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Mills up to #1 on the ODI top bowlers ranking

Athlai

Not Terrible
If not best certainly right at the top.

The batting however....

Australia, SA, Ind are all easily superior.
SL, Pak, Eng and perhaps even WI have an argument at having better batsman.
 

Bahnz

Hall of Fame Member
Really great bowling throughout the CT from Mills. Pleasing after the disastrous home series against India when he looked short of fitness and form. If it weren't for Bond's return I'd even consider bringing him back into the test side for Pakistan, especially given that the early season conditions are likely to play right into his hands.
 

Flem274*

123/5
Martin's an interesting one. You can't drop him because you have no idea what the replacement will do and Martin is pretty consistent and always looks threatening, but he never gets the figures he deserves for how well he bowls, which suggests to me that perhaps we look on him with shining eyes a bit.

Martin is an excellent guy to have charge in all day and look lethal without being a liability in the runs column (aka Jimmy Franklin), but he doesn't rip the balls off teams like he used to. He's a much better bowler outside NZ and SA than he was a few years ago (soooo dire outside those nations back then) but he's not the lethal bowler he was in his comfort zones either.

Wierd.

Mills on the other hand, is an awesome ODI bowler and highly underrated by cricketing media and public. He's a medium fast bowler from New Zealand, therefore he fits our workmanlike hard trier bull**** stereotype that we seem to be labelled with. Reality is he is a dangerous ODI strikebowler that can swing the ball epically.

However in tests once the ball stops swinging he's in trouble. He's not overly quick and he gets punished if he errs slightly. His 4/16 against England was a good example of how he can win matches, but like Shane O'Connor, with the very good will come the very bad from the limitations of what Mills is.
 

Howsie

International Captain
At least Mills will look to attack when he has the new ball in hand, Martin frustrates me when he bowls far too wide with the new ball.
 

Days of Grace

International Captain
I question Mills' fitness to come back for a third or fourth spell on a long day.

Anyway, one thing I was always interested in is looking at Mills' ODI stats when comparing his S/R and E/R in his first spell, versus his second/third spells.

I think there would be a massive difference. He is one of the best bowlers in the world at that first 6/7 over spell. In fact, he could be the best.
 

Prince EWS

Global Moderator
I question Mills' fitness to come back for a third or fourth spell on a long day.
Yeah, this is the key issue I think. He's quite injury prone - he's always carrying a niggle or two even if it's not reported - so his ability to come back and bowl at a decent pace after his first spell is quite limited. Combine this with the fact that he's quite a new-ball reliant bowler anyway, and the fact that he's very much a confidence bowler, and you get some absolute trash when he bowls with the old ball.

I quite like Mills and I've often called for him to be given more of a run in Tests but I think it's really getting to a stage where he's not physically up to it.
 

nz0003

School Boy/Girl Captain
Millsy goes through stages, he looked all at sea against India earlier this year but at the moment he's one of the best new ball bowlers in the world. If Bond keeps getting better there's a slight chance we could have 1, 2 and 3 soon enough. We'd be lucky to have 3 players in the top 50 ODI batsman though.
 

Athlai

Not Terrible
Reckon in the long term, Guptill, Taylor, Ryder and Elliott should all be in the top 25 of batting. In the short term a good series against Pakistan for Mills, Vettori and Bond could see us holding #1,2, and 3 in no time at all.
 

Furball

Evil Scotsman
Taylor's been in pretty poor form with the bat recently but I'd back him to be there or thereabouts in any hypothetical ODI world XI.
 

Blakey

State Vice-Captain
Taylor's been in pretty poor form with the bat recently but I'd back him to be there or thereabouts in any hypothetical ODI world XI.
He has been in horrid form. His average for this year is only slightly higher than his overall, which for a player of his apparent class is not good enough.

He's dined out on the WI and Bangladeshi's which has bumped his average up no end.

Hasn't scored only one century in the last 2 seasons and who was that against? Bangladesh.

How do you get this guy out of his funk, oh, and get him to find another scoring shoot when he's in the ****?
 

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