Indeed. Nevertheless, New Zealand are a class above England in ODIs, more due to much greater tactical aptitude, a less confused selectorial policy, treating the game with more respect than England do, and Daniel Vettori.
Seriously England had no business of losing to such a depleted Black Cap side in the recent Odi series and that too at home, New Zealand are very much at a rebuilding phase atm, and England should have been able to beat them pretty convincingly, but the very fact that England went onto loss 3-1 (which should have been 4-1 if some common sense would have prevailed), doesn't speak too highly of the English Odi unit.
Well, yeah. But they lost two consecutive ODI series, and both could so easily have been 4-1. Above, i put it down largely to differences in attitude, on second thoughts, i think NZ have marginally better ODI players too. For example, Ian Bell is a more talented and gifted player than Jamie How, but as an opener in an ODI i'd have How every single time. Comparing their most recent lineups,
Flintoff has batted 20 times coming in at either 3 or 4 and averages 17.88 at 3, while it slightly improves to 23.64 at 4. At number 5 he has been most successful, which coincided with his excellent form, this allows him time to settle and then free his arms later in the game, ideally. However, I'm not suggesting he is not now the batter he was, but I don't think currently he warrants a place in the top 5.
He absolutely needs to be positive, and batting towards the end when he has no option but to be, may see him find the middle of the bat and pitch in with a few helpful cameos. Batting at the top will have its pressures, if he is throwing the bat around in the dying stages, no-one can blame him should he be dismissed.
I think those rankings are fair enough, except maybe that I would put it more like Broad=Mills. Broad hasn't done much in Tests with the balls but in ODIs of late he has been nothing short of excellent, IMO.
Hmm he was very poor to begin with but improved drastically. I think that's fair. Mills is far more experienced in ODIs and actually has a better record in every sense. Not a lot in it though. My memory of Broad is just skewed because no matter how good an ODI career he has i will always remember him as Stuart "6 sixes" Broad.
Oh yeah, they're very similar indeed, but Mills has played more than twice as many ODI games and I would marginally prefer him in my team. He's a useful enough batsman too, remember, although he wasn't always and his stats probably reflect that.
Yeah, but I said Broad=Mills, and I did mean based over an equivalent period of the last 12-18 months
Whilst I had my spreadsheet open.
Haha yeah. But he did manage to bowl a half-decent cutter on Friday and he looked remarkably chuffed afterwards.Didn't realise how good Ntini's record is in ODI's...without a slower ball as well.
In batsmen-friendly conditions, it's not only unnecessary but puts you at a big disadvantage when playing a team with aggressive openers like South Africa, India, or Australia. If the ball looks like it'll do quite a bit early in the innings, genuine openers are the way to go.
Depends what you mean by "genuine openers".
Those teams have genuine openers (Hayden, Smith, Marsh, Sehwag, Gambhir and a converted opener) who can also score quickly. They're not out-and-out pinch hitters like Gilchrist, Sanath or Gayle, but they do the job just right for ODIs, and don't crawl like we've seen, say, Marvan or Salman Butt, or here itself, Strauss. We've seen someone like Cook keep the momentum going quite well, while building an innings. The loss of Trescothick is a big one, as we saw in that match against Gloucs. The team needs either two genuine openers who can adapt to ODI cricket, or at least one very effective pinch-hitter.
