Can you smell the freshly cut grass yet?

Wisden previews the upcoming New Zealand season.

Fleming to play county cricket

He has been named captain of Notts. Which is a little bit odd. Because I thought his Surrey contract fell through because he wanted to take next winter off to have an operation for his abdominal injury.

NZ 'A' lose again

Which makes it 0-1 in the "tests" and 0-3 in the ODIs. This time it was a thriller. Having been set 297 to win, we were cruising at 283/4. Then came the collapse - we lost three wickets for one run and then lost our last three wickets in three balls. 283/4 became 292 all out.

Jamie How is having a terrible time on tour. He scored 4 today and had 65 taken off his 8 overs. Peter Fulton meanwhile continues to florish, top-scoring for New Zealand 'A' with 98.

Cap'n Dan

Jonathan Millmow reported in this morning's Dominion Post that Daniel Vettori has been shoulder-tapped to captain the New Zealand side in the one-dayers against Bangladesh. Millmow reported that Stephen Fleming is still suffering from his abdominal injury and will be rested before the matches against the Australians.

Meanwhile titanium Shane Bond has undergone back surgery and is hopeful of being fit for the post-Christmas games. Bond also admits that if he does not come right this time, his career is over.

I just had a terrible, shaky thought of New Zealand taking on the Aussies without Fleming and without Bond. If that were to happen I think I would spend my summer under the bed - avoiding the radio, the television and anyone who might tell me the score.

Poll results

Clearly my latest poll bored most of you. Or perhaps my question was a little too loaded. I asked "Is the ICC Trophy a worthwhile competition?" and only 7 of you bothered to answer. 2 said "yes", 1 said "no" and 4 agreed with me and thought it could be, but not in its current form.

I have posted a new poll about the Bangladesh tour. Think a little about this one before answering. Bangladesh have been on the improve lately and had the better of the West Indies in a draw at St Lucia on their last tour, while New Zealand appears to be in test ranking freefall.

Cricket standings

Ben has done some maths and has calculated that even if we thrash Bangladesh 2-0 in the upcoming series, our international rating score will only move from 94 to 95, which will move us from 7th place to, errrr, 7th. The best we can hope for in the near future is for South Africa to get their arses kicked by England, and for Sri Lanka and Pakistan to both somehow lose when they play each other next month.

Here are Ben's figures. For reference the team above us is South Africa with 102 points us and the team below us is the West Indies with 73 points:

NZ 0, Bangladesh 2 -> NZ 84, Bang 11
NZ 0, Bangladesh 1 -> NZ 84, Bang 9
NZ 0, Bangladesh 0 -> NZ 86, Bang 4
NZ 1, Bangladesh 1 -> NZ 90, Bang 5
NZ 1, Bangladesh 0 -> NZ 93, Bang 2
NZ 2, Bangladesh 0 -> NZ 95, Bang 0

Interestingly Pakistan (105), India (104), Sri Lanka (103) and South Africa (102) are only seperated by three points. England, in second, is only just ahead of them with 109 points.

He's behind you!

And now, a Tendulkar musical. Okay, so its not panto - but it is Bollywood. A new Hindi musical called "Main Sachin Tendulkar" (I am Sachin Tendulkar) is in production. The play "...takes on Tendulkar's excellence in the cricket world which in turn leads to a series of events and happenings in the life of the common man." I don't know why they don't just show highlights of Tendulkar smashing hell out of Shane Warne. How can anything beat that for entertainment?

England vs West Indies

Anyone feel like changing their votes in my poll? What a cracking match! Not that I saw it of course - bloody time zones. But it sounded good. And a tournament which ends in a climax like that can't be all bad. Its just a pity that so much drek came before it.

I wonder if they managed to sell out the final? And what the TV viewing numbers were like? It would be such a pity if such a great match went unwatched.

The first-class programme

Frankly, I can think of nothing better than wandering down to the Basin on a glorious summer's day to watch a couple of hours of domestic cricket - checking out the promising new players I might have read about, admiring the old hands and groaning at the predictable success of whichever crap Lincoln Doull clone Wellington is playing this season (hello Matthew Walker).

