Black Caps v South Africa

[MN5]

South Africa electing to bowl first.

Latham will be the only New Zealander on the field in the early stages. There might be none depending how wickets fall.

[MN5]

@canefan said in Black Caps v South Africa Tests:

@MN5 said in Black Caps v South Africa Tests:

@booboo said in Black Caps v South Africa Tests:

@MN5 said in Black Caps v South Africa Tests:

@booboo said in Black Caps v South Africa Tests:

@MN5 said in Black Caps v South Africa Tests:

Woohoo, Test cricket starting again tomorrow.

I wonder what the starting team will be ?

I’m thinking…..

Latham ( always scores at home )
Conway ( recent form has been alarming though )
KW ( no brainer )

…..then it gets a bit interesting. Perhaps….

Mitchell ( does he slot up one ? )
Ravindra ( or does he play four ? )
Blundell ( proven performer )
Phillips ( statistically the greatest all rounder of all time )
Jamieson ( no brainer )
Southee ( captain )
Henry ( better than his stats suggest )
Wags ( love Wags )

Does Santners recent favour in the longer form warrant a call up ?

I like your XI. There's already two basically adequate spinners in there. Don't need to weaken the batting or the seam attack to fit Satnav in.

4+1 Seamers
2 ok spinners
6 bat + wk bat

Unfortunately won't be watching. Dumped Foxtel after years. May get Kayo (assume it's on there) for the Aussie tests.

Cool. If we agree on all that does Mitchell go up a spot or continue at five ?

Am thinking Ravindra at 4.
Mitch 5
Phillips 6
Blundell 7

I get the feeling Santner may get the nod, possibly at the expense of Phillips. I hope I’m wrong cos then the batting would be Mitch/Ravindra, Blundell, Santner which already looks much weaker.

Ugh

I have some bad news. Apparently we needed THREE spinning all rounders for this test

[Chris B.]

@MN5 Much as I like Santner, I don't see the point in him in this test.

Prove me wrong Mitch!

[canefan]

@MN5 said in Black Caps v South Africa Tests:

@canefan said in Black Caps v South Africa Tests:

@MN5 said in Black Caps v South Africa Tests:

@booboo said in Black Caps v South Africa Tests:

@MN5 said in Black Caps v South Africa Tests:

@booboo said in Black Caps v South Africa Tests:

@MN5 said in Black Caps v South Africa Tests:

Woohoo, Test cricket starting again tomorrow.

I wonder what the starting team will be ?

I’m thinking…..

Latham ( always scores at home )
Conway ( recent form has been alarming though )
KW ( no brainer )

…..then it gets a bit interesting. Perhaps….

Mitchell ( does he slot up one ? )
Ravindra ( or does he play four ? )
Blundell ( proven performer )
Phillips ( statistically the greatest all rounder of all time )
Jamieson ( no brainer )
Southee ( captain )
Henry ( better than his stats suggest )
Wags ( love Wags )

Does Santners recent favour in the longer form warrant a call up ?

I like your XI. There's already two basically adequate spinners in there. Don't need to weaken the batting or the seam attack to fit Satnav in.

4+1 Seamers
2 ok spinners
6 bat + wk bat

Unfortunately won't be watching. Dumped Foxtel after years. May get Kayo (assume it's on there) for the Aussie tests.

Cool. If we agree on all that does Mitchell go up a spot or continue at five ?

Am thinking Ravindra at 4.
Mitch 5
Phillips 6
Blundell 7

I get the feeling Santner may get the nod, possibly at the expense of Phillips. I hope I’m wrong cos then the batting would be Mitch/Ravindra, Blundell, Santner which already looks much weaker.

Ugh

I have some bad news. Apparently we needed THREE spinning all rounders for this test

Fucking hell. Stead selects his teams in Braille

[Gunner]

Fucking hell, Conway.

We really need him to sort his shit out.

[MN5]

@Gunner said in Black Caps v South Africa Tests:

Fucking hell, Conway.

We really need him to sort his shit out.

Indeed.

From a neutral perspective though a wicket with your first ball in test cricket is pretty cool though

[canefan]

@Gunner said in Black Caps v South Africa Tests:

Fucking hell, Conway.

We really need him to sort his shit out.

Fair to say the honeymoon period is over. Henry Nicholls is sitting at home thinking he could have done better than that!

[Chris B.]

On the plus side - Santner at 8 through to Timmy at 11 means a pretty strong batting tail, who can hopefully make up for Devon's start.

He's averaging 11 in his last 10 bats in all forms of cricket - dating back to mid November.

[MN5]

@Chris-B said in Black Caps v South Africa Tests:

On the plus side - Santner at 8 through to Timmy at 11 means a pretty strong batting tail, who can hopefully make up for Devon's start.

He's averaging 11 in his last 10 bats in all forms of cricket - dating back to mid November.

Ugh

[Damo]

Conway badly out of form but that was a hell of a first delivery. That would have taken a lot of wickets against a lot of batsmen new to the crease - Nicholls included I strongly suspect.

[MN5]

Will Young to replace Conway if he fails in the second innings ?

This would have been inconceivable a year or two back

[Canes4life]

@MN5 nah Conway’s done enough in the past to keep his spot. Hopefully he can find form because he’s easily one of our best when he’s on. Kane went through a period of not scoring anything and we kept our patience, we need to do the same with Conway.

[Chris B.]

Around the time that Sky lost the cricket, we'd developed a pretty World Class commentary team, while the Aussies were messing around with their blokey crap. I thought our coverage was significantly better.

They've lifted their game significantly - including poaching Smithy - but also including a couple of Brits and better analysts, while we've gone backwards. Their coverage is way more professional than ours now.

[MN5]

Even Steven’s at the moment.

Which way things sway comes down to KW ( no surprise there )

With Santner in the team there is plenty of batting at least as someone alluded to. Southee/Henry at 11 is pretty damn strong

[MN5]

@Canes4life said in Black Caps v South Africa Tests:

@MN5 nah Conway’s done enough in the past to keep his spot. Hopefully he can find form because he’s easily one of our best when he’s on. Kane went through a period of not scoring anything and we kept our patience, we need to do the same with Conway.

Probably right but his form has fallen off a fucken cliff. Australia will be licking their lips

[Rapido]

@Canes4life said in Black Caps v South Africa Tests:

@MN5 nah Conway’s done enough in the past to keep his spot. Hopefully he can find form because he’s easily one of our best when he’s on. Kane went through a period of not scoring anything and we kept our patience, we need to do the same with Conway.

Conway won't still be in the team by the 2nd test v Aus. Imo.

Better to do it kindly, tell him his spot is still there as soon as he is out of his funk. Rather than destroy him.

Young fir 2nd test, IMO. Won't happen though.

[KiwiMurph]

@Chris-B said in Black Caps v South Africa Tests:

Their coverage is way more professional than ours now.

Rigor just said that's the shot of the morning... at 3pm during session 2....

[Damo]

Should Conway be opening?

I know he has done it for a while now but I wonder if his more natural position might be at 4 or 5.

[Chris B.]

@KiwiMurph I think our guys are talking too much.

Funnily enough - that's possibly because there's only two commentators, where the Aussies have three. Our guys keep feeling like it's their turn to say something - and less time to consider and analyze.

[Canes4life]

Rachin going nicely, I’m glad he’s playing his natural game. He’s hit plenty of shots but unfortunately he’s picked out the fielder with most of them.