The Silver Fern

@MN5 said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@Chris said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@MN5 said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@Chris said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@MN5 said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@Chris said in West Indies tour of NZ:

Latham with 3 test Centuries and Captaining the team to a 2 -0 Test Series should also be in the mix for Man of the Series.
Duffy also leading the attack should in the mix.

and keeping at a pinch too ! completely forgot his first ton.........

But there were quite a few good batting performances but taking wickets wins matches, would have to be Duffy now I've thought about it.

Black Caps top five is absolutely set in stone barring injury.

Hay should replace Blundell. Whether he will is at the whim of the selectors.

Phillips wasn't hugely compelling in terms of batting and bowling, sort of went ok, absolutely dynamic fielding though, will be interesting what happens when Santner is fit. Bracewell will only get a look in if those two are both broken.

Duffy as others have mentioned has to be considered for when everyone is available, particularly with the injury prone nature of the others.

Smith and Foulkes a bit meh. Neither took their chances for a big performance.

Rae filled in admirably.

Tickner bloody good until injured. He'll be back.

Nice to see Patel get wickets at home as yet another bowling option.

Yep agree with all of that, I think you summed it up perfectly,I saw it the same way.
Duffy adds some depth with Henry,O’Rourke and Jamieson back.
> You know my thoughts on the wk that is a no brainer for me.
Rae worked hard he didn’t let us down but he sits way back from the 4 mentioned above.
Smith and Foulkes not really test bowlers or allrounders as yet.
Tickner went well but does spray it a bit he is a ok sub if one the top 4 go down.

I hope we have our top bowling attack for 3 big test series coming,England,India and Australia we will struggle big time if we have to select from outside those 4.

First class and test averages don’t always marry up for whatever reason but if he can keep with an average of 40 plus he will be an absolute gun for NZ.

Gilly’s don’t grow on trees, this guy needs to be nurtured particularly as he is still young with years of international cricket ahead of him.

Blundell has done a job ( despite batting woes of late ) but this guy is the future.

As someone said earlier, no one owns the jersey/cap

Hay for me is one of the best Gloveman I have seen he moves really well, gets in to catching positions easily.
The sort of WK you don't notice unless you are watching him intently just gets it done with ease.
It is harder to find good WK these days a lot of the young players coming through give it up or don't want to take it on, they see it as too much hard work which it is, it is a skill you have to keep working on.
His batting has real potential.
Blundel was a good player but time has now caught up with him it is not easy being a Wk on the wrong side of 35.

Yeah back in the day specialist keepers averaged 20 odd or in some cases even lower. I think Alec Stewart was one of the first to change that, Jack Russell was supposedly the better keeper but Stewart filled the role at test level really well and his batting spoke for itself.

Very little to go on but from what I’ve seen in his only test Hay was brilliant behind the stumps whereas I think @Virgil pointed put that Blundell dropped one yesterday.

Keepers don’t have tangible stats like batsmen and bowlers though so hard to gauge.

Byes and dropped catches are key IMO. The keeper can't control the quality of the bowling (although can direct some improvements) but the least they can do is not drop anything (occasional impossible chances aside) and not give away runs (the occasional uncatchable bouncer aside). Video analysis helps but obviously that's not a stat as such.

Batting averages were always relevant, they were just seen as less important than keeping skill - a useful tiebreaker if a country had two similar quality options (Alan Knott was selected over Bob Taylor because of batting as an older example), but not as important as now. Shows the importance of all-rounders - if a team doesn't have all-rounders who can bat and bowl, the keeper needs to be able to bat.

Obligatory CricInfo Statsguru - this is all 85 keepers (surprisingly few) who played at least 20 test matches as designated keeper, in batting average order. 35 have averages > 30, with most of those (26) starting in the 1990s or later. 69 (nice) have averages > 20. The median keeper was Moin Khan (28.67).

@MN5 said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@No-Quarter said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@African-Monkey could not agree more re: Taylor, he's my favourite ever Black Cap for that reason (well him and Boult). So many young players could learn a lot from the way he applied himself. A talented youngster that would get himself out through lapses in concentration more than the bowler getting him out, really putting in the hard yards to work on his concentration in test matches to fashion a world class record. It must have been so hard for him to completely put away that swipe shot for hours at a time when it's what he grew up playing!

He did the same in ODIs to a lesser degree, worked hard on building an innings and trying to carry his bat rather than blast the opposition away in the first 20 overs. Ended up our best ODI batsmen of all time as a result with 21 tons.

Taylor probably looked at Jesse Ryder as a case of what NOT to do.

Rossco had huge natural talent but Ryder had even more.

Taylors career was pretty amazing, NZs best ODI batsman of all time and probably third only to Crowe and KW at test level.

Taylor got shoulder-tapped by Destiny... Martin Crowe and chose to listen. Absolute role model for any young batter with talent but struggling with application.

@Chris-B said in West Indies tour of NZ:

Split Wright's career in half.

In his first 41 tests he averaged 30.9

In his second 41 tests he averaged 44.5.

The antithesis of Ian Botham.

Wright's batting as captain is phenomenal - averaged 48.63. In matches involving Trevor Franklin, Wright averaged 57.03.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/records/hundred-in-each-innings-of-a-match-282951

Only the fifth time two players have scored centuries in each innings of a test, first time for NZ.

Of note also is it has only been done by opposing batters once (Warner and Kohli).

