really giving ourselves a chance. We desperately need a coach that will challenge the captain and, you know, actually be a coach.

Extremely disappointing when talent-wise we still have the makings on a formidable team.

@nzzp said in Black Caps vs England Series:

@MN5 said in Black Caps vs England Series:

England lead by 237 and we’re not even a day and half into things. Absolutely ridiculous. We’ll be chasing 600 with three days to go at this rate

our catching still isnt' what it could be. Between 1st and keeper - I get it, but man that's annoying. Standing that wide they should both go for it

I haven't seen that yet but generally speaking if it goes between keeper and 1st then it's the keepers fault, as the agreement would be that the keeper will cover the gap if 1st slip goes a bit wider. We really need a new keeper...

I'll nominate two players

Rachin Ravindra - really started showing his class this year, the double ton v SA and then the ton plus other crucial runs he scored in India were superb. Looks very comfortable at the top level across all formats, and really just has to make sure he doesn't throw his wicket away when he gets too confident!

Amelia Kerr - she has been awesome and her performances in the T20 WC were a big part of how we managed to win the thing against all odds. Also have a lot of time for her old man, I remember attending some training sessions he put on for kids and also him being in charge (maybe? he gave out the trophies) for indoor cricket as well. Great bloke and awesome to see his daughter go so well.

I'll throw a nomination in for @MN5, the Reece / Cops joke was absolutely brilliant, and the awful memes/Dad jokes he posts are always amusing

For me the Happiness Scale thread was huge, posting in there and having such an overwhelming response really helped me at the time. We have an awesome bunch of people on this forum.

@frugby possibly, some of the Fozzie years were pretty dark, but the provincial bias from these coaches has meant our squad has been a lot weaker in an area that we got outplayed in all year, so that's a pretty strong black mark.