***Official*** England in New Zealand series 2013

[Prince EWS]

Originally Posted by Bahnz

I still haven't seen anything that clearly indicates McCullum will move down the order in tests. The only quote from Hesson that I can find is:

''I don't think Brendon's game is suited to blunting the attack, but he applied himself. I don't think that's the role he's going to play best for this team,"

Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but that could just as easily be interpreted as a change in batting mindset (go back to his 2010/11 aggressive style of opening) as a change in the batting order.

So in other words, you're hoping Hesson was just saying McCullum had now earned the right to be aggressive?

[straw man]

I wonder if some clever person could make a video of Ronchi's FC batting this season

[wellAlbidarned]

[Flem274*]

Moves to NZ to escape Gilchrist and Haddin

Watling actually comes good

[Daemon]

Avatar bet that Watling will average <30 against England

[straw man]

What NZ really needs is for the Plunket Shield to start again and then some moderately talented young batsman/allrounder to gun it. Then we can all get excited, claim they will solve all NZ's problems and include them in our hypothetical sides in place of last year's moderately talented young batsman/allrounder.

This will also allow 5 times as many lineup permutations as we currently have and we can talk about those for weeks and weeks.

[Kippax]

Luke Ronchi vs. Southee / Sodhi / ND - YouTube

[BeeGee]

Originally Posted by Kippax

Luke Ronchi vs. Southee / Sodhi / ND - YouTube

Bloke knows where his off stump is. Check out the leave at 1.47.
Test opener material.

[Bahnz]

Yeah, I watched both of his hundreds in that game, in their entirety over the christmas break. Looking at how quickly he scored, you'd think he must've totally Rydered it, but in actuality he batted very sensibly. Left and defended the good balls and murdered anything in his scoring areas (particularly through mid wicket).

[vic_orthdox]

Must admit, don't know where the "biffing" stuff came from, he plays cricket shots, just really really aggressively. A bit like Ryan Campbell from the past for Australia/WA.

Terrible starter though.

[straw man]

Originally Posted by Kippax

Luke Ronchi vs. Southee / Sodhi / ND - YouTube

:

I'll watch it later

[Prince EWS]

Watch it now.

[Bahnz]

Originally Posted by Flem274*

btw on a sidenote i missed the majority of the last test apart from some memorable moments like watching that final lollapse at the pub, but in what way was Wagner bad? The thread was grim reading tstl.

In every way. Inconsistent line and length, little pace (generally hovering around 130), inconsistent swing, zero reverse swing etc etc. Should never play for NZ again.

Wagner's failure also does a bit of damage to the 'select 4 seamers' argument. There's no way he's a better bowling option than Vettori (he's not even more likely to take wickets than DV). Given that Martin has declined into a medium pacer, and Gillespie is perpetually injured, who else is there banging on the door for the 4th seamer's role? Milne can't stay on the park for more than a couple of games in a row, Arnel is completely toothless at test level...unless you're prepared to give someone like Ian Butler a chance, the cupboard is pretty bare.

[vic_orthdox]

Couldn't believe how innocuous Martin looked every time I saw him bowl in SA (was flicking around, didn't watch whole days on an end or anything like that).

[Daemon]

Not enough emphasis on the poor bowling. We all knew the batting was ****, but the pace bowling had been looking so promising for the last 2 years. Were seriously toothless in decent conditions.