Ben on...tips

Speaking of fantasy cricket, Mike and I have been drafted into the Sportsfreak tipping premier league, which has had its first round of tips for the NZ–Eng test series as a whole. (Look out soon for the first-test tips.)

We're running at a combined score of 0 at the moment, which isn't actually that bad considering the series hasn't started. We would be doing much worse except that Mike got a bonus point for doing some research, counteracting the penalty I got for my own, rather underhand, research (bloody Flintoff factor again).

As a matter of interest, here are the series outcome predictions (for NZ): 0-2, 0-3, 0-2, 0-3, 0-3, 1-1, 1-1, 1-1, 0-2, 2-1!!!, 1-1, 0-2, for an average of 0.5-1.83.

Ben on...the Flintoff factor

So Andrew Flintoff won't be playing for at least the first two tests. This will disappoint some commentators, but not others.

I gotta say, I'm not convinced by Flintoff. I know he carried England to Ashes victory and spent a couple of years at the top of rankings. But I picked him in a round of some fantasy cricket thing once and he got no wickets, so I ended up getting 0 points in that round and never recovered.

Ben on...Black Caps' performance rated

If the Black Caps was your (male) lover:

New Zealand: Underrated, with a quiet librarian-esque charm, underneath which lay a second layer of librarian-esque charm, but underneath THAT lay some extremely good all-round skills. Didn't talk the talk as much as I would have liked, though, and had a tendency to collapse at the same point too early in every innings. Rarely good for more than one-dayers / day-nighters.

or (female):

New Zealand – a shy bookkeeper I’ve seen a few times. Not the most attractive girl I’ve ever been with, but more than makes up for it with her performances on the pitch. Plays above herself almost every time she takes the field. Wildly inventive and proves yet again looks can be deceiving. Not a world cup winner, but you know you’ll get a few good wins out of her.

Ben on...the English view

I'm really liking the new Guardian website. It's got some proper articles at last and they're easy to find. Here's a profile of Ross Taylor. And here's one of Jacob Oram from the Times. Nice to see these papers think the New Zealand players are interesting enough to profile. Not like the bloody Independent.

Ben on...the boys are back

The Black Caps are playing Essex at the moment. We managed to score a healthy total in our first dig, with Essex starting their innings as I write.

Our line up looks much better now that the IPL contractors are back in the team. There might be a couple of changes for the first test (Martin in, Flynn out?), but we are fielding a near to full strength side.

The IPL guys seem to be finding their feet in the longer form of the game as well, all of them keeping their scoring rates in check – McCullum in particular scoring at a very responsible 33.33 runs per 100 balls. Unfortunately, they seem to be forgetting how to hang on to their wickets; the five IPL players scored only 64 between them, in a total of 355.

Ben on...ICL wrap-up

Chris Harris won the ICL 20s Grand Championship with the Hyderabad Heroes. He was also the only New Zealander that turned in anything like an outstanding performance, with his bowling at least.

I've tabulated everyone's stats. I don't really know which stat is the most important in 20-20, but I have chosen to sort everything by average, simply because I like the fact that this puts Shane Bond at the top of the batting chart and the bottom of the bowling chart.

Batsman              I   Runs  Avg   SR    6s
Bond (Delhi)         5    31  31    114.81 0
McMillan (Kolkata)   9   198  24.75 133.78 8
Astle (Mumbai)       7   148  24.66 102.06 5
Cairns (Chandigarh)  5   119  23.8  143.37 8
Adams (Kolkata)      5    77  19.25 126.22 4
Vincent (Chandigarh) 7   108  15.42  99.08 3
Harris (Hyderabad)   7    74  14.8  127.58 4
Tuffey (Chandigarh)  4    17   8.5  113.33 0
Parore (Chennai)     4     6   2     60    0

Bowler   I Wk  Avg  Ecn  SR
Harris   9  9 19.88 6.62 18
Cairns   2  3 20.33 8.71 14
Tuffey   7 10 24.5  8.16 18
Vincent  4  2 24.5  8.16 18
Adams    8  9 24.66 7.08 20.8
McMillan 6  3 31.33 8.54 22
Astle    5  2 33.5  8.04 25
Bond     7  2 86.5  6.25 83

There isn't much that can be taken from these stats. Bond had a shocker, as did Parore (3 catches, 2 stumpings). Cairns remains good value. All in all, certainly no one lit up the competition like McCullum and Taylor have been doing over in the IPL. (Is it too much to hope that the ICL will realise that Bond's how-many-$100,000 for 2 wickets is too dear and decide to release him to return to New Zealand cricket and the brighter lights of the IPL?)

We had a few kiwis selected for the World XI team for the ICL 20s World Series, Cairns (c), Harris, Tuffey and Vincent (wk), who lost the final to the India XI. No one covering themselves with any glory.

Batsman I   Runs  Avg   SR    6s
Vincent 7   108  15.42  99.08 3
Cairns  3    28  9.33   77.77 1
Harris  -     -   -      -    -
Tuffey  -     -   -      -    -

Bowler   I Wk Avg Ecn   SR
Harris   1  -  0   6.33  -
Cairns   1  1 12  12     6
Tuffey   4  4 29   8.28 21
Vincent  -  -  -   -     -

Ben on...Bond on Bond

Anyone interested in what Shane Bond's up to might find this interview interesting (from the revamped Guardian online; hope they still have live commentary).

He seems to have moved on and is having a good time playing ICL T20, counting his earnings and talking cricket with cricketers. Good for him.

He's still carrying a chip on his shoulders however. A couple in fact. He's blaming NZC for him not being in the IPL. And everyone who said "It's a shame you can't play anymore but thanks for your contributions and good luck," (which really seems to be the prevailing attitude, even amongst those of us who also said "Oh, he doesn't want to play anymore so bugger off!") will be a bit disappointed to hear him say:

...no one even said: 'It's a shame you can't play anymore but thanks for your contributions and good luck.' It was just a case of, 'Oh, he doesn't want to play anymore so bugger off!' That irritates me most.

Also, here's a nice little report about the other ICL superstar Chris Cairns and his efforts to cause embarrassment to ex-coach.

Ben on...allegiances

The latest scandal to come out of the ICC, the suspension of Malcolm Speed, is the last straw for me. It's not that I like Speed or that sacking your CEO is so beyond the pale. What makes his sacking so appalling is that the reason behind it is that Speed wanted to do the right thing about the fact that members of Zimbabwe Cricket were embezzling ICC money. So, put very roughly, Speed was sacked because the ICC wants to continue to allow Zimbabwe Cricket to steal their money. That's an unacceptable level of flagrant corruption in my opinion.

As I have no respect left for the ICC, I cannot consider it to represent the game that I love. Luckily however, with the game now being fragmented, there are other options. I am now going to consider any ICC sanctioned cricket to be on a par with the ICL, the Stanford West Indies extravaganza and the L&P Back Yard Cricket Tourney. I'm still going to follow and support the Black Caps, but while NZC is affiliated to the ICC, I cannot consider any Black Caps games to be official.

Karl on ... why NZCricket should ignore the BCCI who never give them anything anyway

Last week, Hampshire vs. Sussex, match drawn, Sussex bat once and Shane Bond takes 7 for 66 off 19.1 overs for Hampshire.

Ben on...babies in beige

For those of you growing the next generation of fans, you should know that Peapods nappies come in regulation beige.

Ben on...IPL as good as over

Indian Premier League - 1st match
Bangalore Royal Challengers v Kolkata Knight Riders

                    R   B  4  6  SR
BB McCullum not out 158 73 10 13 216.43

Nothing that follows in this tournament can hold any interest after this innings. Well, maybe a double hundred.

Ben on...too hot, too cool

Excited about the start of the IPL later today? Hanging out for more T20 after the following the extensive coverage of the ICL? Better hurry up and choose a team to support.

No? Having trouble plugging into the hype? Then check out the Kolkata Knight Riders' team anthem or maybe some of their wacky promotional clips for some stimulation.

Ben on...contracted players announced; ins and outs

Karl will be livid, but Ryder has won an NZC contract while Bell and Sinclair have been dropped from the list. This is no surprise after they failed to get selected for the tour to England; everyone on the contract list is in the touring party except James Franklin, who would be touring if he wasn't injured. This needn't be the case, as you could imagine a situation where a player not actually picked to play, for bad form say, is given a contract recognising that they are considered long term prospects. I'm sure this was why Sinclair was contracted for so many years but rarely picked. In fact, I think it is remarkable that NZC considers players such as Aaron Redmond worthy of contracts even though they are completely untested at test level. Says volumes about our depth at the moment.

