Official NZ in Bangladesh (5 T20s)

[thierry henry]

While I would have liked us to bat slightly less terribly, overall this series has gone better than it should have for us. Not even our B team, in the worst possible conditions for us, against a team who used to whitewash our A team in white ball cricket. Patel and Ravindra’s bowling has succeeded beyond what could possibly have been hoped for.

 

[straw man]

WD Bangladesh. Mahmadullah always scores runs against us.

NZ expectations rock bottom after that first match collapse, but we've now lost matches 2 and 4 that were very close and could/should have won with tighter performances. Fundamentally hampered by a squad with only one spinner plus two part-timers and four hundred pace bowlers that we don't need. Bizarre.

 

[thierry henry]

If we’re calling Rachin a part timer then this is the greatest series of T20 bowling by a part timer ever

 

[AndyZaltzHair]

Think there is a serious prospect of including Patel in NZ WC T20 squad. He’s been phenomenal. While the conditions will differ in UAE but looking at his bowling, he can’t do much wrong.

 

[Moss]

Well done Bangladesh, favourable conditions but still gotta exploit them, and chasing has been tricky. Also evens out the ledger a bit after having to tour NZ and get beaten several times in the last few years.

Can't be too harsh on NZ but there're a few things they could have avoided really - those two team changes, batting CdG ahead of more capable batsmen, failing to stack the batting, not bowling the spinners right through up front. Anyway, good learning experience.

 

[Aritro]

from what i've seen and heard from their media since they got good, they're trying to be india but without the results to back up the chat.

it's a shame because i like a lot of their players and cw posters.

Our commentators are beyond awful, but yeah, there's only 2-3 of them and there's a couple of international imports who have fitted in pretty snugly as well. There's pretty much no respite. Every time there's a change in commentary it's a momentary relief, and then it's awful again until the next change in commentary.

 

[Aritro]

Anyway, it's the cheatiest, most manufactured series win there has ever been since at least three weeks ago. And that against a team as far removed from being a genuine representative team as the West Indies ring-ins we rolled during their players strike in 2009 but **** it. If you can't buzz when you win a series, what's the point of any of it. ?‍

 

[Flem274*]

These decks are fun as long as they're the same for both teams tbh. Games aren't being decided by the toss. I've definitely gone from a "this is hilarious, well done you jammy ****s" view to a "this is just funny" view.

I obviously make no secret of being a seam up fan but balls turning square and shooting low will never not be funny.

 

[Moss]

Think there is a serious prospect of including Patel in NZ WC T20 squad. He’s been phenomenal. While the conditions will differ in UAE but looking at his bowling, he can’t do much wrong.

Yeah he should leapfrog Astle with this performance, though Sodhi and/or Santner would have to be injured for Kane to give him a bowl.

 

[thierry henry]

Think there is a serious prospect of including Patel in NZ WC T20 squad. He’s been phenomenal. While the conditions will differ in UAE but looking at his bowling, he can’t do much wrong.

Is that actually possible at this point?

It’s gonna be a bit awkward assuming Astle and Chapman don’t get anywhere near Patel/Ravindra’s results in Pakistan, but taking them to the WC.

 

[Moss]

Hope the batting lineup finds some semblance of form in the final game as this combination will have to front up for the Pakistan ODIs as well.

 

[Aritro]

These decks are fun as long as they're the same for both teams tbh. Games aren't being decided by the toss. I've definitely gone from a "this is hilarious, well done you jammy ****s" view to a "this is just funny" view.

It's genuinely great entertainment. I mean we'd all prefer the much mythologised but seldom seen eVeN cOnTeSt bEtWeEn bAt aNd bAll but given that it never actually happens there's few things I enjoy more than cricket played on meme pitches where batsmen are getting mowed down like they're at Gettysburg.

 

[Bijed]

Yeah, having many more series like this and the Aus one in the near future would be overkill, but I'd like to see more matches/pitches in general where a total which would typically be very low is in fact quite probably matchwinning. Ideally just randomly in the middle of an otherwise typical T20 bilateral series. Might get to see some great T20 knocks which are truly special in a different way to just "more sixes"

 

[AndyZaltzHair]

I missed this one today

 

[pomnotenglish]

As an Indian who is a great fan of Kiwi cricket, I have two queries that I am just wondering about out loud - When will NZ have a good overseas record in Asia & when will they learn to play spin? Barring Kane Williamson, Ross Taylor, Tom Latham & W Young to some extent, the others are mostly at sea against quality spin. No doubt, the pitches in Bangladesh were more than helpful for the spinners but it was very disappointing to see the batters perform the way they did. Historically also, we don't see them producing too many spinners, Daniel Vettori being a quality exception.

 

[nzfan]

Didn't watch last night's game Lockdown lifted meant there were other commitments. No more watching every ball of the game I guess Nevertheless looks like another watching paint dry sort of a match but Bangladesh getting there with good number of wickets in hand. I'm guessing it wasn't as close as the scorecard suggests i.e. the number of balls played out. Despite the pitches and what not our batting needs to improve facing spin. At least be able to get to 100+ scores consistently. I guess it will and these are the sort of pitches that you want to come up on as frustrating as it is, good to hone the skills, learn lessons.

