Richard Boock is full of praise for Fleming's tactical captaincy in the win against South Africa, highlighting his marshalling of his slow bowlers, particularly his use of McMillan, and his field placing, and lauding his strangulation of the Saffies' run rate at the death. He also praises his batting contribution.
Kris Srikkanth however seems to think it was all in the toss.
Monday, 16 April 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Fleming called correctly and got his team an advantage - that is what the toss is there for. No good bleating about the outcome - Smith confessed he would have batted anyway. If KS believes Sth Africa needed just 25 runs to even the match up then you can look at the braindead dismissals of 3 of their batsmen to Craig McMillan and the smorgasbord of dropped catches as major contributors.
You're quite right Paul & Mike. It's just poor reporting to dismiss a Black Cap victory as being simply due to the toss. I don't recall anyone claiming Sri Lanka's win over us was thanks only to Fleming's decision to bat. The truth is, New Zealand played to their form.
The real story is the fact that South Africa don't have the variety in their bowling line up to handle the conditions they had to play in and they don't have a captain who can make the most of the conditions. The pitch was so slow in the afternoon that they should have made scoring much harder for the Black Caps.
Hate to say it BUT
Semi 1: South Africa Vs Aussie, Semi 2: NZ Vs Sri Lanka
Final: Aussie VS Sri Lanka
Winner: Aussie.Again.
Considering Graeme Smith said he would have batted anyway, if it was all about the pitch then there was only ever going to be one winner. The wicket may have suited NZ but what helped them more was the predictable nature of their opponents. I guess we'd prefer to take on the South Africans more than any other side in a crunch game!
Having said that, two observations about NZ in the cup so far:
1. At the beginning of this tournament I noted that Six fast/medium pace bowlers was at least one selection too many. Daryl Tuffey was ineffective and anyway injured himself off, Chris Martin and Michael Mason appear to be redundant and I doubt NZ will have the confidence to play Mark gillespie in any of the next two games (though the Jamaica pitch might prompt a rethink). James Franklin hangs on to his place thanks to his useful batting, which sort of makes him NZ's Irfan pathan at the moment. He bowled well on Saturday, but the conditions were noticably helpful.
Jeetan Patel will be almost a certain selection for the games to come, and that's a bit ironic in view of the makeup of the squad. Oh, and does anyone think NZ is missing Kyle Mills?
2. I have a feeling Fleming would still bowl first anyway on a flat wicket (and I doubt we'll see a crumbing one coming up), after the Sri lanka game and the Chappell Hadlee wins he probably feels safer not having to defend a score. Just wonder if it's come to a stage where NZ see themselevs as a better chasing side.
Post a Comment