Anyway. There is much to say about each of the contracted players, but Sportsfreak shows that it is possible to say a lot with very few words.

Ben on...revisit the test series, now with ultraviolence

The Atheist has compiled his viddy-blogs of the recent test series:

here

Relive them quickly before the lawyers track them down again.

Ben on...The Phoenix Foundation

I'm loving The Phoenix Foundation's third album Happy Ending at the moment. Bright Grey is one of their best songs ever. Bleaching Sun is awesome too:

Ben on...clashing clashes

Great. The IPL will clash with a New Zealand series again next year. The schedule has been announced and will run from 10 April to 29 May. However, we have an international series scheduled for February to April.

It is no surprise that the BCCI is willing to schedule the IPL to clash with New Zealand fixtures. The big surprise though is that the other team in that series, who will also have to deal with the clash, is India.

Good news for Jesse

He has at least one big fan, "Spin" author Lawrence Booth - who includes his presence as one of his sources of optimism for the new English season:

If Jesse Ryder really is ready to resume his opening partnership with Brendon McCullum in time for the ODIs in England in June, then a few bowlers might look back fondly to the glory days when Matthew Bell and Jamie How patted back half-volleys and edged repeatedly to slip. Ryder could yet turn into a superstar, and no England bowler's education will be complete without a mauling at his hands. It will also edge the one-day series closer to the box office.

Ben on...squad for England tour

The touring squad has been announced.

From the four youngsters I named in my previous post, Flynn and Hopkins have been added. Flynn at the expense of Sinclair. Bell also misses out, his place is taken by James Marshall (who hasn't impressed with his earlier test appearances but has had a strong State Championship season). The bolter, who didn't appear in my list but was spotted by Paul Holden (prescience or inside tip?), is Aaron Redmond. Fulton and O'Brien are back for the tests and Ryder is back for the ODIs. Elliott has been given another go in the warm-ups while Oram is away and Gillespie and Mason have been given the warm-ups to play for a place in the test team.

Ben on...generation next month

So we're off to England in a months time for the away leg of the six-match series. Unlike other six-match series we've played in, we have a short break in proceedings during which we can take stock and re-jig our team.

The three tests showed that we have some glaring holes, namely an opener to partner How and a middle order batsman. So who might we see in the touring squad?

Several pundits have tried to pick possible fillers for the gaps in the batting line up 1 2 3 4. I thought I might take a look at some of the suggestions.

Greg Hay
Hay's name seems to be everyone's lips at the moment and he is clearly in the minds of the selectors. If you haven't heard of him, don't worry – I don't follow domestic cricket either. Also, he has only been playing for a couple of years. Hay plays for Central Districts and has scored over a thousand runs over two seasons at an average of just under 50 (State Championship). Most significantly, he has kept his average up over both seasons. In fact, this season was better than the last. He has also improved his conversion rate. Even if he doesn't get selected, he is clearly a batsman to pay attention to.

Daniel Flynn
We've actually seen a bit of Daniel Flynn before. He played in the Christchurch T20 and ODI, scoring 1 run from 5 balls over both matches. It would be unfair to judge him on those performances however. He has had an excellent season for Northern Districts, scoring 663 State Championship runs at over 60, including 3 centuries (none of them very big however). Quite a bit has been expected of Flynn. He burst onto the scene at the under-19 level. He has taken a few years to really show his promise, but he is clearly a player for the future.

Gareth Hopkins
Gareth Hopkins has become a bit of a feature in the New Zealand squad as a backup wicket-keeper. We are very likely to see him tour England again, though I doubt he will get any tests. Being backup for a player that hardly misses a match means a lot of waiting around. There is however always the possibility that he could play the ODIs, either as a middle-order batsman or as keeper-batsman with McCullum playing as a specialist batsman. He is certainly good enough with the bat, at domestic level at least.

Tim McIntosh
There has been quite a bit of excitement about Tim McIntosh after his big double century against Canterbury. However, given that that one innings makes up nearly half of his total State Championship runs for the season, you have to wonder how much people are being charmed by a single innings. Especially considering he followed it with scores of 2 and 9 in his next two innings. Or perhaps it just shows how desperate we are for openers. In McIntosh's favour, he is left handed and he does score big centuries – he has scored two centuries in the last two seasons and they have both been doubles.

Martin Guptill
I know nothing about Guptill nor why he is being discussed. He has a poor first-class average and a good list-A average. He does open, so I guess he is just another example of our desperation.

Fleming speaks

The tears have barely dried from his farewell, but Stephen Fleming is already starting to disassociate himself from the cricket establishment. TVNZ is reporting comments he made that some of the New Zealand coaching staff (but not John Bracewell) need to go, and that our team is in for a hard couple of years (as if we didn't know that already).

Shoaib banned

Wasn't Shoaib Akhtar banned already? Well, just to make sure he really doesn't come back the Pakistan Board of Control has slapped a five year ban for talking out of line on top of his two year ban for taking performance enhancing drugs. Osman Samiuddin, in his typically colourful and informative style, outlines the details of Shoaib's latest soap opera for Cricinfo here.

Ben on...ratings galore

The English seem very keen on this rating business. The BBC does it, the Times auctions off the English players, Googly rates us and them (at last, a fair assessment of Michael Vaughan) and the Republique rates us both in poetry. I thought a few of Suave's ratings were a bit iffy, but luckily Sportsfreak has provided an alternative perspective.

Swann vs Ryder

If Jesse Ryder does make the tour to England, expect to see a little byplay between him and English spinner Graeme Swann. Swann included the following in his NZ tour summary for the BBC:

Tour Loser Jesse Ryder. After bursting onto the scene in the one-dayers and smashing us to all parts he decided the best way to celebrate was to smash his hand through a window. Nice one.

Sixes

I heard on the radio that Tim Southee's stupendous 77 not out contained the highest percentage of runs scored in sixes of any 50 scored at test level. This reminded me of another innings which had a high proportion of sixes - involving Surrey batsman Robin Marlar back in the 1950s. To paraphrase Cricinfo:

In a match against "The Rest of England" in 1955, Surrey captain Doug Insole asked bowler Robin Marlar to go in as nightwatchman. Marlar had already changed into evening dress in anticipation of a night out on the town and greeted this decision with disgust. However, despite his protestations, he was sent to the middle. He was stumped second ball for six. "As I was saying," he remarked to Insole on his return to the changing rooms, "I am not a nightwatchman."

Future battles

An analysis of the stats from the recent New Zealand-England series highlights some battles to watch out for in May's return fixture.

Here are a few struggles to watch out for:

1) Ross Taylor against Monty Panesar. Taylor coped with Sidebottom better than any other player (averaging 88 against him), but Monty seemed to trouble him - the tyro only scored 41 runs off 139 balls from the spinner, and was out to him twice.

2) Jacob Oram against Ryan Sidebottom. Jake faced 51 balls from the Oxymoron in the series. In that time he only made 19 runs and was dismissed three times. Oram needs to do much better than that if he is going to be picked as a batsman in the top six.

3) Kyle Mills against the England top three. Between them Vaughan, Cook and Strauss faced 246 balls from Mills. In those balls they only managed 94 runs at an average of 15.67.

Going out on top

Stephen Fleming's best ever ranking on the ICC player ratings? 725 - which made him the 13th best batsman in the world. When did he achieve that rating? During the third test against England in 2008...

Ben on...surrounded by cricket tragics

In the waiting room at the doctor's yesterday with my kids, a guy asked me:

"How old is your young one?"

"Three and half months."

"Great. I'm having a kid in four months."

"Cool. Do you know what it is?"

"It's a girl. I was hoping for a boy...but she'll play cricket anyway."

Ben on...the slightly better team won

That was an entertaining, absorbing and mystifying series. Really, Southee's outrageous hit-out to close the series seems to sum up so much – great stuff, but the wrong person at the wrong time.

So a fine series, and probably a result close to what many were predicting (but god-damn why did it have to be a come from behind 1-2?). England were certainly deserving winners. I personally had written off the series before it had begun. I didn't predict a score line, but if you had told me back then that we'd win a test I don't think I would have been disappointed. Given the gulf between the teams before the start of the series, you'd have to say that England played below their ability, whereas overall New Zealand probably exceeded expectations, narrowing the gap.

Andrew Miller at Cricinfo has done some analysis that seems to show this. He has rated the English and the Black Caps out of 10. What I've done below is arrange things to match up the players from each team that fill the same role (very approximately of course) and indicated for each role which team "won" by colour (purple for a tie).