Apparently this is the record for most runs scored by the opening partnership in any test.

Not as good as yesterday but call it a pass mark. Good call I think to take 20 overs at them.

@Cyclops said in West Indies tour of NZ:

Good to see Latham back in the runs too. How often has an NZ batter got 2 tons in a series?

33 if the filter has been set up correctly - this being the 33rd time.

@mikey07 said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@Cyclops Was it Taylor I remember grabbing a couple against them in 2016 if my patchy memory serves me correctly.

3 in 2013-14, but a very purple patch: https://www.espncricinfo.com/records/series/batting-most-runs-career/west-indies-in-new-zealand-test-series-2013-14-8475

An acceptable day at the office for NZ...

@MN5 said in Ashes 2025/6:

@Godder said in Ashes 2025/6:

Not to defend Bazball entirely but I always figured that if you can't bat time, you basically have to score runs quickly since you're effectively there for a good time, not a long time. That might be because of poor technique, or because the bowlers have the ascendance currently (for whatever reason e.g. bowler quality, pitch, weather conditions etc.). Lord knows how often I watched average NZ teams in the 90s and 00s try to bat time to avoid losing, and just not having a defendable target so it was all for nought and predictably nought at that...

Boycott has said more recently that given today's pitches and bowling techniques etc, he would probably score faster than he used to because batting time is harder than it was.

Definitely depends on the situation. But crikey, we're early on day 2 and England are batting again. Surely they reign it in a bit compared to the first innings.

DIsclaimer: Would not be surprised in the slightest if they have a heave.

You would think so, but if they don't think they will last, they may as well hit out - no difference in balls faced, but maybe a few more runs on the board instead of dot balls.

Not to defend Bazball entirely but I always figured that if you can't bat time, you basically have to score runs quickly since you're effectively there for a good time, not a long time. That might be because of poor technique, or because the bowlers have the ascendance currently (for whatever reason e.g. bowler quality, pitch, weather conditions etc.). Lord knows how often I watched average NZ teams in the 90s and 00s try to bat time to avoid losing, and just not having a defendable target so it was all for nought and predictably nought at that...

Boycott has said more recently that given today's pitches and bowling techniques etc, he would probably score faster than he used to because batting time is harder than it was.

@MN5 said in Other Cricket:

@mohikamo said in Other Cricket:

@MN5 said in Other Cricket:

Our greatest player ever only managed 22 wins in 86 tests which REALLY surprised me.

We were seriously shit at cricket for a very long time.
Winning any tests at all was a bit af a miracle.
Until the 86 tester arrived.

Gilchrist really did change the way test match cricket was played.

Paddles is our GOAT and I suspect he will still hold that mantle when KW retires albeit by a slim margin.

But given how many others have won off the top of my head I would have put his wins at 35-40 or so.

Again, Rose tinted glasses to some extent.

Feeling a bit late to this particular party but to be fair, 22/86 is better than 25% in a format where draws were common, especially in his era.

I can't see KW surpassing Sir Paddles as NZ's cricketing GOAT without a lot of runs. Hadlee is an option for an all-time text XI, where Kane is a bit short of that mark (as much as I'd like him to be up there).

@bayimports said in Black Caps vs England Series:

some interesting stats mentioned before, worst ever top 4 performance in an ODI series ever (min 3 games) ..not just England..ever. Bangladesh previously held the record for touring teams, but it is now Englands

That's an early Bangladeshi team at that, when, like all newcomers to tier 1 international cricket, they struggled.

Also, Daryl Mitchell averaged 178 for the series, which is fantastic. England's average score was 207, so not much better really.

We certainly tried to make that more of a contest than it should have been... At least we won, pre-Hesson, we'd have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

Luckily, nothing's set in stone. Trial something different in tours, see if it works, and make decisions from there. If it works, great, if it's a total box office flop, can it and run something else.

Thanks to the Patreon email for pointing me here.

@Duluth said in Livescoring apps/website - not just rugby:

Anyone use FotMob?

Any niche ones specialise on a particular sport - Cricket, basketball, baseball etc?

I use Cricinfo (owned by ESPN these days) for cricket - I find it adequate for following live scores and they have decent text commentary.

Andy Flower was another excellent keeper batsman who is often forgotten. Playing for Zimbabwe doesn't help boost the stats obviously, so he's particularly impressive given that.

In terms of pure glove work in the past 50 years, besides Alan Knott and Healy as mentioned, Rod Marsh and Smith were also ahead of Gilchrist in my opinion. Dujon and Parore were also handy, as was Mark Boucher. Bob Taylor was even better than Knott with the gloves (Taylor has the FC record for most WK dismissals) but Knott was a somewhat better batsman.

All that said, hard to go past Gilchrist once you add the batting into it.

@Cyclops said in Black Caps v Pakistan:

220/6 off our 20. Weird innings, got totally bogged down through the 10-16 over mark. Not sure if that's good bowling, or Allen and Seifert playing well. Feels like we're either about 30 ahead of par or 30 behind.

Good win in the end, so I guess we were well ahead of par although I think some of that was scoreboard pressure.

Was excellent weather here in Christchurch the other day when we won comprehensively - 9 wickets in 10.1 overs. Naturally, had to have the drinks break at the end of the 10th over despite NZ only needing 2 runs... Obviously there will be advertising requirements etc, but it was a bit farcical.

Looks like we got off to a good start with the ball again today as well.