New Zealand doom and gloom thread

[Athlai]

Pretty sure the first 3 days were sold out against England and India. At least two of them were.

The Basin always gets good turn outs for the 'good' games. Poor showings for Sri Lanka, West Indies and Bangladesh though.

Yeah they were sold out. Good times.

 

[The Hutt Rec]

I'm generally more optimistic about the BCs than most other Kiwi posters here and so do not post much on this thread. But I do think this point is interesting. McCullum's game is so good for the shorter forms that it's sometimes easy to overlook that it isn't very well suited to Tests. SR is not important in Tests, and SR was the best thing McCullum had to offer in limited overs cricket.

KW will be a very different captain. He plays the percentages and is not a gambler.

McCullum was necessary for us to get to this position. But getting to No. 1 will require a different approach to what we have used recently. Australia hardly ever take risks, they just play percentages and no-one can beat them on it. With a KW captaincy we will play percentages.

Yeah just to clarify I'm definitely only talking about tests here. I'd have him in the 20-20 World Cup in a heartbeat!

Pretty sure the first 3 days were sold out against England and India. At least two of them were.

The Basin always gets good turn outs for the 'good' games. Poor showings for Sri Lanka, West Indies and Bangladesh though.

Oh really? I stand corrected, I thought those were generally only the first day. Possibly more touring/opposition fans for those sides, though?

 

[Athlai]

Oh really? I stand corrected, I thought those were generally only the first day. Possibly more touring/opposition fans for those sides, though?

India/England both had very strong touring/opposition fan crowds. I'd guess at least 20%, and possibly much higher.

 

[Jord]

I think Williamson will do OK. He has the respect of his team mates due to his god tier batting and he obviously has a brain for cricket. I just think the team Baz thought he was leaving behind for Kane to run with is a lot worse than we thought.

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

Oh really? I stand corrected, I thought those were generally only the first day. Possibly more touring/opposition fans for those sides, though?

Absolutely. Certainly not such a partizan crowd for the England/India games as for the Australia one. I mean, there was a decent section of Australian fans at the Basin this time around, but there almost seemed to be a whole section on the bank for Barmy Army and their cohorts for the England match.

A reasonably sized partizan crowd for the day of McCullum's 300 though - even if it wasn't sold out.

 

[straw man]

McCullum was necessary for us to get to this position. But getting to No. 1 will require a different approach to what we have used recently. Australia hardly ever take risks, they just play percentages and no-one can beat them on it. With a KW captaincy we will play percentages.

This is interesting because the mantra back in the early 2000s was that Australia played aggressive cricket, scoring at 3.5-4 per over in test matches, and this contrasted to NZ's approach which was more to try to grind out runs. The conclusion was drawn by some that NZ needed to play more aggressive cricket.

Now Australia's batsmen are indeed playing low-risk cricket (barring Warner). I don't think we necessarily need to copy that style. Williamson and Latham will aim to play like that, but others like Anderson and Santner may not. So lets Brendon McCullum it all up and continue to have every batsman play in a way 'authentic' to themselves.

 

[Athlai]

This is interesting because the mantra back in the early 2000s was that Australia played aggressive cricket, scoring at 3.5-4 per over in test matches, and this contrasted to NZ's approach which was more to try to grind out runs. The conclusion was drawn by some that NZ needed to play more aggressive cricket.

Now Australia's batsmen are indeed playing low-risk cricket (barring Warner). I don't think we necessarily need to copy that style. Williamson and Latham will aim to play like that, but others like Anderson and Santner may not. So lets Brendon McCullum it all up and continue to have every batsman play in a way 'authentic' to themselves.

Smith as captain - Australia RPO is 4.06
Clarke as captain - Australia RPO is 3.45
Ponting as captain - Australia RPO is 3.52

 

[straw man]

we are discussing perceptions though, and that was definitely the narrative back then

 

[Athlai]

Australia's "method" of scoring hasn't changed at all. Does anyone really think that this is a more defensive Australian team even excluding Warner?

 

[hendrix]

- I accept the logic of the argument that Pattinson and Hazelwood are good enough bowlers to get batsmen out without injudicious shots, and therefore an approach that yields the maximum runs might involve scoring more often than we normally might attempt to against say SL's bowlers.

- I also accept that Aus have bowled well enough to force unforced errors, if you'll allow me that oxymoron.

- I also accept that for Anderson and McCullum - even if he's proved the opposite in the past - a run-scoring approach is probably the best option.

