If you have been in an NZ match thread or the comments for a NZ Squad Selection recently, you will see one thing oft repeated by Black Caps fans: Why the **** is Luke Ronchi till being selected.
When these complaints started 18 months or so ago, the excuses were clear and logical: Watling can't play LOI (true), there is no one at a domestic level keeping who can make the step up to international cricket (true) and that his keeping and chatter behind the stumps is integral to the team.
Now, 18 months of utter **** with bat later, the only way one can fathom that he keeps is place in the team is that he has potentially career ending dirt on the Black Caps selectors. No one in their right mind could continue such a dog**** cricketer in their internation cricket team and expect success.
You might say this is over-dramatic if you do not follow NZ cricket- you might bring an example of a less than adequate selection choice your national selectors have made recently, his limited bu impressive test form or point to Ronchi's 170* vs Sri Lanka a few years back. But if you look at the numbers, you will see the that NZ has essentially been playing with a 10 man squad for the better part of two years.
Now, back to that 170* vs Sri Lanka on the 23rd of January 2015 in Dunedin. Most would argue that the day NZ lost the CWC Final was the darkest day for NZ cricket in 2015 - I disagree. As heartbreaking as the loss was, McCullum had single handedly brought NZ back from the brink, and this momentum coupled with a wealth of young talent such as Boult, Williamson, Southee and Latham, the future of NZ cricket was very bright.
But that 170* has kept a man who has no right playing international cricket in a squad and held them back from achieving greater success, and single handedly threatens to take NZ cricket back to where it was in the earlier part of the decade.
Let's look at Luke Ronchi from a specific date: 24th January. No doubt Ronchi woke up that morning buoyant, unaware of the darkness with which he would bring upon fans of NZ cricket, much like Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr on the morning of August 6th 1945.
Luke Ronchi's ODI innings since that date, listed in chronological order: 13, 47, 0, 29, 12, 6, 9, 9, 8, 0, 0, 33, 13, 8, 2, 7, 1, 1, 7, 37*, 5, 20, 16, 19, 5, 0, 6, 1, 5, 35.
The man has not crossed 50 in an ODI in two years. He has only crossed 30 once in the past 18 months. In 30 innings he has 4 ducks and 19 scores of less ten. He averages 12.64, yet has once again been picked for the ODI Squad vs South Africa.
To provide some context to how poor this is, here the batting average of the NZ bowlers in the same time period:
*Tim Southee: 12.07
*Trent Boult: 15.33
*Matt Henry: 20.57
*Mitchell McClenaghan: 27.00
*Adam Milne: 18.40
That's right, Ronchi has a lower batting average than 4/5 of NZ top bowlers over the last 2 years in ODIs - even Trent "The Flamingo" Boult.
Looking outside NZ, Ronchi has the lowest batting average for a wicketkeeper in ODIs since his 170* out of any player in the world (With 10 or more innings) In fact, just 4 players batting in the Top 7 in ODIs since then have lower averages than him - and none of them have played anywhere near as many ODIs in that time frame.
I've barely touched on his T20i form - since his 170* he averages 8.72 in T20is with 9 of his 13 innings having a score lower than 10.
And that folks is why Luke Ronchi is a ****ing donkey.