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*Unofficial* New Zealand Black Caps Thread

NZTailender

I can't believe I ate the whole thing
I was thinking it was particularly rough on Young to make him open again because of the injury, but to be fair he might actually prefer it as a chance to get some runs in the position and stamp a better claim on it given he's not going to displace Williamson or Ravindra at 3-4 at full strength. Nicholls is still pointless either way though.
He could always be coming for Daz's spot


Though ideally that would be Phillips.
 

ataraxia

International Coach
FWIW I don't mind the selection of Macewell. He's found success in LOIs through aggressive bowling – looking much improved since he played his last test over 2 years ago – and is the best offie in the country by a long way in the absence of GP. It helps to shore up the batting given I'm not keen on overworking the bowlers and want to see Duffy selected over N Smith.

And also:

 

Binkley

U19 Captain
Man. I just got access to the BBC iPlayer to feed my daughter’s Doctor Who addiction, and being able to watch the free-to-air, high quality cricket highlights reminds me of what we have been missing in New Zealand. An hour of carefully curated highlights with a proper introduction and some intelligent reflection at the end - as opposed to 20 minutes of randomly spliced together snippets. And that is going to get even worse when we have to start paying Sky for the privilege of accessing their roughly cobbled together junk again.
 

RMBolton

U19 Cricketer
Man. I just got access to the BBC iPlayer to feed my daughter’s Doctor Who addiction, and being able to watch the free-to-air, high quality cricket highlights reminds me of what we have been missing in New Zealand. An hour of carefully curated highlights with a proper introduction and some intelligent reflection at the end - as opposed to 20 minutes of randomly spliced together snippets. And that is going to get even worse when we have to start paying Sky for the privilege of accessing their roughly cobbled together junk again.
Have we ever had that in NZ?
 

Bahnz

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Have we ever had that in NZ?
When international cricket first moved behind a paywall in the early 2000's (I.e. when cricket last had mainstream cultural relevance) they used to put good quality 1 hour highlights packages- either on tv3 or Prime. Over time, as viewership dwindled, the length of the highlights packages got pushed to later timeslots, then shortened and finally disappeared altogether.
 

Immenso

International Vice-Captain
Have we ever had that in NZ?
Sparks were quite good. Especially in the first year. But not with the analysis, though.

But only about 1% were seeing that. Not referring the FTA part, just the uplift in quality from sky's dire colour-by-numbers output.

I don't really recall the highlights from cricket in the 2 and 3 channels days. Maybe they were past by bedtime... if on at all.

In 1980s. Seemed to be watch it live or not at all. With the exception of the 92 world cup, and that mini-world cup at the MCG in 1985. Which i remember being highlights programmes of the non-NZ games.
 

Immenso

International Vice-Captain
The NZ 'A' team will be hading off in about a fortnight. I assume the squad is already settled, but we'll know 5 minutes beforehand.

I would go with this 15 man squad as my first choice:
1. Mariu
2. Heaphy
3. Chapman / J Carter
4. Kelly
5. Abbas / Jacobs
6. Hay
7. Foxcroft
8. N Smith
9. Foulkes / K Clarke
10. Ashok
11. Sears Lister / Fisher


Edit. Actually, I forgot Lister. Strike through the Sears replacements conversation ....
Sears will probably be unavailable with his injury, though.
In which I would replace him either with the very green but got the skills Cameron Paul. Or got the attributes, but unpolished and only had one ok season - Jarrod McKay.
The more conservative and experienced (but still good) option would be Michael Rae.


I still have N Smith as junior enough as requiring an A tour.

Form the Bangladesh tour. I would be omitting:
- Lennox: Did fine, but for a SAF tour take the extra seamer.
- M Boyle: Did alright(ish) for a first tour. Work in progress, but give Jacobs this chance.
- Clarkson: Did ok with the ball in Bangladesh, not so with bat.Same as above, Jacobs gets chance in this spot.

Chu misses out again, with Heaphy able to cover as the second keeper. A consequence of not giving Hay a go in Zimbabwe is the further hobbling of Chu one step further down the ladder.
 
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NZTailender

I can't believe I ate the whole thing
I like it. Though would like to make room for Chu. Leave out one of the over-30s (Carter) or else just omit N Smith - think there's enough bowling already, particularly with Abbas and Foxcroft having bowled a lot on the last A tour.
I'd leave out Smith personally, or Duffy. They've both "made it" to some extent. Carter I'm torn on because yeah he's the wrong side of 30 but there isn't a massive list of deserving under 30 bats, and at 31 he's not ancient and unlucky to be born when he was born during a time of stronger NZ batting. He would've walked into a few sides in the mid to late 2000s. That said, if you were going to give him a black caps debut, you'd want to do it soon to potentially get 5-7 years out of him at top level.
 

Immenso

International Vice-Captain
Carter I'm torn on because yeah he's the wrong side of 30 but there isn't a massive list of deserving under 30 bats, and at 31 he's not ancient and unlucky to be born when he was born during a time of stronger NZ batting. He would've walked into a few sides in the mid to late 2000s. That said, if you were going to give him a black caps debut, you'd want to do it soon to potentially get 5-7 years out of him at top level.
You also need some experience on these tours, and some grit in the batting etc.

Can't have 5 pups all in the same top order. If the tour to Bangladesh only had Abbas, Boyle, Clarkson equivalents and no Kelly or Carter types, then we score bugger all, and that impacts the younger batsmen who did actually manage to perform in a 'normal' team, and the bowlers, and especially the spinners who have nothing to defend.

It's a pointless trip to gather our most promising seam bowlers together at great expense and then send them out to defend a total of 136ish all 7 bowling innings of the tour.

When picking that experienced player(s), obviously it is preferable that there is still a chance for higher honours. Hence why they went past Bruce for that Bangladesh tour. So, maybe Carter is not a chance, or maybe he is only a slight chance if 3 of our 34 year olds all suddenly went franchise a year earlier than we expected. Another factor is that he covers all 5 batting positions.

But, maybe having Chapman and Kelly is enough.
 

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