New Zealand in England May - June 2013

[Sedition]

Gotta feel for Monty. With that said, I hope he gets out.

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Massive anti-climax, can't believe they let Monty off strike.

 

[swacker]

Matt Prior take a bow, that was outstanding!

 

[barmyarmy]

Whatever that was it wasn't an anti-climax.
Bloody hell.

 

[ste_mc_efc]

It was an anti-anti-climax.

 

[Haarithan]

le me:

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Successfully get to retain the #2 ranking btw

 

[midgetwars]

Wow, that was basically a mirror of the Australia vs NZ.

A batsman on 100 and a spinner, two results possible.

Yet, England drew this one and Australia lost that other one...

 

[War]

Series review

England

Simply weird. That's the only way i can describe this series . I don't believe with Andy Flower & Graham Gooch in the background that ENG have ever underestimated the Kiwis in their preparation. However maybe subconsciously in certain in game situations they made mistakes which they certainly didn't do during the India tour.

Thank god in a way England didn't lose this test also because we would have seen another ranking system blunder. If they lost the lost ENG would have dropped to 3rd behind India who they just beat home & away - while NZ would have remained 8th. Their is a god.

Special word on prior. AB De Villiers may eventually be equal or better his exploits as a test keeper/bat - but he is the best in the world right now.

The longer he keeps going, its going to certainly come a stage when he is going to have to be mentioned as an all-time ENG XI keeper alongside Alan Knott & Alec Stewart.

New Zealand

This series sort of reminds be alot of the 2001 trans-tasman trophy Results | Global | ESPN Cricinfo. Just like this test series, the opening two games were rain effected in which NZ could have won one & AUS the other.

And just like this final test NZ dominated & almost came way with a famous win in AUS.

I always remember the 99-2001 period of NZ team with great fondness & disappointment. That 0-0 draw in AUS along with the 1999, 3-1 series win in England - Results | Global | ESPN Cricinfo, showed a team i recall under the astute captaincy of Fleming that really could have challenged Australia in tests more during the 2000s era.

But disappointingly they lost so many good bowlers to injury. Geoff Allot, Dion Nash, Shane O'Connor, Simon Doull, Cairns, Oram, Ian Butler & of course Shane Bond. All these guys had so much ability, but injuries either ended their careers early or when they came back they never were the same.

Watching Trent Boult bowl in the last year he reminds me alot of Geoff Allot. Now Bolt, Southee, Bracewell, Wagner, McClenegan (spell check), Milne - NZ its best of fast bowlers since that period i feel. For NZ sake & world cricket lets hope this group stays fit & doesn't break down like the aforementioned. Test cricket will always be better if we can have the top 8 nations pretty close.

Add Guptil, Ryder & Vettori to this team & NZ have a solid test side & this series should also quickly rubbish the talk by some people that we should have tiers in test cricket.

Right now in world cricket S Africa & ENG are the clear top two. But potentially its very close between AUS/IND/PAK/WI/NZ. Sri Lanka is the worse of the pack in test at least, because they really lack fast-bowlers & even with Herath can't own teams on their home turners like what India did to AUS @ home.

 

[Owzat]

Bairstowe out second ball as well. Like Butcher said he's currently a walking wicket.
I don't think we have the batting to pull this off. If we can lose more wickets in the hour after tea we have a chance but the way Boult is bowling the game might be over by then.

Thankfully the kiwis were lacking confidence and didn't declare when they should have twice in this series, the first time it didn't cost them as the weather intervened, but this match they seemed too scared to lose.

The chances of a side scoring 400+ to win are so slim it happens very rarely, yet captains, Michael Yawn included, see 500 as their safety net. The kiwis finished with well over 100 runs in the bank needing one wicket, they may see a drawn series as a good result but they had an excellent chance to win a Test and series and blew it. Some people knock statistics, but they can be useful in pointing you towards what runs should see you "safe", exceptions apart. Plenty who knock statistics quote them when it suits, even if "more goals than last season" or "three wins in a row", maybe they just really don't know what a statistic is and think it has to be a table or certain format.

In retrospect maybe they should have done the wrong thing and enforced the follow on, they might well have won as skills such as when to declare would have been out of their hands.



Anyway, well played Prior. The keeper some among us didn't rate at first, now saving us more often than he should be. re Bairstow, if he can't make runs against the kiwis then he may well struggle in Test cricket.

It's vital we blood at least one youngster/batsman in series like New Zealand, West Indies and Bangladesh so we have someone ready to come in. Asking Bairstow to come in was too much for him, it shouldn't have been.

