Sri Lanka's tour of New Zealand (+ 2 ODI's against Pakistan) - December/February 2015

[SpitfiresKent]

2 Day Warm Up Match:

Sun 21st Dec - Mon 22nd Dec
New Zealand Chairman's XI v Sri Lankans, Queenstown

2 Match Test Series:

Fri 26th Dec - Tue 30th Dec, 1st Test
New Zealand v Sri Lanka, Christchurch

Sat 3rd Jan - Wed 7th Jan, 2nd Test
New Zealand v Sri Lanka, Wellington

7 Match ODI Series:

Sun 11th Jan, 1st ODI
New Zealand v Sri Lanka, Christchurch

Thu 15th Jan, 2nd ODI
New Zealand v Sri Lanka, Hamilton

Sat 17th Jan, 3rd ODI
New Zealand v Sri Lanka, Auckland

Tue 20th Jan, 4th ODI
New Zealand v Sri Lanka, Nelson

Fri 23rd Jan, 5th ODI
New Zealand v Sri Lanka, Dunedin

Sun 25th Jan, 6th ODI
New Zealand v Sri Lanka, Dunedin

Thu 29th Jan, 7th ODI
New Zealand v Sri Lanka, Welllington

 

[Yuvi.]

What a Year this has been for Williamson , McCullum & NZ Cricket Team!
Another Record for McCullum as He crosses 1000 runs and becomes the first to do so in a Calendar Year.

 

[Yuvi.]

Now , He smashes the fastest Ton out of nowhere for NZ.

 

[Ohm]

McCullum is going insane.

 

[icyman]

What an innings that was from McCullum...He could have breached the fastest 200 here. Effectively, he seems to have batted SRL out of the game here.

With such red-hot form, I am sure the Kiwis are going to fly during Feb-March 2015.

 

[VC the slogger]

Gotta feel for Tharindu Kaushal whose figures read 22-0-159-1 after day 1. Right along there with good 'ol Bryce McGain as one of the worst debuts ever.

 

[Ohm]

11-4-25-3, very well bowled Trent B.

 

[icyman]

Asian teams tend to struggle in New Zealand, more so when they are following-on. Tough for SRL to save this Test unless they score something like 600-700 runs in their second essay.

 

[Aalay]

You can't expect Sri Lanka to do well in NZ. NZ have an absolute beast team at the moment and you need to be at your very best to beat them. In that Sri Lankan line-up, only Sangakara and Matthews are experienced players but other then that it's all youngsters. So I am expecting a whitewash for them unless couple of their youngsters comes good.

 

[icyman]

Its been a good year for the Kiwis, right before the World Cup. New Zealand have won about 5-6 tests this year and their performances have been quite strong. Its not been scratchy and they seem like a team that can really stun a few bigwigs in the next year- maybe like Australia or South Africa.

 

[Yuvi.]

Great Fight put by Williamson and Watling.
Think a lead of 420+ will be enough.

 

[SpitfiresKent]

And to think Pradeep dropped Williamson just shortly after he had passed his fifty...

 

[Samuels]

It is an incredible turnaround for good for the New Zealand cricket in the past few years. Only 2-3 years back they were struggling depending on the likes Jacob Oram and Kyle Mills and look at them now! Of course their domestic setup is much better than ours but I really hope WI get inspired from them to come up with something similar. Sri Lanka too should be in the same boat since they cannot always stay dependent on Sangakkara and Dilshan. Srilankan board too needs to make a note of that. The fact they want Sangakkara to play to break Sir Don Bradman's record of most double centuries is clearly not a good sign. Sangakkara's statement that he will see if he has a few months of test cricket still left in him suggests that Srilankan board might be forcing him to push his limits. Similarly, WI seems to be overdependent on Chanderpaul. These two teams really need to sort it out the NZ way - Give chances to aspiring new cricketers after this world cup so that by the time next world cup arrives, we have a set of good 15-16 men. That will also help us in test cricket.

 

[Chewie]

Mills and Oram haven't played test cricket for like 5 years

 

[Nightwing]

I've been watching occasional bits of test, and saw the full first ODI.
Being American, there isn't much cricket to be seen, so I'm thankful ESPN has some of these matches and some Champions League T20s (Go Kings XI!) on replay.

Second ODI is on tonight!!

I was really impressed with Williamson making sick catches in both test and ODI. Milne has been great on bowling, but he's not alone. NZ has had consistently good overs from what I've seen.

There's a big lefty for them who likes to really bounce the ball and he's been fun to see. One defensive play he made could have been an all-time highlight had he not dropped the ball right before knocking the bales off (lol)!

Sri Lanka aren't doing too poorly but it seems like as soon as a batsman starts getting into a real groove, he's soon bowled out or caught by some wicked fielding!