Loony BoB
International Captain
Something about Mark makes me think that pressure is something he rarely feels. If he does feel it, he does an incredible job of not doing something silly when it happens.Craig said:I also think Mark Richardson needs to be a bit more proactive with the bat and looking for more singles to keep the scoreboard ticking over and not build up pressure on himself and his team.
A year or so ago I would have said that this would be a damned tight competition, however now I'm not so sure. I think we are capable of winning, but I wouldn't be as confident about it as I was back then.
I never really could believe how long it took them to move who I believe is the best batsman in the NZ OD squad into the test side - Marshall. If you compare him with other OD batsman when they had played the same amount of games (using PWC rankings), he's right up there with the best of them - he compares well with Tendulkar, Ponting, Gilchrist, Graeme Smith, Kallis... not a bad group to be ranking with. I'd say Sehwag and Gayle, but looking at their rankings they had a slow start anyway. To keep him away from tests for quite some time... well, I'm not sure if it will pay off in some way that the coaches intended, but I hope it does. I personally felt that Marshall could have been extremely influential during the England tests. Ahhh well.
As for the orders shown by Craig, I'd go with the top one, but I personally feel McCullum should be above Oram for the lower one. McCullum is far more a batsman than Oram, who should concentrate on bowling as that's what he's there for (predominantly). I used to hate Butler, but I'd probably put him into the first test at the very least because I feel that if he fires, he'll fire well - a lot better than the likes of Mills or Martin. Another bonus for Butler over Mills is that Butler wasn't in the squad England played against. I wouldn't be surprised if the Aussies are taking most of their notes from the England team.
It should be interesting. I'm really glad they're showing the tests over here.
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