Thursday, 6 April 2006

Fleming predicts tough battle

In a chat on his arrival in South Africa Stephen Fleming eyed up Makhaya Ntini's form and the post-Australia effect (thanks for the link to that one Karl). Unfortunately John Bracewell couldn't seem to stop himself from interjecting and putting in another dig against Lou Vincent and Matthew Sinclair:

"New Zealand playing conditions are often green seamers so there are not too many guys volunteering to bat up top. So the top-order batting has been a problem going back a long time to John Wright and Bruce Edgar.

"But that's why we've chosen two specialist openers and a specialist number three for this tour, guys who want the job in Michael Papps, Jamie How and Peter Fulton."


I think we all get it now John. It couldn't really be any clearer, even if you just came out and said what you really mean - "Vincent and Sinclair both said they would prefer to play in the middle order, and that makes them big girl's blouses".

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I read the bit about the post-Australia effect, but I see that that article refers to the tour following touring Australia. Unfortunately for the Proteas the first tour they played after touring Australia was against Australia!
However, for what's it's worth, I've got a good feeling about this tour to South Africa, apart from the total lack of experience at the top of the order (but then again when have we ever had a settled, strong top order?), the rest of our team seems to be fit and in some kind of form. And hopefully the Proteas are used to losing, while we're used to winning!! (Let's just forget about the one-day series that happened last year....)