New Zealand England
How 6       Cook 5
Bell 3      Vaughan 5
Fleming 6   Strauss 6
Sinclair 2  Pietersen 7
Taylor 8    Bell 6
McCullum 6  Ambrose 8
Oram 7      Collingwood 6
Vettori 7   Panesar 6
Martin 6    Harmison 2
Mills 7     Hoggard 4
Southee 9   Sidebottom 9
Gillespie 5 Anderson 7
Elliot 3    Broad 8
Patel 6

Surprisingly, given the result of the series, England weren't notably better performers. In fact, New Zealand wins out in six positions and England in only five.

Fleming's batting

I was going to write a detailed post, analysing how much more effective Stephen Fleming was outside New Zealand than he was at home. Then I discovered that Mathew Varghese has already done that - and did it much better than I could ever manage.

In summary, Fleming only averaged 33.87 at home. On foreign soil he averaged 45.92. The only thing I can add to Varghese's analysis is to point you to this page, which gives a great overview of his career - including an analysis of how Fleming fared in each country, and against each country.

Ben on...more whining please

There's some great turns of phrase in the Atheist's latest post ("New Zealand have done exceptionally badly...; rather like viewing toddlers play by the roadside."). It captures very well the change in fortunes for England. AYALACM is a very good blog. However, one can't help feeling that the very best posts, when the blog becomes great, are made when England are doing badly. So it is disappointing that England are currently trampling New Zealand.

It must be an English thing. I see that Suave hasn't even posted during the last couple of days of English dominance.

I'm going to add Suave's blog Republique Cricket to the blogroll. When he does post, he's very smart. He predicted good showings in this test by Southee, Vettori, Peiterson and Broad (with the ball admittedly). And for England to win comfortably. Well spotted Suave.

Ben on...40 for Fleming

I bought it up, so I'll carry through with my point, even though everyone else will tell you all about it:

Stephen Fleming, currently 60 not out, will retire with an average in excess of 40 – as he well deserves.

Apart from a brief period in 2006, Fleming hasn't had an average of 40 since his third test. He is retiring at the top of his game. I've been lucky enough to watch him bat today, in a fairly commanding partnership with Matthew Bell. Bell's been looking good, with 12 4s in his 69. Compared to Bell's rock and roll however, Fleming is pure opera.

Ryan Sidebottom

One thing I really like about Ryan Sidebottom is how well he thinks on his feet. He troubled Jamie How with his left-arm angle in Wellington, so in the first innings at Napier How adjusted his stance and the angle of his head. The change meant that How was looking, and playing, down the line of Sidebottom's deliveries. This helped him to play Sidebottom comfortably for a wee while, but the bowler quickly picked up on the changes and decided to bowl round the wicket - negating the adjustments and troubling How once again, eventually getting him caught at slip.

My team for the tour of England

Named in batting order:

1) Lou Vincent
2) Nathan Astle
3) Stephen Fleming
4) Scott Styris
5) Hamish Marshall
6) Craig McMillan
7) Chris Cairns
8) Adam Parore
9) Andre Adams
10) Shane Bond
11) Daryl Tuffey

Sure, you might argue that there is no spinner in that squad and Vettori should be a shoe-in; or that McCullum deserves to be there ahead of Parore - but other than that I think this is a side which would kick most of the current band to the kerb. As an added bonus, all of my selections are currently playing. Admittedly frenetic running around in India is not the ideal preparation for test cricket in England, but at least their fitness levels will be good.

On a slightly serious note though, here is a question for you; has a side ever suffered a greater exodus of talent than the recent New Zealand team? The only side I can think of which might come even close is Zimbabwe, which in its darkest moment lost players like Heath Streak, Andy Flower, Taitenda Taibu and Henry Olonga. And Zimbabwe at least has Robert Mugabe and Peter Chingoka to blame.

Ben on...two Tims for England

The papers have been making a lot out of Tim McIntosh's 268 in Auckland's State Championship match against Canterbury. Stuff called it timely and the Herald noted that selector Richard Hadlee popped by to watch.

It is an exciting prospect to think that we might have another bright young double-centurion in the touring party to England. Bear in mind however that the only other double centuries we have seen in this year's State Championship have been scored by Bell and Sinclair.

A test without much balance left

Today was just awful. I can't quite figure out whether to be angry or just depressed.

I don't blame the batsmen too much. It is not their fault that there are so few New Zealand cricketers who can score runs. But it is clear that at least two changes will need to be made before the tour to England; Justin Vaughan and John Bracewell need to go. With them out of the way maybe then we can strenghten our batting with some of the following:

1) Lou Vincent
2) Hamish Marshall
3) Craig McMillan
4) Chris Cairns
5) Nathan Astle
6) Scott Styris
7) Stephen Fleming

Fleming you might ask. Surely he is retiring? Well, signing a three year contract to play in India says to me that he thinks he can play for another three years - just not for the current management.

At the start of today I figured this post would be all about the promise of Tim Southee. Sorry Tim, I'm just not in the mood for it.

Ben on...a test in balance

With England 240/7, yesterday was definitely New Zealand's day.

However, these are the session breakdowns:

1st: 58 runs, 4 wickets
2nd: 92 runs, 2 wickets
3rd: 90 runs, 1 wicket

I would say that's a two session to one advantage to England.

Ben on...Southee's debut

Tim Southee now has some test stats for us to analyse:

            Mat Wkts Ave   Econ SR
Tim Southee  1*  3   15.33 2.19 42

What a cracking first day of his test career!

Ben on...ICL reviewed

The 2008 edition of the ICl 20-20 tournament is in full swing (Parore has just sealed victory for the Chennai Superstars by whipping off the bails to stump Ali Murtaza). So I'd better finish my review of the 2007 tournament before my review of the current one is due.

2007 ICL 20-20 Indian Championship

You may have missed reports of this tournament, either because you didn't care about it or because hardly anyone gave it any attention. Since Mike on Cricket sometimes follows the fortunes of NZers playing county cricket, I thought it would be only fair to do the same for the Kiwis in the ICL.

The 2007 ICL Championship was taken out by the only team that didn't (at the time) feature any New Zealanders, the Chennai Superstars, edging out Chris Cairns' Chandigarh Lions by 12 runs in the final.

Several of the New Zealanders acquitted themselves very well. Craig McMillan was one of the leading run scores, with 215 runs at 35.83 with a SR of 138.7. Chris Cairns also did well, with 141 runs at 23.5 with an SR of 158.42. Amongst the bowlers, Nathan Astle stood out with 10 wickets at 16.3 (to go with a fairly disappointing batting effort with an average of 16.2). McMillan proved himself to be a 20-20 all-rounder with 6 wickets at 20.33. Chris Harris also put in a steady but unspectacular performance with a batting average of 26.66 and a bowling average of 35.66. Daryl Tuffey was the stand-out bowler for the Chandigarh Lions, with 9 wickets at 18.44 (economy of 5.92). The only real disappointment was Hamish Marshall who scored 67 runs at 9.57 (though twice as many as Brian Lara).

So, it's great to see Kiwis making an impact. Nice to know the old guys Cairns and Harris have still got it and that the other guys can still mix it with the best.

Macca's performance was of course the stand out of the NZers, with outstanding batting figures, good bowling results and captaining his team the Kolkata Tigers to the top of the points table (though they ended up fourth after the play-offs). This is all bitter-sweet however. While there is nothing more exciting in cricket than McMillan on fire, he's doing it where we can't see it. Considering also his incredible performance at the World Twenty20, he is clearly in the form of his life. However, when Macca is on fire, he burns brightly – he might very well not have made another World Cup for example. However, he could have been in form for a couple more Chappell–Hadlee's like his last, and surely a couple of hundred against the Aussies are immeasurably sweeter than any amount of runs in an already forgotten tournament in a half-baked league.

Ben on...Northern Districts' Southee

So who is this Tim Southee? We all got to see him in the Twenty20s and he looked good. And he knocked over a whole bunch of teenagers at the under-19 world cup. Richard Hadlee thinks very highly of him. But for those of us outside the loop, he only appeared at the end of last year. So what do we know of him? What are the huge expectations based on?

The most cricket we can use for analysis are the 11 first-class games he has played for Northern since last year. Here are his stats:

            Mat Wkts Ave   Econ SR
Tim Southee  11  41  25.63 2.70 56.7

How does this compare with the other bowlers? Here are the stats for the fast-medium test bowlers

               Mat Wkts Ave   Econ SR
Chris Martin   118 378  30.26 3.02 59.9
Kyle Mills      52 156  26.05 2.90 53.7
Mark Gillespie  47 188  24.88 3.17 46.9
Ian O'Brien     52 188  24.31 2.87 50.6
James Franklin  89 310  24.80 3.14 47.2
Jacob Oram      71 135  25.02 2.33 64.3

On the basis of this, he clearly already compares very well with our best bowlers. In fact, all 'round, he has the best figures (based on only 11 games however); he has as good an average as the others, a great economy rate and a decent strike rate. (He is also listed as medium-fast instead of fast-medium, which should make him faster, but who knows how Cricinfo define things.)

