*Official* New Zealand in India 2010

[Athlai]

It's suppose to rain tommorow isn't it?

Thunderstorms forecast.

 

[centurymaker]

Swing and plenty of it makes this very very interesting.

Bet we'll take a few wickets and look on top only to be foiled by the rain. Making this match another easy draw.

Final match India bring it and we get thrashed.

Nagpur (3rd test) pitch offers quite a bit of spin IIRC. Jason Kreja got like several wickets on day 1 and 2 in 2008.

 

[lockton2skipper]

pitch not doing a lot and india's bowling looks friendly. how they can be number one rated test team with that attack beats me.

 

[Burgey]

pitch not doing a lot and india's bowling looks friendly. how they can be number one rated test team with that attack beats me.

Zaheer is quality.. And they bat awfully well.

 

[Teja.]

Yeah, Everything done, Zaheer still has 2 wickets @ 20 each at the end of the day. Been in epic form off-late. Will take 3 more tomorrow, IMO.

 

[Teja.]

To further show how **** we are apart from Zaheer:-

Indian bowling figures in 2010:

Zaheer Khan - 34 wickets in 6 games @ 22.7
.
.
H'jan Singh - 25 wickets in 7 games @ 43.24
Ishant Sharma - 22 wickets in 8 games @ 44.72
Pragyan Ojha - 27 wickets in 6 games @ 47.14
Amit Mishra - 15 wickets in 4 games @ 42.2
Abhimanyu Mithun - 6 wickets in 3 games @ 62
Sreesanth - 4 wickets in 2 games @ 58.75

That's how sad our bowling is, atm.

Know it's early but so far this series:-

Zaheer Khan - 5 wickets @ 23.6
.
.
Pragyan Ojha - 5 wickets @ 33.6
Sreesanth - 3 wickets @ 50.66
H'jan Singh - 1 wicket @ 178

 

[Faisal1985]

I like it....some competition....!

Good stuff from McIntosh and Guptill.

 

[M0rphin3]

Know it's early but so far this series:-

Zaheer Khan - 5 wickets @ 23.6
.
.
Pragyan Ojha - 5 wickets @ 33.6
Sreesanth - 3 wickets @ 50.66
H'jan Singh - 1 wicket @ 178

Has a lot to do with the captaincy too, when you don't have the balls to keep the fielders in after being hit for a boundary, the pressure is non existent and you end up with such figures.

Srreesanth bowled much better than his figures suggest.

 

[akilana]

This NZ team has surprised me.

 

[BeeGee]

Tim to ton up.

Called it.

Great knock by TimmyMac.

 

[Hurricane]

Most teams use their number 9 batsman as a night watchman. Maybe they figure Tim isn't up to the job...Not sure why we would risk our number 8 batsman.

 

[Howe_zat]

Most teams use their number 9 batsman as a night watchman. Maybe they figure Tim isn't up to the job...Not sure why we would risk our number 8 batsman.

To be fair there's not much difference between Hopkins and Southee except that Southee is much more aggressive. They wanted someone to block for a few overs and Hopkins is much more qualified for that.

Having Southee in reserve is an extra advantage in case everything goes right, and they have him for some slogging late on tomorrow.

 

[Athlai]

There is a huge difference between Hopkins and Southee.

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

Thought Ryder played a really mature end-of-day innings last night. Some pretty bizarre captaincy either shows a poor mindset or they have no belief in Ryder's mental capacity to bat within himself. Ryder might be a loose cannon off the field, but he's pretty damn solid when he's batting.

 

[silentstriker]

NZ > Australia, clearly.

 

[Howe_zat]

NZ > Australia, clearly.

And as a corollary, Bangladesh > Australia.

 

[Hurricane]

Hopkins > Southee at batting. I think that Hopkins wicket would have been more valuable to a late innings surge as he could have kept Vettori company while Dan smacked it around. The general take on Southee is that he is going to be unreliable for the next 2-3 years before becoming a reasonable bat.

He has already improved somewhat.

I would have preferred using one of our bowlers as the night watchman. I just find it interesting that Vettori didn't rate any of them as being good enough. When I grew up Snedden used to be picked as our night watchman. Just someone with a good defensive system.

In terms of the bet with Athlai - this is a golden opportunity for Hopkins to score a 50.

 

[NZ Guy]

Gar! Again with the losing of a wicket at the end of the day! Great for McIntosh though, keeping that average happily floating around the 30 mark. And good for Guptill too, even if he was living the most charmed life imaginable.

Need 500 on this pitch, so there's still plenty for Ryder, Vettori, Williamson, Southee and ****kins to do.

TBF once he hit 20 he didn't really look like he was going to get out, played beutifully imo

 

[Athlai]

Find it hard to describe Hopkins as a genuine nightwatchman. But yeah he won't get a better chance to score runs.

 

[Hurricane]

When Southee first started he was compared to Chris Cairns as a batsman. Which was ridiculous because Cairns was actually good or at least looked good on debut.