Looking at the scorecard, Cole went for some runs suggesting Bangladesh must have played him well. There was always going to come a time when one of the spinners will have an off day. Unfortunately that was last night, still Cole has done quite well through out the tour and should ideally be our offie going forward. Jazzy as usual doing his bit and Rachin not getting any poles but economical. Young has had a very good series. Surely Jazz and Ravindra's bowling would not have been so good that Bangladesh took only 17 runs off 8 overs. That is unreal. Maybe they wanted to see those two off? I'm not sure, need to watch the game but can't believe they didn't bowl a bad ball in what 48 balls.

All in all reasonable performances by our boys, small margins and Bangladesh deserving winners. It's not like we've been smashing them in Bangladesh in any case. At least we held them long enough if not super close games.

The only problem I see though is how do we judge our batters and bowlers. Are our batters not good at all vs spin. I'm not sure about that. In T20s you have to play your shots and can't score at 4s to win games but then in one day cricket you can score at 4s and still win on turning decks. in test cricket you can score at 2s and win test matches so hard to say. Similarly are our spinners really as good as they were made out to be? The conditions is heavily in favour of spin and if it's test cricket the opponents can obviously bat them out. 4 over spell for 2 runs by Ravindra is outstanding in this format but in tests it's like stock standard and he'll probably be disappointed if he hasn't knocked someone over in that many overs. Do we reckon bowling attack of Santner, Sodhi and Todd would have been even better than these guys?

Same goes for Bangladesh, can you call Shakib and Mush not good enough going by the results in this series? I don't think so. I think they are still Bangaldesh's premier batters. Give them a reasonable deck and they will do their job with the bat.

Still any cricket is good cricket, hoping to catch up on ball by ball at some point in time.

 

[nzfan]

Anyway, it's the cheatiest, most manufactured series win there has ever been since at least three weeks ago. And that against a team as far removed from being a genuine representative team as the West Indies ring-ins we rolled during their players strike in 2009 but **** it. If you can't buzz when you win a series, what's the point of any of it. ?‍

Win is a win no matter what. Despite ours not being the top team, it could have been banana peel for Bangladesh. They have done well enough to avoid it by closing the 4th game. It's easier to slip up but looks like your captain had other ideas. He's a pretty good player to watch.

 

[nzfan]

As an Indian who is a great fan of Kiwi cricket, I have two queries that I am just wondering about out loud - When will NZ have a good overseas record in Asia & when will they learn to play spin? Barring Kane Williamson, Ross Taylor, Tom Latham & W Young to some extent, the others are mostly at sea against quality spin. No doubt, the pitches in Bangladesh were more than helpful for the spinners but it was very disappointing to see the batters perform the way they did. Historically also, we don't see them producing too many spinners, Daniel Vettori being a quality exception.

I think we will be all right. Hard to go by the results of this series and judging batters. Primarily because there's none but one t20 specialist in the squad, Finn Allen. He will be all right, get him on a slightly better deck and he'll do all right. Not worried about him. These scores aren't indicative of his prowess. Only downfall is that he's still young and very good player but then he may end up being a white ball specialist which will be a shame.

As for longer format, we will need to see where we stand post India series. We have done well vs Pakistan, SL on their decks. Somehow our bowlers tend to stand up. I guess playing in NZ as a spinner you learn to bowl really tight. You don't have a lot of margin for erros. That helps them when they play on turning tracks but batting is a different thing altogether. You got to bat on those decks positively to be able to work out a game plan and train at playing spin. We don't have to sweep or use feet in our conditions. We can be rooted in the crease and milk the spinners. Something you can't do in sub continent. Over here, as a batter you want the spinners to bowl so that you to get from 50 to 100 quickly without a risk

Ajaz, Young, Cole and Ravindra are obvious stand outs in this series. I'm actually not surprised at Jazz and Ravindra bowling combination coming good. They won us our one day series vs very strong India A in NZ bowling in tandem not too long ago. Even the Indian batters showed a lot of respect to them both and I think we may have won two games on the trot on the back of these two + Jamieson. Young is our obvious next top order bat, he will come in place of Taylor whenever he hangs the boot. Ajaz should be playing all formats consistently. Ravindra and Cole should be included in all squads going to sub continent. How can we do that we don't know as Santner is a gun white ball bowler and offers plenty. Ish picks up lots of wickets too in white ball and undroppable at the moment but things can change rather quickly in international cricket.

 

[SteveNZ]

Think there is a serious prospect of including Patel in NZ WC T20 squad. He’s been phenomenal. While the conditions will differ in UAE but looking at his bowling, he can’t do much wrong.

Isn't the rule that someone has to be ruled out for him to be included?

 

[Skyliner]

Pathetic performance from Billy Ray Cyrus as usual. Was pathetic in England where he was a total passenger, now he's been pathetic in Bangladesh as well. No runs, dropped catches, hardly bowled, looks like a scruffy slob who isn't interested any more.

No intent to win the series by the C team handlers, tour was used purely as development exercise. Kuggs could have been given a better crack at a slot, might have scored some runs & wouldn't have done any worse than some of the others....McConchie looked like he'd never batted before in his life. Continuing to keep has-beens like Bennet sniffing around the side is just as pointless as continuing to play the (stunned) Mullet.