***Official*** Commonwealth Bank Tri-Series

[marc71178]

Gough?

Please no - he's been awful for far too long.

 

[mikeW]

Gough?

Please no - he's been awful for far too long.

Surely not worse than Anderson and co?

 

[marc71178]

Yes, much worse.

 

[ash chaulk]

haha Gilly was awesome last night...

"cmon gilly throw us to the ad break" Gilly running to the other end of the wicket "and after x overs england in trouble again this summer 4-60"

love 20/20

 

[age_master]

Haha, how is White even in the same league as Hogg with the ball? That's like comparing Symonds to Lee as seam bowlers.

In LIst A cricket...

White: 60 wickets @ 35

Michael Clarke: 51 wickets @ 29

Symonds: 264 wickets @ 32

Hogg: 202 wickets @ 28.5

 

[age_master]

Wait until the real ones come out on Friday morning. They are the worst design I've ever seen and that includes the Coca Cola sponsored uniforms of the mid nineties.

This one? abit different but i quite like it.

 

[ash chaulk]

nup looks suth afrukin

 

[brockley]

Mitch johnson and brett lee i doubt for the game on friday,ben hilfenhaus may get another game.

 

[Matt52]

In the last game for NZ in the Sri Lankan series NZ finally settled on a top order. Because they want ross Taylor to stay at 3, and McCullum to open, either Astle or Fleming would open with McCullum and the other would drop all the way down to no4. In the last game they chose Astle to open so that probably means the NZ top order for the first game in Hobart on Sunday will look like this

McCullum
Astle
Taylor
Fleming.

If selections for the last Sri Lankan game are any indication of selections in Aus (pretty likely). Hamish Marshall was dropped, and McMillan was going to play. Fulton was still there, so 5 and 6 might be those guys. Lets hope NZ dont continue with batting Vettori at 5.

Mills, Styris and Oram are playing but not yet fit, so they wont be available until about the fourth or fifth game of the series.

Bracewell also made noises about getting as much experience into Gillespie as possible so he might be a continued selection throughout most of the games. As with Taylor, even if they dont do so well.

Apart from that, the usual customers of Vettori, Bond and Franklin, will be there with Patel put in on turning wickets.

So, a possible starting line up for Sunday's game against Aus...based on logic yet probably nowhere near the real thing, (Bracewell trusts his processes, not silly logic)

McCullum
Astle
Taylor
Fleming
Fulton
McMillan
Franklin
Vettori
Gillespie
Bond
Mason

Looks to have a long tail so if we lose a few early wickets (very likely) we will be in trouble (also very likely).

 

[Great Birtannia]

Mitch johnson and brett lee i doubt for the game on friday,ben hilfenhaus may get another game.

He might hang around as cover but I doubt he would play even if those two missed.

Gilchrist, Hayden, Ponting, Hussey, Symonds, Clarke, White, Hogg, Bracken, Clark, McGrath

Lee and Johnson are the best of the bowlers with the bat and with both of those potentially missing it's a long tail with Bracken at 8 if Hilfenhaus plays ahead of Hogg.

 

[NZTailender]

I actually enjoyed the Twenty/20. Mainly Australia's innings, and the new guys bowling for Australia.

England have finally found a decent keeper-batsman. Pity he can only play for about 2 years before he retires


Don't think McCullum should open, to be honest. If we want someone to tonk over the fielding restrictions, bring in Vincent. His good run of form ran out at the champions trophy (like a number of other batsman) but I think he deserves another shot. McCullum can hit over the top but he can do it at the later overs as well, and has a good track record of doing it against Australia.

Although unlikely, a good line up for NZ would be something like:

Astle
Vincent
Taylor
Fleming
Fulton
Oram
McCullum
Vettori
Mills
Bond
Gillespie

But we'll probably see for the first ODI:

Fleming
McCullum
Astle
Taylor
Fulton
Oram (if fit) McMillan/H Marshall (if not fit)
McCullum
Vettori
Franklin
Mills (if fit) Gillespie/Mason (if not fit)
Bond

 

[_Ed_]

Astle will open, he's said he wants to and he was supposed to do so in the washed out game.

And it should (I hope) be a pretty easy decision for the selectors to choose Gillespie over Mason. *crosses fingers*

 

[Fiery]

I would prefer to see Astle open, where he wants to be, and Fleming at 3 actually. Astle deserves to bat where he is most comfortable to get the best out of him I reckon

 

[Johnners]

He might hang around as cover but I doubt he would play even if those two missed.

Gilchrist, Hayden, Ponting, Hussey, Symonds, Clarke, White, Hogg, Bracken, Clark, McGrath

Lee and Johnson are the best of the bowlers with the bat and with both of those potentially missing it's a long tail with Bracken at 8 if Hilfenhaus plays ahead of Hogg.

Have to agree there, hopefully though both are Fit, and give the selectors a headache

 

[NZTailender]

I would prefer to see Astle open, where he wants to be, and Fleming at 3 actually. Astle deserves to bat where he is most comfortable to get the best out of him I reckon

Yeah, exactly. i think all (bar 1) of his ODI centuries have been opening. He's definitely our best opener.


However, I'm don't think Astle AND Fleming opening is the best idea. Or Astle and McCullum.

But definitely Astle has to open the batting for us.

Edit: With our experiment with McCullum opening, we were rotating the wrong players. We kept rotating partners in to bat with McCullum. IMO, it should've been to bat with Astle.

 

[brockley]

Didn't astle start off his career as an opener.

 

[NZTailender]

Didn't astle start off his career as an opener.

He's spent most of his career in ODI's opening.


For some reason, Cricinfo doesn't have any of the New Zealand players ODI matches or the ODI stats filter. Very odd.


But he does average 35 in ODI's (higher in games opening, IIRC) with 16 centuries, putting him up there as one of the best ODI openers.

 

[Sw1fty]

Astle needs to be opening the innings for New Zealand, he is their best one day batsman.

 

[_Ed_]

That was the reason Bracewell gave for batting him down the order originally - to "protect" him. It's taken a couple of years for him to realise that he's actually not as good when he doesn't open, and in fact I'd guess he wouldn't have realised even now if it hadn't been for Astle saying he was more comfortable opening and wanted to do so.

 

[Matt52]

That was the reason Bracewell gave for batting him down the order originally - to "protect" him. It's taken a couple of years for him to realise that he's actually not as good when he doesn't open, and in fact I'd guess he wouldn't have realised even now if it hadn't been for Astle saying he was more comfortable opening and wanted to do so.

It seemed a strange move in the beginning. Lets move our best odi batsman out of his preffered position........

I think NZ tailender might have a point. Maybe we should have rotated a few openers , just two probably to partner Astle.

Jesse Ryder should have been given a chance in this series I think. If he wasnt up to it , then so be it, but at least we will find out with enough time before the world cup. If he was up to it then he's got as much talent as taylor and is a lefty so that would give the right-left opening combination. I think Ryder would have been a better bet than the Marshals and even Fulton.

And remember, he smashed around those aussie A guys in that tri series. Guys like Cameron White and Shane Watson that are now in the full Aus team.