I thought Hurricane would be the one to dig this when I clicked on it. It's the sort of thing he would do.
I was 16 when I made this thread, and even more of a ****** than I am today. I didn't know what I was doing when I betrayed the Mug.
Howsie you're going OTT on the keepers with some hindsight calls. Each was probably the best option at the time post-McCullum. Kruger van Wyk was putting forward a case for being picked as a batsman alone if he wanted, let alone keeper. Likewise Hopkins had a golden run later in his career and Young was considered the best gloveman in the country at the time he was picked, and initially gave us some solid batting against Pakistan before being made the scapegoat after our batting efforts in Australia.
The alternatives at the time were Derek de Boorder who probably had about two matches to his name at the time iirc, Chris Nevin, Peter McGlashan (who should have played more limited overs for NZ but never tests) and I can't even remember the rest. The three picked were the best three available prior to Watling and Ronchi. Even now Kruger has a strong argument for being picked if Watling and Ronchi were injured.
I love Ingram but I don't think he would have made it, but he was treated terribly despite being the most deserving by far of a long run in the side. He was dropped very very quickly after being run out twice and played like 2 tests. The selectors kept waiting for him to fail in the Shield and he didn't, so they threw him a test against Bangladesh hoping for a duck so they could get rid of him fast and he made a couple of solid starts so they had to give him a run against Australia, where he was run out and looked bad at batting despite not getting out to the bowler so they had the slightest excuse and dropped the best opening batsman in New Zealand for whoever the next failure in line was. They hated him. He didn't look good but he wouldn't have been the first cricketer to surprise the purists and succeed.
Lord Colin is another tough one. He deserved a chance, and it's not his fault you can average 50 in the shield if you bat at Auckland and get to hit through the line at crap spinners and the medium pace dregs who get thrown the old ball.
Nicol is a good call, though still not even the most undeserving Cantabrian to get a cap. Through the 90s we had a swarm of Cantabrian batsmen with FC averages below 30. Then in the 2000s we kept calling up James Marshall and his below average record.