England do need to exercise some rotation, it's like picking your best XI in the Premiership (football) week in, week out, and expecting that to work. If we don't give others a chance, preferably players who in 3-5 years time could be regulars themselves, then we'll hit an aussie like wall and be back in the 90s not knowing who to pick or sticking with players who aren't good enough.

Of course South Africa may supply us with enough players to tide us over...................

 

[CG123]

Bet Callum would rather attend uni though

I went to the last two session today, so I ended up going to 8 out of the 15 sessions.

Re the declaration we still had enough chances to win it - 3/4 dropped catches, 2 overturned decisions, that one that hit the stumps but didn't dislodge the bails, a missed run out, countless plays and misses. At the end of the day they left everything out there and that's all I can ask for as a fan.

 

[puddleduck]

Fairly ridiculous post by Owzatt... To write off Bairstow because he got no runs in his first bat for almost 3-4 months is ludicrous. Especially when you make that point in your next paragraph.

Also you say 400 would have been enough when England finished just short of 400...

Anyway, where were we. Oh yeah, Australia... lol.

 

[CG123]

Fairly ridiculous post by Owzatt... To write off Bairstow because he got no runs in his first bat for almost 3-4 months is ludicrous. Especially when you make that point in your next paragraph.

Also you say 400 would have been enough when England finished just short of 400...

Anyway, where were we. Oh yeah, Australia... lol.

He said this a week or so ago:

Anyway we've put the series back into perspective, cricket's second tier side on the ropes and England may well be on their way to wrapping up a Test win.

 

[puddleduck]

I wonder if anyone has some stats on how often Owzat makes reference to Vaughan in his posts

In the end a decent series that without weather issues may have been decided in the final hours in every test.

 

[Aalay]

NZ deserved to win this match. Well played Matt Prior.

 

[umosay]

England

Add Guptil, Ryder & Vettori to this team & NZ have a solid test side & this series should also quickly rubbish the talk by some people that we should have tiers in test cricket.
e.

Guptill is horrible, why do people think he should be in the test team? Maybe in the middle order, but no way he should be allowed at the top. Vettori isn't fit enough to play test cricket now, and he is pretty ineffective even when he does. Doesn't take wickets anymore so is a bad option, and his batting form has also suffered from his lack of cricket. I doubt he will tour England.

I don't think Ryder will go either, he will if he makes himself available but I don't think he will from what I've heard.

 

[AnshtheDj]

Test cricket will always be better if we can have the top 8 nations pretty close.

Couldn't agree more mate..I'd quote today's ESPNCricinfo report that "this test was a thrilling advert for virtues of Test cricket", a fact which has been seconded by Michael Vaughn & Kevin Pietersen over Twitter today.

This particular article by George Dobell (New Zealand v England, 3rd Test, Auckland, 5th day Report : Matt Prior helps England hold on for heart-stopping draw | Cricket News | ESPN Cricinfo) has, in parts, tried to capture the essence of the whole series. This test ended, to quote Dobell, in "a heart-stopping draw"...couldn't be anymore apt.

NZ held the upper hand in 2 test matches out of 3 test series even though they don't have the scoreline to suggest so. Their captain McCullum appeared more assertive on the field as he was aggressive with the bat than his opposite number. Their spinners, including a part-timer, extracted more turn than Panesar, a fact which was compounded by absence of first choice spinner in Swann. After a long time, the Kiwis have gone through a test series without having to change the opening combination. Peter Fulton & Rutherford justified their selection with some solid top-order performances against the English pace battery. All these are wonderful indications of the nucleus of the test side NZ can hope to have once they get a few of their injured/side-lined players back on track. McCullum seems to have found his feet in captaincy. He is no longer as fidgety or uneasy as he was in his earlier stint. Throughout last 2 days, he was changing field positions every ball to try and create an opportunity from somewhere. He seems to have sorted out his position in test batting line-up also. Him coming at no.6 gives the NZ innings anchor lower down the order who can also change gears if required. To go with 2-1 ODI series victory in SA, NZ performance in this home series is a significant achievement under McCullum's captaincy. Also it frees up Ross Taylor who can now concentrate on becoming NZ's best batsman in all forms of the game in years to come. As put very aptly by Dobell, "under McCullum's leadership, they have the materials to rise in the rankings in the months and years ahead".

The brightest quality of the current English test side which shone through over the last 2 days on just concluded series, I'd quote Dobell again, is their "resilience". This quality is the one which won them a come-from-behind test series win against India in Nov-Dec last year. Matt Prior made a telling impact with a fighting century. His batting stocks have risen significantly since England's last Ashes victory in 2010-11 & he has been a key player for them at no.7 by showing some wonderful consistency over the last few seasons.

All in all, this series, along with SA tour of AUS in 2012, has been silver lining in dark sky for test cricket. We need more of these to keep the greatest format alive & kicking.