- I don't agree that we've struck a reasonable balance though. If we were batting at the intended tempo in the first test, that strategy was wrong.

- I don't agree with the strategy of the bowlers in the first test

- I don't think there were sufficient, pre-prepared plans to individual batsmen carried out precisely and for long enough to work.

- In general my single view of this series has been poor preparation. That is just not good enough from a professional team.

 

[straw man]

@Athlai

I was quoting kiwiviktor. Voges is really the only one I think is truly relentless and low-risk. Unfortunately he's been doing a fair bit of batting against us,

Test run rates have been moving upwards anyway I'd suggest, for all teams.

 

[straw man]

- I accept the logic of the argument that Pattinson and Hazelwood are good enough bowlers to get batsmen out without injudicious shots, and therefore an approach that yields the maximum runs might involve scoring more often than we normally might attempt to against say SL's bowlers.

- I also accept that Aus have bowled well enough to force unforced errors, if you'll allow me that oxymoron.

- I also accept that for Anderson and McCullum - even if he's proved the opposite in the past - a run-scoring approach is probably the best option.

- I don't agree that we've struck a reasonable balance though. If we were batting at the intended tempo in the first test, that strategy was wrong.

- I don't agree with the strategy of the bowlers in the first test

- I don't think there were sufficient, pre-prepared plans to individual batsmen carried out precisely and for long enough to work.

- In general my single view of this series has been poor preparation. That is just not good enough from a professional team.

Pretty much agree with all this. That the attacking mindset has been accentuated too much in the last 12 months. And that unfortunately it doesn't seem some of the preparation has been as good as it should have been, despite that being what Hesson is known for.

 

[Meridio]

Have just been reading back through the first dozen or so pages of this thread, for nostalgia purposes I suppose given this summer has been pretty disappointing.

We've come a long, long way in 3-3.5 years, which is encouraging; I hadn't necessarily forgotten how poor that period was but looking at some of those first innings totals and team lineups brought it crashing back. So, while our performances this summer haven't been great, there's no way we should be falling back into a similar period of abject doom and gloom. The players who we hoped would come good generally have - despite current form - and I do expect them to get back into form and keep getting better.

That said, there are a few genuine areas of concern. The opening batting problems remain, as does the lower middle order problem (Santner and Nicholls have made an okay-ish start, but have a very long way to go), as does the spinner problem. There's also been a slight pig-headishness about the way we play our cricket: the constant harping on about being aggressive, not being adaptable with our approach, not being patient with our plans, trying to pull off the one-in-a-hundred option rather than playing the higher percentages, the lower order placing no value on their wicket. I hope with KW as captain a few of those will be addressed.

 

[burr]

Whoops, wrong thread!

 

[NZTailender]

I think in some ways that UAE Test was more detrimental because it seems like when Baz's batting responsibility and the bowlers started going off the boil. The current side is a shadow of the 2013/14 side.

 

[Jord]

Another bad review.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

- I don't think there were sufficient, pre-prepared plans to individual batsmen carried out precisely and for long enough to work.

This is the main thing for me. McCullum's ADD captaincy means we usually do something for a few overs but if it doesn't get us a wicket we have to try something completely different. Whether it's the bowlers not being able to execute, I'm not sure. But apart from that one weird Sri Lanka test, line and length restrictive bowling needs to be a backup plan but we rarely do it for extended periods. You're not going to run through sides with miracle balls all the time.

 

[Jord]

Is it McCullum's captaincy or the bowlers patience? Southee seems adamant he's going to find a miracle ball to swing back from the leg stump and crash into off. I don't think I've seen any bowler outside of Wagner put six in a place you would say was working to a plan.

 

[The Hutt Rec]

Is it McCullum's captaincy or the bowlers patience? Southee seems adamant he's going to find a miracle ball to swing back from the leg stump and crash into off. I don't think I've seen any bowler outside of Wagner put six in a place you would say was working to a plan.

Do we have a plan? I can't help but think back to the opening test in Brisbane, if we had a plan then it changed every four or five balls, from all accounts. It more resembled blind panic.

It should be quite simple - based on our research this is the plan, your job is to bowl there to this batsman, if that doesn't work we will reassess in a few overs time. I can't say I have much confidence that's the case right now.

That doesn't really explain why Wagner manages to get his bouncer thang going ... that's not exactly what you'd call batsman specific though!

 

[wellAlbidarned]

it doesn't matter what the plan is if you're gun barrel straight at 130kph. Need to get their nip and swing back.