Ben on...the life blood

Following up on Mike's post about the future of test cricket under the lordship of the BCCI, this article from the Times of India details some of the statements made by the ICC about the IPL after the meeting of the executive board:

• The IPL is now a sanctioned tournament, while the ICL is not. (Previously, neither were officially sanctioned, which made the enthusiasm for one and fear of the other rather unbalanced, or even hypocritical.)
• "The concept of nation-versus-nation cricket was the life blood of members and this must always be given the highest possible priority." International cricket will have precedence over the IPL.
• The BCCI will give the members the right to command that any of their players should not be selected for the IPL up until two years after a players retirement.
• There is no consideration being given to altering the FTP to accommodate the IPL (but only because no one has asked).

Derek Pringle, man of taste and culture

Not only does former England bowler Derek Pringle praise Wellington in his latest blog as his"favourite of New Zealand's three largest cities", but he also spent his time here extremely wisely - visiting the San Francisco Bath House to listen to bloody brilliant Indie/Gypsy band Beirut.

Everything's happy in Zimbabwe - honest

You might have missed it underneath all the headlines about Daryl Hair, but at its recent meeting the ICC discussed a few things other than fat Australian umpires. They also reviewed an audit of Zimbabwean Cricket conducted by KPMG. The report highlighted "serious financial irregularities" within Zimbabwean Cricket, but the ICC were happy to accept that these were not the result of criminal behaviour and no-one profited from them - despite ZC chairman (and Mugabe stooge) Peter Chingoka admitting use of double-accounting and transfers of ZC money into overseas accounts.

The English government has already declared Chingoka persona non grata based on his links to Mugabe, but the ICC position now puts England and English cricket at risk. The ICC has clearly sided with Chingoka and is now making threatening noises about boycotts if the English Parliament refuses to grant Chingoka a visa to attend the next ICC cocktail party in London. I am guessing that this is because the ICC board members all feel that their party wouldn't be the same without all the fine champagne and cavier Chingoka so kindly buys for them out of his own deep pockets.

Fleming's last match

Stephen Fleming's debut against India in 1994 didn't feel that long ago, until I looked at who he played alongside in that game - Kapil Dev, Blair Hartland, Ken Rutherford, Mark Greatbatch and Shane Thomson - then it felt a generation ago.

Of course Sachin Tendulkar - born the same month in the same year as Fleming - had already been playing for five years by the time that game came around, and he bought up his 2000th test run in India's first innings. Tendulkar is still not only playing, but he looks like he could go on for another decade.

Fleming is not going to go on for another decade. He is in fact down to his last five days. So here is a bit of space to remember some of his finest moments. Here are my best memories:

1) His 134 not out against South Africa in the 2003 World Cup - watched in the early hours of the morning from the world's crummiest motel room in Hamilton.
2) His 274 not out against Sri Lanka that same year.
3) His mauling of Murali in the Tsunami matches in 2005. Facing both Murali and Shane Warne bowling in tandem, Fleming smashed 106 off 57 balls.
4) His captaincy during the 2001/2 series against Australia, particularly that off-side trap for Damien Martyn.
5) His "sharing of captaincy thoughts" with Graeme Smith in 2004.

Pop into the comments section and add your own memories.

The changing face of cricket

There has been a slight reprieve from the gradual conquest of cricket by India. Imtiaz Patel, a South African, has been designated as the next CEO of the ICC. The BCCI had wanted their own man, IS Bindra, in the role - but with another Indian, Sharad Pawar, due to take over as president of the ICC, its members managed to draw their heads out of the Indian trough for long enough to voice some slight concern about a potential Indian stanglehold over the game. Of course that concern was voiced in the least offensive way possible and came with a nice get-out clause - Bindra might not have got the crown, but he instead received a nice bauble in the form of an appointment as the CEO's "Principal Advisor".

Despite Bindra's failure to become CEO, it is clear that the future of cricket still lies in Indian hands. This might not be a bad thing, except for one very real conflict of interest - the IPL.

Currently the cricketing nations are bound by the "Future Tours Programme" (FTP), which outlines an agreed schedule of matches between nations until 2012. This schedule is largely binding (although apparantly not for India, witness their abandonment of the 2006/7 tour to New Zealand - and the fact that neither Bangladesh nor Zimbabwe have toured India under the programme), but it expires in four years time. The FTP recognises that international cricket is the pinnacle of the game, and aims to ensure that each national side has time in the limelight.

The problem for the world game is that the BCCI is clearly trying to make the league-style IPL the cornerstone of cricket. It is possible for the IPL and the FTP to co-exist, but only if the ICC treads cautiously. Cricket is fragile in some parts of the world and needs to be nurtured, but I can't see the BCCI/ICC indulging in any nurturing if that might come at the expense of the IPL.

With India holding the purse-strings and positions of power within the ICC, expect that the review of the FTP in 2012 will see big changes. And expect those changes to mean even less test cricket for smaller nations like New Zealand.

Ben on...Flem's average, an update

I was hoping to report a fractional closing of the gap on 40. However, two sub-par scores of 34 and 31 have caused Fleming's average to slip back slightly to 39.81. He needs another 113 runs (from two completed innings) to reach 7160 runs and an average of 40.

On to Napier

I am trying to be gracious in defeat, but the sight of the smiling Barmy Army swarming through Wellington has put me in a bad mood. This has less to do with the defeat we just endured, and more to do with the fact that I was stuck at work while they spent the morning lying in the sun at the Basin.

The New Zealand defeat was the result of a bad start to the game. We let England get too many runs in the first innings through bowling too short on day one, and the cloud cover of day two resulted in some prodigous swing and that (with some bad batting) did for our first dig. The result was obvious by the end of day two, despite those optimistic words from TV commentators and the New Zealand camp.

So we head to Napier at 1-1 and with the momentum swinging back to the English camp. Will we make any changes to the side for that match? Probably not. The squad has been announced and it is essentially unchanged, except for the addition of the Maungakaramea Express - Tim Southee - to cover for the niggled Kyle Mills. Southee in for Mills is a possibility, but I would guess it is an outside one - in my view adding Southee to the squad is probably aimed at getting him involved with the national squad rather than getting him any game time. The wording of the NZ Cricket press release doesn't make Mills injury sound particularly threatening:

Mills reported soreness in his left knee after the 126-run defeat in Wellington, but the injury is unrelated to the one which required surgery last year.

The other possible change might be to bring Grant Elliot into the squad, probably at the expense of Matthew Sinclair. My feeling is that Sinclair will earn a stay of execution however. His 39 in the second innings was as fluid as we have seen him in a while and he probably deserves more chances than most given his past mistreatment at the hands of selectors.

One small possibility could be Elliot in for Matthew Bell. Bell looked utterly bereft of confidence in Wellington and I can't see his morale rising very far in the next few days. If Elliot were to come in to the side, he could slot in at 6 or 7, with McCullum promoted to the top of the order. It is risky, but to have McCullum come out and face the new ball would give England the kind of message that Vettori likes to give - "we are coming to get you".

Ben on...free-to-air cricket

Any non-Sky subscribers annoyed that Prime isn't showing the tests can find the cricket live at Triangle TV. But only in Auckland or Wellington unfortunately.

Mark Gillespie

Cricinfo compares Mark Gillespie to Bob Willis and Dennis Lillee. Others seem to have set their optimism meter a little lower because I have heard two different people (one of them Ben) compare Gillespie to Danny Morrison lately.

Geez. Cricinfo really need to update their picture of DK. He has way too much in the way of flowing locks in that shot.

Sorry. I got distracted there for a second.

Anyway. Back to Danny and Mark. The comparison seems a pretty good one to me. Both are shortish, have long run-ups and big bums. They also both tend to mix hittable rubbish with the occasional brilliant ball. Morrison's best length was full, where he could get the ball to swing late. Gillespie's seems best at the same length. Sadly for us, both of them seem to believe that their best length is short. If some batsmen are addicted to the hook shot, then Morrison and Gillespie were/are hooked on the bouncer.

Gillespie's test figures so far read 5-136, 4-79 and 2-63. The wickets columns are good (great even), but the run columns are not so hot. Especially as those figures have come from spells of 30, 20 and 15 overs. That means he is going for an average of 4.27 runs per over. Crazy high for test cricket.

