**Official** Road to New Zealand in the West Indies 2012

[Flem274*]

Originally Posted by Bahnz

I call bull****:

1st Test: Sri Lanka v New Zealand at Galle, Aug 18-22, 2009 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

2nd Test: Sri Lanka v New Zealand at Colombo (SSC), Aug 26-30, 2009 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

1st Test: India v New Zealand at Ahmedabad, Nov 4-8, 2010 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

2nd Test: India v New Zealand at Hyderabad (Deccan), Nov 12-16, 2010 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

3rd Test: India v New Zealand at Nagpur, Nov 20-23, 2010 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

Yes the seamers have been effective as well, but that speaks more to the vulnerability of our top 3 against the new ball than anything. The spinners have still usually been the ones taking the most wickets.

1) Murali took most of his wickets against the tail.
2) Murali again got the tail. Herath took a bag but not before we made 397.
3) We scored 459, and Ojha's 4/107 included Hopkins and Watling.
4) Harby got 4fer 70 odd, but we still scored 350, and following it up with 448.
5) Sharma won them the series. Ojha got the tail out in the first innings and harby did bowl well in the second dig. I remember that game vividly.

I'm not saying spinners don't take any wickets against us, if you bowl the most overs you're going to accumulate wickets eventually. I'm saying they don't hurt us anything like the pacers do.

Watching our lot play. they are much more competent against spin than seam. The very best spinners like Swann and Ajmal will no doubt hurt us, but average run of the mill spinners don't scare us at all.

I've never seen Narine so he may well be the second coming of Murali, but Windies domestic pitches are spin friendly and he is yet to debut so it's a big call to prepare pitches especially for him and Shillingford. Green them up and let the seamers loose. Sammy and Rampaul have been doing the business for the Windies and Roach will hopefully turn up more often as well.

Our best batsmen are all better against the spinners than the quick stuff. McCullum, Taylor and Williamson are all poke around prone early on against quality pace bowling whereas to my eye they're much more comfortable starting against spin.

In saying all this I don't think a pace friendly series is likely at all. They will either be turners or flaaaaat, so both spinners on both sides will probably get a lot of overs.

[Bahnz]

Originally Posted by Flem274*

1) Murali took most of his wickets against the tail.
2) Murali again got the tail. Herath took a bag but not before we made 397.
3) We scored 459, and Ojha's 4/107 included Hopkins and Watling.
4) Harby got 4fer 70 odd, but we still scored 350, and following it up with 448.
5) Sharma won them the series. Ojha got the tail out in the first innings and harby did bowl well in the second dig. I remember that game vividly.

I'm not saying spinners don't take any wickets against us, if you bowl the most overs you're going to accumulate wickets eventually. I'm saying they don't hurt us anything like the pacers do.

Watching our lot play. they are much more competent against spin than seam. The very best spinners like Swann and Ajmal will no doubt hurt us, but average run of the mill spinners don't scare us at all.

I've never seen Narine so he may well be the second coming of Murali, but Windies domestic pitches are spin friendly and he is yet to debut so it's a big call to prepare pitches especially for him and Shillingford. Green them up and let the seamers loose. Sammy and Rampaul have been doing the business for the Windies and Roach will hopefully turn up more often as well.

Our best batsmen are all better against the spinners than the quick stuff. McCullum, Taylor and Williamson are all poke around prone early on against quality pace bowling whereas to my eye they're much more comfortable starting against spin.

In saying all this I don't think a pace friendly series is likely at all. They will either be turners or flaaaaat, so both spinners on both sides will probably get a lot of overs.

Nah, I'd say we're equally poor against each. Guptill is a poor batsman of any kind of spin bowling. McCullum has the technique, but not the brains to score against them consistently. Taylor and Williamson are decent players of spin both, though the former has a habit of getting out playing daft shots, and the later is so new to the game that it's hard to know how he'd cope on genuine turners.

Shillingford and Narine both seem like decent spin bowlers, at least in conditions that suit them. If the pitches take turn I reckon we'll struggle to post decent totals. Having said that, I think our batting will struggle to post runs on pacy pitches as well, especially if we go in with five specialist batsmen and Vettori. The Windies start huge favourites for mine, regardless of what the surfaces are like.

[WindieWeathers]

Originally Posted by Flem274*

I've just been thinking about what the Windies should do and tbh they need to prepare pacy wickets. We still love a good collapse against pacemen, but Shakib is the only spinner to tear this particular batting order apart. The last time we toured Sri Lanka and India it was the pacemen who did the damage. Murali, Mendis (back when he was still a msytery) and Harby played second fiddle to the likes of Thushara and Sreesanth.

Kaneria and Rehman have had some success against us as well, but Kaneria's was 7/100 odd iirc.

ODIs is another matter, but in tests it's the quality speed that we dislike.

I'm quietly looking forward to Taylor and Williamson dispatching a Windies spin duo.

In saying that, I'd give a spinner a twirl against Guptill first up since he prefers the quicker bowlers and as of the last time we saw him, is quite boundary reliant against spin. Since even Jeets takes a few wickets in CC though then CC pitches must have a bit in them for the spinners, so Guppy should be getting in some good practice.

I'd also have the spinner straight on if when Watling comes in if he plays.

The flipside to this is a pace bowling wicket also helps us immensely, since seam bowling is the one thing we do well atm, and getting rid of Bravo and Chanderpaul early is crucial. Some days some of our batsmen will fall over to Roach, Sammy and Rampaul on any kind of pitch provided they put the ball in the right place.

Totally disagree, why would we give up our advantage in the spin department? if you have an advantage you have to take it, so if we prepare spinning tracks then that negates Bracewell and Martin while giving the likes of Narine a heaven to make his debut on!!!..and believe me he's bad enough on normal tracks, put him on a spinning one and he's near enough unplayable!! , i also i remember Tahir giving Williamson a problem recently so good luck facing Narine.

Gayle is gonna be back aswell so that's another one you'd have to get rid of early, i'm really looking forward to seeing what we can do in this series as i believe we'll be close to full strength, onl Taylor is gonna be missing really.

[SteveNZ]

Yep, they'll be dustbowls. Not like they'll get too scared of Vettori, right?

And from I can ascertain, the days of the quick and nasty pitches in the Windies are gone.

[WindieWeathers]

Originally Posted by SteveNZ

Yep, they'll be dustbowls. Not like they'll get too scared of Vettori, right?

And from I can ascertain, the days of the quick and nasty pitches in the Windies are gone.

We beat Pakistan on a minefield when they had Ajmal and Rehman, so no i don't think we'd be scared of Vetorri to be honest!! .

As for the pitches, Barbados and Jamaica are decent for pace still but spin does come into play on the last two days.

[Athlai]

The Windies dust bowls will definitely heavily favour the Windies. We don't really have a proper spinner and in a battle of attrition I'm backing Chanderpaul to trump anything we've got.

[wellAlbidarned]

Reckon we'll badly miss Boult against Chanders. Need someone taking the ball away from him.

[straw man]

Originally Posted by Athlai

The Windies dust bowls will definitely heavily favour the Windies. We don't really have a proper spinner and in a battle of attrition I'm backing Chanderpaul to trump anything we've got.

Chanderpaul will average 100 - we just need to get the rest out cheaply

[Flem274*]

We'll smash them.

[SteveNZ]

Originally Posted by wellAlbidarned

Reckon we'll badly miss Boult against Chanders. Need someone taking the ball away from him.

C.Martin, anyone? He goes okay.

[wellAlbidarned]

Originally Posted by SteveNZ

C.Martin, anyone? He goes okay.

Totally slipped my mind.