Wellington offie Jeetan Patel seems to be on a fast-track to the New Zealand team. I am not entirely sure why. His domestic record is not great and, as far as I can tell, his only claim to a place is on the basis of a tight performance in a single one day match for Wellington last season. Helpfully Stephen Fleming was Patel's captain in that match.
The fact that player's are getting called up on the basis of a single performance harks back to the bad old days of New Zealand cricket. Back in the days when we were as bad, if not worse, than the current Zimbabwe side. Back when players could get selected for a major international tour without any first-class experience simply because they impressed a selector watching them in the nets. I see no reason why Jeetal Patel (86 first class wickets at an average of 40.55) should be on that fast-track ahead of someone like Bruce Martin (137 first-class wickets at an average of 29.66), and a whole myriad reasons why not.
Saturday, 13 August 2005
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4 comments:
Get stuffed loser, can beleive I even came to this crap site.
And learn how to spell his name right!!!!
Very biased posts. Disappointed.
Mike, it is true that Jeetan has been fast tracked into the test side. I feel Fleming must have seen a certain quality in his bowling. In defence of Jeetan his performances so far have been very good just ask Graeme Smith or Bote Dippenaar. But time will tell if Fleming is a good judge of players. Paul Streater
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