If Gillespie continues to play for New Zealand then my bet is that this trend will continue, no matter what the conditions. He will take "some wickets-plenty of runs" on a wickedly green seamer where Michael Mason might have taken "lots-none". And he will take "some wickets-plenty of runs" on a good batting track where Mason will almost certainly go for "none-depressingly huge".

Where does that leave us and the selectors? Well, in the long-term we can either hope that Gillespie learns quicker than Danny Morrison ever did - or we can hope that he is kept for games where we know conditions are going to suit the batsmen. And in the short-term, we can expect Gillespie to get over excited at the fast-paced Napier wicket and to witness plenty of runs coming from behind square on the leg-side when England bats.

Ben on...our beloved Basin

I've managed to squeeze about a total of a whole day's worth of cricket watching at the fantastic Basin Reserve over the past few days. It is such a pleasant ground to be at, especially for test cricket. I had my two-year old there and there is plenty of room for him to roam. Mt Victoria looming behind the bank. The white picket fence (though the new name plates make the pales look a bit like roadside crosses). Just 10 minutes walk from Courtney Place or Newtown.

I had always thought that everyone loved the Basin. However, I came across this forum thread at Sportsfreak. To each their own, but imagine trying to lounge in one of the Caketin's yellow seats for anything longer (or loungier) than on ODI.

Ben on...children's activities

Ernie's just a little chap, so Matthew Hoggard shouldn't feel too disappointed that he won't get to watch his dad in action.

Instead, Hoggard should be pleased that he'll get to spend some time with the little one on what looks like a week of lovely late summer Wellington weather. While the wind is low, Ernie might enjoy a pram ride up Mt Victoria. For some inside activities, Junglerama is within walking distance of the Basin (Little Monkeys is closer, though in my opinion it is not as suitable for crawlers) and the Kilbirnie pool, with its newly completed kids' area, is a sort bus ride away.

And we'd all love to see more of Ernie in your video diaries, Matthew.

Sympathy for Hoggy

Matthew Hoggard's latest column for the Times, written just before he was dropped from the England squad, tells us how his wife and son are flying in for the Wellington test - and how much he is looking forward to his boy seeing him play for the very first time.

England axe Harmison and Hoggard

Jimmy Anderson and debutante Stuart Broad will be playing in Wellington after Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard were dropped. Harmison's axing comes as little surprise after he was so listless in Hamilton, but Hoggard's dismissal is a bit of a shock.

Clearly England are hoping that Anderson (25) and Broad (21) will inject some youthful energy and enthusiasm into the team. Broad is seen as a potential all-rounder (he already has 4 first-class 50s to his name), so his presence will also reduce the lengthy English tail.

Although both Broad and Anderson are decent bowlers, I have to admit to being a little relieved. Hoggard was much improved in the second innings at Hamilton and could have been a real handful at the Basin. The ball seems to swing more in Wellington than it does anywhere else in New Zealand, and swing bowlers do prosper. Just ask Simon Doull. Meanwhile while Wellington probably wouldn't have suited Harmison, he could well have been lethal on the rock hard deck at Napier. A couple of reports have said that Harmison put in a fast spell in the English nets this morning, so his mojo might be on the way back.

The weather seems to be on everyone's minds, and I agree that it will have a part to play. Today has been warm and dry, and that is meant to continue for the first few days. Hopefully that will mean the pitch will behave a little more than it has in the past.

Ben on...Fleming's final average

I'm sure I read it somewhere. That Fleming retiring with a test average above or below 40 will be the difference between him being remembered as a great batsman or merely a good batsman. Hitting an average of 40 will put Fleming amongst such august names as Sutcliffe, Crowe and Turner, while an average in the high 30s will bracket him with the respectable names of Coney, Astle and Wright.

In the Hamilton test, Fleming's scores of 41 and 66 pushed his average up from 39.73 to 39.89 (though his conversion rate wasn't helped). Assuming he gets 4 more innings and manages no not outs, he'll need exactly 178 runs to nudge his average up to exactly 40.

No pressure Steve.

What will the Basin do?

In this morning's Dom Post curator Brett Sipthorpe predicts that the Basin wicket will have "good pace and bounce" for the second test starting on Thursday. He compares it to the surface that was used for the test against Bangladesh earlier in the season. In that match the Banglas were shot out for 143 in the first innings and 113 in the third, while New Zealand batted once to score 393.

Given how badly Bangladesh played, those scores don't tell us an awful lot. But the trend of the first innings being a dangerous one and the second a doddle has been a common theme of Basin pitches in recent years.

Since April 2005, the first two innings at the Basin have been:

211 by Sri Lanka, followed by 522/9 from New Zealand.
192 by West Indies, followed by 372 from New Zealand.
268 by Sri Lanka, followed by a disgracefully inept 130 from New Zealand.
143 by Bangladesh, followed by 393 from New Zealand.

Looking just at those figures, it seems that the toss will be absolutely vital and the seamers will have a field day against whoever bats first.

This summer has been particularly hot and dry, so there is the potential that this may reduce the level of early movement. And a look at the two matches played at the Basin in this season's State Championship demonstrates that while the difference between first and second innings scores is still there, it is not quite so pronounced:

272 by Otago, followed by 448 by Wellington.
256 by Wellington, followed by 313 from Canterbury.

Personally, I am hoping that the wicket won't produce the kind of one-sided contest we saw against the Windies and Sri Lanka in 2005 and 2006. The result of a test match should depend on much more than just the toss of a coin.

Just brilliant

What a result! After only 16 wickets fell on the first three days, who would have believed that the last two days would bring 23 wickets, bugger-all runs and a New Zealand victory?

One fascinating aspect of this game for me was how many of those wickets were the result of brilliance in the field or with the ball. For England, Sidebottom and some stunning fielding saw New Zealand off. While the pace bowling of Martin and Mills was just superb. Hardly a batsman was done through a poor stroke or misbehaviour from the pitch.

There are so many positives to take from this game that it is hard to know where to begin. But for me the most impressive of those positives came from watching Jamie How, Ross Taylor and Kyle Mills. All three showed that they have the skill and determination to succeed at test level. To have one young player make an impression in a match is something to savour; to have three make an impression takes the breath away.

In retrospect England may rue Ryan Sidebottom's bowling yesterday. If New Zealand had not lost all those wickets, would our declaration have been so brave? And would England have treated the pitch so tentatively? That sniff of victory in England's noses meant that they came out unsure whether to attack or defend, and by the time the right option became clear panic had set in.

With no real space between test matches England have some hard thinking to do. Harmison was a bystander in this match, but who can England call on to replace him in Wellington? Anderson didn't impress in the one-dayers and wasn't exactly a star for Auckland (2-95 as his side lost by an innings) and no-one else has had a decent run-out. Meanwhile questions will be asked in England about the performance of their top order in the second innings.

For New Zealand the only question mark is the one hanging over Mathew Sinclair's head. Grant Elliott scored a century in Auckland and might be a chance to make a debut on his home ground.

I am getting ahead of myself though. I shouldn't be thinking about Wellington just yet. Instead I should take a good few days to savour Hamilton.

Ben on...the chase II

Most wickets New Zealand managed to take while defending totals in the 2004 tour of England:

6

Ben on...the chase

Highest successful run chase at Seddon Park:

212

Ben on...the left-arm Chinaman is amongst us

For a perspective from the other side, I am adding the English blog Are you a left-arm Chinaman? to the blogroll, so you can read the The Atheist whine about his team while we are whining about ours.

Some of AYALAC is a bit over my head, but some of it is internet genius.

That collapse

First up - great bowling Ryan Sidebottom. He has clearly been the best bowler on display in this test. But, by God, was that awful collapse by New Zealand utterly predictable or what? Not only was New Zealand coming in to bat from a position of power (when it is time to be ruthless, it is time for our batsmen's brains to explode), but it was also the dreaded fourth day. I was so convinced that a collapse was coming that I couldn't bring myself to watch the start of the New Zealand innings. I went outside and did some gardening instead. I wish I had stayed there.

The world's best all-rounder

Cricinfo's stats magician, S Rajesh, has written a column hailing Dan Vettori as the best all-rounder in the world. Rajesh conjures up a range of statistics to support his argument. New Zealanders might find at least one these quite sobering. A review of batting averages since 2005 demonstrate that Dan has been our best batsman, scoring 1052 runs at 50.09. But at numbers 2,3,4 and 6 on this same list are Lou Vincent, Stephen Fleming, Nathan Astle, Hamish Marshall and Scott Styris. All of whom have either joined the rebel ICL, or have announced their intention to quit test cricket to join the IPL.

Still, who needs a top order when you have Vettori at number 8?

