TBF to Guptill he accelerated while McCullum did the opposite.
Guptill was poor, no denying that, he's been poor all series really. I'm only cutting him slack becasue he's 22 and doesn't usually get bogged down like that.
Don't think McCullum should have been playing tbh.
DWTA. Hopkins would have made matters worse. In saying that, he is the second best keeper in the country that we can pick (Van Wyk is probably the number two).
It wasn't fine at all really, was too defensive on a flat track against poor bowling and put way too much pressure on the rest of the order.
Chris Nevin is not amused.
Disagree. We were fine at 69/0 tbh, we just threw it away. you shouldn't fail to get 270 with 30+ overs to play with and ten wickets in hand from there.
Good. Maybe he'll improve if I piss him off.
AWTA, that lbw appeal against Ferguson was plumb. Terrible umpiring though in fairness Aussies were nearly home by then. Anyway all in all disappointing back to back losses for NZ, and they'll really need to avoid bull **** selections like Cumming etc to come back and take the trophy at the Gabba.
Did you watch it?
Sadly yes.
The Ferguson lbw was very poor. The only defence that can be offered for the umpire was that the bat hit the pitch very close to when the ball passed the bat, and you can only imagine he heard the second noise and concluded it had taken an edge from the bat on the way through, because otherwise that was one of the worst decisions I've ever seen. I've never heard Ch. 9 commentators laughing bemusedly about a wrong decision that's favoured Australia before.
Hayden and Gilly both were there in 2008 CB series, and yet we saw generally low scoring games.
Yeah and that South Australian references left a bad taste even in a known NZ fan like me. Commentators of Ch 9 have touched an all time low indeed. And they are plumbing further.
I found the commentary around that incident kinda funny (as in haha, not peculiar). They didn't try to disguise or justify the bad decision, so I didn't mind them laughing at what was a shocker - what else could you do faced with such a bad call, other than chuck a wobbly.
However you don't pay commentators to sit there and giggle (exactly what Slater did for almost a minute) on a wrong decision. Initially when Slater was brought in, I was actually a fan since it brought some unorthodoxy into the box, but soon I got tired of his oohs aahs giggles.
Well, they're paid to make the television product more appealling to a wider market. The bulk of that is by communicating the technicalities of the game, explaining incidents as they occur, and discussing potential scenarios, but a significant part is also finding the humour in things as they occur, and provide a bit of colour and fun in the broadcast of what is otherwise for some a rather long haul. If only cricket purists who want only serious discussion watched the program it would make no money for the broadcaster.
