Sri Lanka tour of New Zealand

[Octavius]

Easy situation, umpire was misleading to Murali by walking in when Murali looked over at him, but the blame has to go squarley on Murali's shoulders, as an international cricketer you should be aware when the ball is in play and when it isnt, quite clearly the fielder was still fielding the ball and there is no way he should have walked from his crease. Simply an error of judgement by Murali, pounced on by McCullum.

Cricket is a competitive game, so i think McCullum was quite diligent in whipping the bails off and appealing. It should have been up to the Captain and umpires to come together and say something.

As far as i am concerned no blame rests with McCulum, Jerling is a new umpire to international cricket (and a good one from what i saw) who made a slight error in giving the wrong message to murali, then murali missed Jerling signalling him to get back.

McCullum and Jerling knew the ball was still in play, Murali did not, Murali pays the price.

 

[Hooper]

This is just wierd...How come "good" New Zealand batsman have such poor averages, while good batsman from other Test nations have averages in the high 40's and low 50's??? Is it because of the great bowling wickets in New Zealand or are these batsmen just not as good as people like Ponting, Kallis, Peitersen, Dravid??

Have a look at these batting averages:

Stephen Fleming - 39.5
Mathew Sinclair - 36.0
Craig Cumming - 29.40
Nathan Astle - 37.40
Jaime How - 10.28
Jacob Oram - 41.93

 

[aussie1st]

It's always been a case hence Kiwis are usually happy with players averaging above 30 and extremely happy with an average over 40.
Their wickets definitely aren't known to give massive scores as most touring teams find out when they come over here.

 

[irottev]

Wickets are definatly becomming much better over here though for batting. But yea. Basicly bowler friendly conditions here for the past decade. CUmming and How are new so theirs arn't quite fair.

Fleming's was over 40 before his duck I guess. I think he is a case of bowler friendly conditions and probably a lot of poor scores early in his career.

Oram has a World Class batting average for a genuine allrounder. Up there with Kallis. Astle is more an ODI player, and usually attacks in the tests.

It is a mystery lol.

 

[Hooper]

It is a mystery lol.

lol Yeah...I was watching the 1st Test and I was watching New Zealand bat and I was like wtf? Why do they have such poor averages? I excpected their new players to have low averages...but when Fleming came out I was like "Here is their best batsmen...average 'bout 50 probably"....but its not even 40!!!!!?????

 

[aussie1st]

Fleming's record is definitely affected by his start just like Ponting's is for Australia as someone said his average should be in the 70+ if he didn't have such a slow start.

 

[irottev]

Here goes Fleming since 2002 to present: http://statserver.cricket.org/guru?...edhigh=;csearch=;submit=1;.cgifields=viewtype

Much more impressive, especially the 200's down there. He is definatly under-rated. His role in our batting is unbelivably crucial.

 

[Hooper]

Thats much better...in his last 38 Tests hes scored 6 of his 9 hundreds!!!!

 

[mattfb]

played well in patches though except in SA and WI he played good nearly all series after looking at the scorecard. For example when they play Aus in Australia he got 83 in one of the four innings then 17 and 16 or somthing, then when we went to NZ he got 0 18 17 and best score of 65. But your right he is under rated still but like i said needs to be more consistent

 

[Hooper]

Yeah to be classed "great" he needs to be more consitent and win more matches off his bat...but he is brilliant captian

 

[irottev]

Sri Lanka won the toss and are batting on what looks to be a batting paradice. Neither sides team has been changed.

Game to start in 20 minutes time.

 

[aussie1st]

Well Jade was meant to be a batting paradise but that didn't turn out too well. Let's hope we see a bit more from that bat this time.

 

[BigCrickNan]

0/1 Jaya gone Sri Lanka look like theyll struggle to get 20 here.

 

[aussie1st]

It wasn't Bond who got the wicket too, Martin has been quite good so far in this series.

 

[BigCrickNan]

Lol it's interesting that every run off Bond moves his average up a fair bit.