Depressing office gossip

One of my workmates told me this morning that she had seen a very drunk Jesse Ryder in a Wellington bar at a very late hour last night. She said she was pretty sure it was him because he staggered up to her and slurred "Hi, I'm Jesse Ryder".

Rural centres for test cricket

I have always thought that test cricket should be taken from the big stadiums (in particular Eden Park and Jade Stadium) and played exclusively at proper cricket grounds (like the Basin) and in rural centres. But the game at Hamilton has thrown up one real flaw with this plan; playing in farm country gives English journalists an excuse to pull out all those old gems about how the pace of life in New Zealand is so slow and dull. If they wanted excitement, why didn't they just go to Somerset?

James Anderson to play for Auckland

Now here is one for the books. Has a host nation ever let a member of a touring side get some match practice with a domestic team before? Bizarre. I like Justin Vaughan's response though - to paraphrase "I don't like it, I can see why Auckland want to do it, and I expect the ECB to now make similar arrangements for our players on the upcoming tour to England."

New Zealand bowling stocks

I have been kind of down about our bowling line-up for the first test against England. Dan Vettori won't let us down, and Chris Martin is a trier - but Iain O'Brien, Jacob Oram and Kyle Mills won't exactly put the fear of god into England. Our pace attack doesn't have much variety to it (no left armers, no real pace, no real swing) and on a flat deck I suspect they will be slaughtered.

I initially thought that on paper it looked one of the weakest attacks I have seen. But when looking back at Dion Nash's career I found a side which was much, much worse. When Nash made his test debut, he shared the bowling with Willie Watson, Murphy Su'a, Dipak Patel and Mark Haslam. What cheered me up about that memory was that this bowling line-up bowled out a pretty strong Zimbabwean team (with both Flowers, Andy Pycroft, Alastair Campbell, Dave Houghton) twice to claim a hard fought test victory.

Does anybody else remember us fielding a worse bowling attack?

Tim Southee - best U-19 cricketer in the world

Tim Southee was named player of the tournament for the U-19 World Cup. It is pretty hard to argue with 17 wickets at 6.64 and an economy rate of 2.52 runs per over. Cricinfo also identified him as a player to watch.

I seem to recall that a few years ago a young guy made the national side and was then added to a touring squad to England on the strength of some fine U-19 performances - and that bloke is now a national selector. Don't be too surprised to see Southee in a black blazer come May.

Ben on...shocking win

The Otago Volts have scored their first one-day title in 20 years in style. Set 310 to win by the Auckland Aces, Otago ran the total down in only the 42 over, 3 wickets down, on the back of a 108 ball 170 by Brendan McCullum (52 balls for his century).

Ben on...a new blog

I have discovered a new local blog to add to the blogroll: Cricket = Action = Art. I won't try to describe, it really is something you just have to check out for yourself.

Ben on...the rapid unravelling of New Zealand cricket

It seems to me that the defectors to ICL are getting increasingly brazen.

The first few people to sign up were retirees, such as Chris Harris and Chris Cairns, and current players not currently available, such as Hamish Marshall. Then Craig McMillan was careful to sever his ties with NZC before heading to India. Shane Bond wanted to leave his ties to NZC dangling a bit. Andre Adams just picked up and left without a by-your-leave, and Lou Vincent did the same while still under contract.

I predict that the next New Zealander to leave for India will be a Black Cap. They'll head off to India during a test match. And they'll kick Justin Vaughn's dog on the way to Auckland International.

Dungeons and a Dragon

Richard Boock, the biggest whinger in New Zealand cricket, has written an article for Wisden complaining about the bitching that goes on in New Zealand cricket. Utterly bemused by the hypocrisy of it all? Just wait until Boock starts talking about Dungeons and Sorcerers...

Ben on...Haydos cops it

Matthew Hayden should be pleased if people thought highly enough of him to call him an obnoxious weed. He cops it from the Sideline Slogger, Cricket with Balls,Rupublique and The Guardian. King Cricket clearly loves him too.

An English perspective on Jesse Ryder

Mike Selvey has written an excellent article for the Guardian on Jesse Ryder's downfall.

Ben on...bang for bucks

So, the Kiwis in the IPL attracted the following bids:

Brendon McCullum: US$700,000
Jacob Oram: US$675,000
Daniel Vettori: US$625,000
Stephen Fleming: US$350,000
Scott Styris: US$175,000

What do we think about this?

Based on the last couple of weeks, it is hard to argue with McCullum getting the highest valuation of the New Zealanders. When he gets going he is the most exciting player in the NZ team. McCullum is heading for Kolkata (which you might know as Calcutta), which as a city has seen better days, though the franchise could hardly be more hip, owned by Shahrukh Khan and friends. As you probably know, Shahrukh Khan is HUGE in Bollywood, and Bollywood is HUGE. And the Kolkata team is packed with movie stars: Chris Gayle, Ricky Ponting, Shoaib Akhtar, Ishant Sharma. McCullum was bought for nearly twice as much as Ponting, even though Ponting is twice the batsmen that McCullum is. However, with absolutely no disrespect to Ponting, McCullum's vicious, primeval heaves into the stands are twice as entertaining as Ponting's rather clinical skill. McCullum is the second most highly priced non-Indian in the Kolkata team and IPL rules state that only four non-Indians may play. With Ponting, Gayle and David Hussey fighting it out for the premier batting slots and Akhtar and Gul competing to partner Sharma, McCullum could be the first selected for every game.

Jacob Oram is of course a great 50-over all-rounder, but he has so far proven himself to be an exceptional 20-over batsman. If anyone is worth their money, Oram is worth his. However, with Chennai (you may know it as Madras) having spent their small bowling budget on Muralitaran, Oram may be called on to bowl a bit too, even though his bowling just doesn't seem suited to the format. If he bats up at 6 or 7, he may be wasted. However, if he gets a chance, he could prove to be a real achiever in a team with a lot of big names.

In contrast, Vettori is as good a twenty20 bowler as you can get, but with the bat he hasn't kept up the standards he has set for the longer formats. Even so, his bowling results have been so good, he would be first bowling choice in any team. However, IPL teams are of course constrained in how many foreigners may play, and there is a lot of competition for bowling spots in the Delhi team. I'm surprised that the Delhi bidders chose to build a team with so much overlap with one of their marquee players, but I suspect things didn't quite go to plan, for example, I don't think they had initially expected to end up with Glenn McGrath.

Stephen Fleming a measly $350,000? For NZ's best batsman and the world's best captain? Actually, that is probably as much as he could have expected. It also emphasises just how well McCullum, Oram and Vettori have done. The retirees are not necessarily going for a lot, McGrath and Warne for example. Also, it is unlikely that a franchise would want to use Fleming as a captain; most have gone with locals (Dhoni will captain Chennai). And quite frankly his twenty20 batting has yet to light up the sky. However, with no other cricket to distract him, perhaps he could turn his enormous talent on. With Hayden and Hussey engaged in Pakistan for the beginning of the tournament, Fleming has a good chance to secure himself a position in the team.

Scott Styris retired from test cricket for his $175,000. With his inevitable drop in the NZC contract ranking and lost match fees, along with lost English county opportunities and you have to wonder if it was worth it. His valuation may not have been helped by his relative failure in the England ODI series, but he still went for a bargain basement price given his abilities as an all-rounder. However, Styris suffers for the same reason McCullum benefits, Styris is just not sexy. He's a good batsman, but shows no pizzazz, and his bowling, while effective, is boooring. He will do much better than his cash valuation, but he isn't going to excite anyone – and who would notice with Gilchrist, Afridi, Symonds etc. in the Hyderabad team.

You'd bet that Shane Bond must be pretty disappointed in his agent. Signed up for the lesser tournament, playing against has-beens, banned from international and country cricket and probably earning no more than he would have got in the IPL.

Another one bites the dust

Lou Vincent has just signed up for the rebel Twenty20 league, and New Zealand Cricket has responded by tearing up his contract.

U-19 World Cup

The New Zealand U-19 team might just have been eliminated by India in the junior World Cup - but the side will come home with a fair amount of pride. And the player with the most pride will probably be Tim Southee. After doing well for the full Twenty20 side against England, he went to Malaysia and created havoc. He has taken more wickets than any other player at the tournament (17, second place only has 14) and took them at the remarkable average of 6.64 and with an economy rate of 2.52. Even before taking 4-29 in New Zealand's last match Southee was leading the player of the tournament charts by a mile.

Another New Zealander who did well in the tournament was Southee's partner with the new ball, Trent Boult. Boult took 11 wickets at 10.90, with a remarkable haul of 7-20 against Zimbabwe (the best figures of the tournament).

