Quote:
Originally Posted by straw man
Damn, didn't know Anderson had a broken finger - that's bad luck.
I still can't quite bring myself to believe that McCullum is going to move down the order. Still hoping they come to their senses there, which would also mean a lower middle order batting spot is available.
I must admit I'm starting to be won over to the idea of Ronchi as a specialist batsman at 6 or 7, plus four seamers and no spinner (Williamson to chuck a few down).
or just Carl Cachopa. Yeah I sed it. Has 10 wickets at 20 this season too. Short ball be damned.
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I still don't trust Williamson enough to rely on him to bowl 10-15 overs a day. But if he keeps bowling well in ODI's maybe he'll improve to the extent where that's a viable option.
Also, is it possible that moving McCullum down the order is actually not that bad a decision? If you cut out his 200 v India, then his record as an opener really isn't that flash, averaging high 20's iirc. That's not much better than the likes of TMac, and probably only 5-10 runs more than the average for our other openers over that period.
Now, immediately before his move up the order to open, McCullum had been averaging in the mid 40's as a wicket-keeper batsman in the middle order. If he could go back to that, then that would represent a big improvement on the status quo (Flynn averaging high 20's). Even if his replacement were to average mid to low 20's as an opener, it would overall still represent a net gain to the side. Of course this is dependent on McCullum being able to make serious runs back in the middle order. But with Ryder unavailable, it might not be that bad a move.