Errr, no. Neesham's a proper all rounder, mid 130's with a little bit of away movement, with a ton of ability with the bat. He's raw, just like Anderson is, but the upside for both of them is massive. Both of them could easily be playing test cricket in 2/3 years batting at six or seven (or in Andeson's case even higher) and be a proper 5th bowling option with the ball.
de Grandhomme isn't and will never be that, his bowling is next to useless.
What has Neesham ever done in domestic cricket? Nothing. Sure Anderson played that FC blinder earlier this season, but he hasn't done much since then, and he has an average of 16 in 18 T20 innings.
Sure it's worked at times with the likes of Vettori and Bracewell when they were picked, but in a country riddled with players not being able to step-up to the international level, hardly ever is it going to work picking players that have struggled to put up the numbers for their domestic team. I'm not saying that they're both not promising players, and I even wrote that they were above, but to take them over to the best team in the world to have a swing and roll their arm over a couple of times was imo a big mistake.
de Grandhomme is a T20 player, who is very hit and miss. I guess another question is what do we want out of our number seven? Do we want a bowling orientated player like we've got atm in McCullum, or do we want a batting orientated player like Anderson or de Grandhomme. I wouldn't mind having either of them at seven because they can both come out and hit the ball from ball one and they can both bowl a bit, but neither of them should really be batting any higher than that. Whether you don't like de Grandhomme's bowling or not, he's still got a better economy rate than Neesham across all three formats of the game.
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Tbh the problem comes from our top four though, and our current top four of Nicol, Fulton, McCullum, and Franklin is just not going to cut it in South Africa, so it doesn't really matter what we have below there.
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Also I do want us to win, so I do hope that they can prove me wrong and play some blinders next match.
. Kiwis chased down 165 with 4 needed off the last ball. Guptill hit the 4 which also bought up his 100 - does it get any better? (maybe a 6 to win i guess...). Big win for NZ, as they needed to show they'd be competitive.