Where New Zealand failed to impress was in its batting. A quick look at the averages shows all-rounder Corey Anderson led the way, while the only top-order player to average over 30 was Kane Williamson (124 runs at 31). Unfortunately the next Martin Crowe or Stephen Fleming still seem to be some distance away.

Ben on...what goes on tour, stays on tour

In his spare time, Graeme Swann has been blogging for the BBC and answering questions from fans. Despite a few differences in music tastes, the touring party seems to be getting on well. Life on the road must be tough though, away from your home and family.

Graeme reckons he's not missing his girlfriend too much:

My whole view of touring is that it’s the healthiest thing possible for a relationship – three months away from me has got to be good for my missus, I’d only be winding her up if I were back at home!

But this later comment suggests he is missing her more than is admitting:

But Stuart Broad’s the one who’s forever being stuck into by the lads – he’s a very precious lad and has just had his hair done in a bob, which has led to us all referring to him by our ex-girlfriend’s names. Still, he’s a pretty boy. Whack him in a skirt and I’d give him a second glance!

Telling it like it is

Usually you can expect Australia's sports media to toe the party line when it comes to supporting Australian cricketers and Australian cricket. But the Daily Telegraph has just told Cricket Australia where to stuff its spin-doctoring:

ANDREW Symonds' column will no longer appear in The Sunday Telegraph.

After twice being gagged by Cricket Australia, Symonds has been bullied into believing the only way to do a column with this paper is to have it ghost-written by cricket officials.

This paper had no interest in running a column that is not only vetted by Cricket Australia but also written by its employees.

We remain a big fan of Symonds and hope that should this situation change, we can again have him as a columnist. As last week's Indian Premier League auction proves, he is the most entertaining and engaging cricketer in the world.

But in the current cricket landscape, with the fascinating IPL-led revolution, there is little value in listening to the CA party line.

This paper would never enter into such an arrangement which encourages James Sutherland to continue running CA like a dictatorship. Nor would we expect our readers to have to put up with CA's spin-doctoring and half-truths.

Ben on...fulfilled

New Zealand win the ODI series 3-1/2 to 1-1/2. About as close to my prediction of 3-1/3 to 1-2/3 as you can get.

Ben on...nothing

Vettori reckons the tie feels as bad as a loss. I'm finding it worse. Caught between exhilaration and let-down, between elation and dejection, between the triumph of victory and the shame of defeat there is ... nothing.

Bloody great game up until the result though. I was on the motorway during the last few overs, listening on the radio. I was worried that if things got too exciting I might crash. Great performance by both teams, and an excellent reply to their treatment by the media since the start of the tour. (Which can be summed up by The Atheists' comment to my post of yesterday: "It's the ultimate battle of who will cock up first.")

Cricketers have the coolest names

Meet Napoleon Einstein, member of the Indian U-19 squad.

Ben on...following game four

Whether you're watching tomorrow's game, listening to it, following it ball-by-ball on Cricinfo, or over-by-over at the Guardian or BBC, you should have a browser window open to Sportsfreak's coverage.

Ben on...Fleming, the conqueror

Tributes are flowing in for Steven Fleming. All of the kiwi blogs on my roll have laudatory posts and Cricinfo has a nice collection of articles. Our favourite Aussie blog compares Fleming favourably with Noam Chomsky, our favourite linguist/anarcho-syndicalist.

It is of course inarguable that Fleming was the greatest captain of his time. His win ratio of 35% might not have been as good as many of his contemporaries, and test series wins against every team except Australia and Pakistan is only impressive in the context of New Zealand cricket. However, a better measure of how good a captain he was is the fact that he outlasted so many of his contemporaries. He held on to the captaincy for 10 years, seeing off such stalwarts as Sourav Ganguly, Sanath Jayasuriya, Inzamam-ul-haq and Nasser Hussain. But even more significant is the number of opposing captains he sent to the wall.

Brian Lara

In 1999/2000 the West Indies visited New Zealand and lost every game, and Brian Lara lost the captaincy.

Steve Waugh

Fleming never won a test series against Australia, but in 2001/2 he got within a whisker. With Australia coming off a record 16 consecutive wins, they were forced into the defensive in the third test, managing to salvage a drawn series. New Zealand were 10 runs away from taking the first test and 3 wickets from taking the third (the second was rained into irrelevancy). To my mind, this series was the absolute high point of Fleming's captaincy career.

However, it was the VB Series with South Africa where Fleming did the damage to Waugh. New Zealand won 3/4 games against Australia and contrived to keep them out of the finals. The selectors responded by dumping Waugh as captain of the ODI side. He retained the test captaincy, but perhaps only by a whisker.

Sean Pollock

Ostensibly, Pollock was dumped after the 2003 World Cup because of his inability to read his Duckworth–Lewis chart, keeping South Africa out of the Super Sixes. In reality though, it was South Africa's overall failure at the tournament, and no one was more an architect of that failure than Fleming with his rain-interrupted 134 off 132.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul

The West Indies were soundly beaten again in 2005/6 ending Chanderpaul's sorry reign as captain (1 win, 10 losses). Three series wins against the Windies and two defeated captains finally erased the memory of Wellington 1995.

Ben on...ICL grabs another family man

It seems that Andre Adams also has a family whose needs can't be met in New Zealand. Perhaps NZC should be a bit more family friendly. Set up a creche or something.

Facetiousness aside, I read a minor tragedy in this whole I^C/_PL business. Adams is reported as saying "Now it's a job to me", suggesting that before he stated playing for the money, cricket was chiefly about love for the game or pride in representing his country or the adulation of the fans or any of those many things that makes sport more than just a job. I'm not being down on Adams, as I'm sure he still dearly loves the game and will be very proud in representing the Kolkata Tigers. I'm just disappointed in the way cricket is measured these days, with the IPL chairman telling us that the new league will somehow improve cricket worldwide by making players richer and Shane Warne gushing about the IPL because it has already attracted a billion dollars.

Shane Bond also severely missed the point I feel when he expressed surprise that people, including fans presumably, might consider sportspeople to be something other than salarymen:

"Some people are always going to think that you're a traitor and I can live with that. I find it strange, though, that in any other job people accept that you try to improve your circumstances and get in a better position for your family but it's almost like you're not supposed to do that in sport."

Ben on...another blog for the roll

I have added another blog to the blogroll that I highly recommend you visit: Cricket with Balls.

I was initially reluctant to list it because I was concerned about what Mike would think about the profanity and objectification of women. However, I suspect he doesn't even read this blog any more, so I reckon I can make any changes I like.

Cricket with Balls is the funniest site in the blogosphere behind Sport Review. It's run by a bunch of Aussies, but they definitely know what's going on this side of the ditch. They're also quite happy to take the piss out of themselves, and us – and the rest of the cricketing world in fact. Bloody good stuff.

Ben on...Vettori no. 1!

It almost slipped past me, with all my attention paid to the test ratings, but with Pollock and Bond having played their last ODIs, Vettori is the best ODI bowler in the world this week! A round of applause please.

Props too for Mills at no. 7.

(We don't see Pollock above Vettori in the rankings because he has officially retired, which removes him from the table completely. That Bond stays on the table even though he is ineligible to play is a bit of a quirk. He's going to hold a slowly diminishing ranking, messing up the top 10, until the statisticians choose to remove him. Even stranger, he is going to hold onto a test ranking for just as long, because he never got the chance to formally retire, even though that was his intention.)

Ben on...NZC upfront

New Zealand Cricket has published a statement explaining their side of the Bond debacle. In that statement they admit that Bond signed with the ICL in October under the understanding that NZC could release him from his contract to play in the ICL and that the ICL would only require him to play when he had no international commitments. Subsequently, NZC discovered that an ICC regulation (from 2003) prohibits releasing players to play in unsanctioned tournaments. NZC clearly screwed up here and it is good to see them being upfront about it.

Interesting to see that Bond signed for the ICL in October. This was after Fleming decided not to sign, after NZC stated they would not release contracted players, after Mohammad Yousuf dumped the ICL, after the IPL was set up as an alternative. With all this water under the bridge, it is inconceivable for Bond to expect to continue his international career after signing with the ICL.

Ben on...no Bond

The news is out that Shane Bond, who – as we've known for a while – has signed with the rebel ICL, is no longer a Black Cap. While there was some optimism that Bond might be given a dispensation to play in the remaining series before his ICL commitments begin, that was always a vain hope, as signing with the rebel league clearly breached his commitments to NZ cricket (and in fact, he had to be released from his contract) and the NZC are under no obligation to select him.

And why would he want to play? To enjoy the adulation of the crowd for one last time? Does he think we're still going to be behind him? Better if he slinks off now and pulls on the pink of the Chennai Superstars or the bubblegum strip of the Chandigarh Lions.

There's a fair bit of sympathy expressed for Bond in his decision to leave NZ, or understanding at least. And naturally I'd drop Mike in a minute if someone offered me a million bucks to blog elsewhere. The terms "security" and "young family" have been thrown about. I can tell you however, that a young family does not cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. It isn't security that is Bond's reward for signing away his future with the Black Caps, it's wealth.

Ben on...hundreds of dollars worth of cricket

So the most expensive ticket on sale for the New Zealand tour of England is £103 (the ODI at the Oval – they need the money). If I bought a ticket today, that would be NZ$265.

If I had $265 to spend on the England tour here I could see the two T20s ($30 a pop) and all five ODIs ($40 gold seating at each) and still have $5 left for a beer at one of those games. Alternatively I could get a pass for all 5 days at the basin test ($100 gold entry) and all the beer I could drink.

Ben on...England not looking so flash either

Immediately after my rather pessimistic look at New Zealand's poor position in the player ratings, Cricinfo ran a pessimistic story about England's recent form. Apparently England, whose fortunes were so high when they won the ashes in 2005, have slumped to a level of mediocrity not seen since the years leading up to 1999. Significantly perhaps, the earlier period of mediocrity culminated in a series defeat to New Zealand. (Predictably, a slump in form isn't considered to have reached its nadir until New Zealand beats you.) Perhaps history will repeat itself.

Ben on...NZ vs Eng by the ratings

The series against Bangladesh has been good for the ratings of some of our better players. (Despite the thrashing, it didn't do much for our team test rating – we gained less than a whole point.) Fleming has his highest ever test batting rating, currently putting him at a ranking of 16, just below Rahul Dravid. Vettori is also at a personal test batting high with a ranking of 29. He also sits just outside the top 20 in the bowling rankings. The big winner amongst the bowlers however is Martin, who has jumped into the top 20 during the Bangladesh series and now sits at 15.

Sounds all very good, but a look at NZ's position overall in the ratings is not pretty. Vettori, who bats at no. 8, is in fact our second highest ranked test batsmen, ranked just higher than Oram, who bats at 6 or lower. The next two rated batsmen, Vincent and Styris, aren't considered good enough to get into the team, and the next is the wicketkeeper. Apart from Fleming, none of the currently selected top order batsmen are in the top 50.

We are also short of bowlers with decent rankings. Ignoring the rebel Bond and the injured Franklin, we have bowlers ranked 15, 21, 41, 50, 63.

So how does all this compare to England, who we'll be playing early next month?

For the one-dayers, a quick look at the recent fixtures, from 2000 on, give us a win–loss record against England that should lead to a 3-1/3 to 1-2/3 result in the ODI series. Excellent. I think that is all the analysis the ODIs need.

For the tests, the last three series between NZ and Eng have been won, drawn and lost. There is a definite trend of worsening results for the Black Caps, and I suspect that things have worsened even further. England aren't terribly convincing at the moment either, however.

I'll compare the two teams in two ways for both batting and bowling, by highest ranked player and by the average rating of the top 5 batsmen and bowlers of each team. (There's no particular method here, I'm just making it all up.)

Batting

Highest ranked NZer: Fleming 16 (rating: 702)
Highest ranked Enger: Pieterson 9 (804)

Average rating of top 5 NZers: 549 (which would give a ranking of 37)
Average rating of top 5 Engers: 688 (18)

Bowling

Highest ranked NZer: Martin 15 (626)
Highest ranked Enger: Hoggard 9 (695)

Average rating of top 5 NZers: 420 (38)
Average rating of top 5 Engers: 584 (23)

These numbers show that we are badly outclassed on current form. Bugger.

So the home series is pretty much a write-off, well before it has even begun. That's a pity, though really the big prize is the tour to England in May. Perhaps the best we can hope for is that the home series allows some of our players to play themselves into some form for the tour.

Ben on...NZ bottom of the table again

Australia's Daily Telegraph has published a list ranking the test teams in order of misbehaviour, measured by the number of times they have infringed against the ICC's code of conduct.

Casting some doubt on the claim that the touring Indians are little innocents and Australia the perennial bullies, India tops the table with 43 breaches.

Team offences since 1997
India - 43
Pakistan - 39
South Africa - 27
Australia - 25
England - 21
Sri Lanka - 18
Zimbabwe - 15
New Zealand - 14
West Indies - 13

As with pretty much any set of statistics, New Zealand languishes near the bottom. In fact, the greatest individual troublemaker, Sourav Ganguly, is nearly as naughty as our whole team, with 12 offences to his name.

Ben on...ugly on the field/ugly off the field

Man, this Bolliline thing has legs. It seems to be the only thing people have wanted to talk about over the past few days.

By all accounts it was a bitter test match. But as Martin Crowe says, "Same shit, different day" – so the Aussies played ugly, it's cricket. What is extraordinary is that so many Australians are expressing criticism of their team (in their own way, by sledging of course). It's nice to see that most Australians don't measure Ricky Ponting simply by his batting average. However, I see more than just disgust at the Sydney test in this reaction. There is a sense of catharsis in some of the criticism of the Australian team. I think Australians are expressing a long-held disgust. They have finally had enough of the arrogance, bullying and hypocrisy of this team.

So hopefully the Aussies will tone things down for the rest of the series. They'll be back to their old ways by the time we get there in November though. Watching the Australian team in full ugly mode can be as hard to stomach as watching a pack of hyenas feast on a buffalo carcass, but it is just a standard scene on the cricket savannah.

India's threat to run home like a spoilt 10-year old because things aren't going their way is something different though. That's an ugliness that's far more damaging to cricket.

Remember in back-yard cricket, it was always the most annoying kid that would try to make up the rules?

Ben on...Ponting the bunny

Ricky Ponting says of reporting Harbhajan Singh, "I had nothing to gain personally from taking this action."

1st test:

RT Ponting  b Khan                      4
RT Ponting  c Dravid b Harbhajan Singh  3

2nd test:

RT Ponting  lbw b Harbhajan Singh       55   
RT Ponting  c Laxman b Harbhajan Singh  1

Ben on...new ICC rules

Following rules need to be incorporated by ICC WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT to give the other teams a perfect clarification

(1) Ricky Ponting - (THE TRULY GENUINE CRICKETER OF THE CRICKET ERA AND WHOSE INTEGRITY SHOULD NOT BE DOUBTED ) should be considered as the FOURTH UMPIRE. As per the new rules, FOURTH UMPIRE decision is final and will over ride any decisions taken by any other umpires. ON-FIELD umpires can seek the assistance of RICKY PONTING even if he is not on the field. This rule is to be made, so that every team should understand the importance of the FOURTH UMPIRE .

(2) While AUSTRALIAN TEAM is bowling, If the ball flies anywhere close to the AUSTRALIAN FIELDER(WITHIN 5 metre distance), the batsman is to be considered OUT irrelevant of whether the catch was taken cleanly or grassed. Any decision for further clarification should be seeked from the FOURTH UMPIRE. This is made to ensure that the cricket is played with SPORTIVE SPIRIT by all the teams.

(3) While BATTING, AUSTRALIAN (except Adam Gilchrist) players will wait for the ON-FIELD UMPIRE decisions only (even if the catch goes to the FIFTH SLIP as the ball might not have touched the bat). Each AUSTRALIAN batsman has to be out FOUR TIMES (minimum) before he can return to the pavilion. In case of THE CRICKETER WITH INTEGRITY, this can be higher

(4) UMPIRES should consider a huge bonus if an AUSTRALIAN player scores a century. Any wrong decisions can be ignored as they will be paid huge bonus and will receive the backing of the AUSTRALIAN team and board.

(5) All AUSTRALIAN players are eligible to keep commenting about all players on the field and the OPPONENT TEAM should never comment as they will be spoiling the spirit of the AUSTRALIAN team. Any comments made in any other language are to be considered as RACISM only.

(6) MATCH REFREE decisions will be taken purely on the AUSTRALIAN TEAM advice only. Player views from the other teams decisions will not be considered for hearing. MATCH REFREES are to be given huge bonus if this rule is implemented.

(7) NO VISITING TEAM should plan to win in AUSTRALIA . This is to ensure that the sportive spirit of CRICKET is maintained.

(8) THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE : If any bowler gets RICKY PONTING - "THE UNDISPUTED CRICKETER WITH INTEGTIRY IN THE GAME OF CRICKET" more than twice in a series, he will be banned for the REST OF THE SERIES. This is to ensure that the best batsman/Captain will be played to break records and create history in the game of CRICKET.

These rules will clarify better to the all the teams VISITING AUSTRALIA