Despite my patronage and all the success that indicates, New Zealand Cricket has decided to do another little rejig of the competition - the eight round State Championship now leads to a five-day final. And sadly there will be no games for an 'A' side. South Africa 'A' and India 'A' were scheduled to tour, but both have pulled out. With short tours the standard now there are no longer many warm-up matches between international sides and domestic teams and this, coupled with the lack of 'A' games, leaves little space for new players to make their mark. I suspect this is one reason why the final will be over five days - to give players some little taste of what test cricket is about in the absence of international opposition.

The best part about this little story is that it the smell of cricket is in the air again. And the prospect of summer makes spring in Wellington just that little bit easier to bear.

Stickcricket

Got a spare ten minutes? Why not waste it playing Stickcricket?

Skippy does good

268 vs South Africa 'A' and Sinclair still can't make the New Zealand team touring Bangladesh. What does the guy have to do?

Here's a comparison for you:
Batsman - 1st class - Test average
Lou Vincent - 31.58 - 29.00
Hamish Marshall - 26.15 - N/A (one innings of 40 not out)
Matthew Sinclair - 47.94 - 38.54
Nathan Astle - 38.84 - 38.06
Stephen Fleming - 41.61 - 38.65
Craig McMillan - 40.49 - 40.07
Mark Richardson - 43.75 - 47.94

When you look at those figures, you do have to wonder why Vincent and Marshall have been consistently preferred over Sinclair for the past few years. Its not like Sinclair has done much wrong in the few opportunities he has been given - in his last test (against South Africa) he scored 21 and 74.

The trend I find most worrying here is the age of the batsmen with those good records. McMillan is the youngest at 28 and his form has been tailing off for years, while Mark Richardson is almost as old as me. Who amongst the younger generation is going to be able to replace them in five years time? Vincent and Marshall if they pick up maybe, but how about some of this lot:

Batsman - 1st class average
Jesse Ryder - 44.60
Peter Fulton - 44.50
Rob Nicol - 39.00
Tim McIntosh - 37.03
Michael Papps - 35.07
Nick Horsley - 34.43
Jamie How - 32.10

Some of those averages might look good, but in the past season or so Ryder, Nicol, McIntosh, Horsley and How have all slid backwards. Sinclair apart, Fulton has been the form player of the South African tour and at the moment he is the only one I see having much of a future.

By the way, Scott Styris' first class batting average is 32.36. Good enough to bat at number four in the test side? I don't think so.

England vs Australia

Best story in this morning's Dominion Post. The pre-match annoucement by the Australian team that Brad Hogg had injured himself and would be out for the final, so a replacement would be flown over. Hello Hubris, meet Nemesis.

Team for Bangladesh

New Zealand tours Bangladesh next month for two tests and three ODIs. The team, announced a short time ago, is:

Stephen Fleming (capt), Nathan Astle, Ian Butler, James Franklin, Hamish Marshall, Chris Martin, Brendon McCullum (wk), Kyle Mills, Jacob Oram, Michael Papps, Mark Richardson, Scott Styris, Daniel Vettori, Paul Wiseman

So, no McMillan and no Tuffey. Tuffey is still under a bit of an injury cloud and Bracewell said they want to get him right for the long summer ahead. But there is no such excuse for McMillan - he has been dropped on form pure and simple. Which is a little odd because his form could hardly be judged on the ICC Trophy. In that competition he scored a blistering half century against the USA and was run out by Chris Harris against Australia. I.e. neither innings showed us anything. If he was going to be dropped on form then perhaps that should have happened before then. On the other hand, perhaps this is the right time and the right thing to do. Dropping McMillan will hopefully be the kick up the arse he needs to get him focussed on his game - and a tour to Bangladesh is also a great time to blood a player.

I suspect Matthew Sinclair might be rolling his eyes a little. After good form in South Africa with the 'A' side he must be wondering whether anyone ever notices all the runs he scores. Especially when the guy who took McMillan's spot ahead of him - Hamish Marshall - has a first class average about half of his own.

The dropping of Tuffey and McMillan might be the most obvious talking points, but it is the weakness of the bowling attack which catches my eye. Martin, Mills, Franklin, Butler, Oram, Wiseman and Vettori are not names to send shivers of fear through an opposition's spine.

Poll results

Last week I asked you which member of the Black Caps offended your inner hair stylist most. Craig McMillan's facial hair was the not so proud winner - the Canterbury lad with the whopping chops won 58% of your vote. Scott Styris came in second with a strong 17%, which says to me that some of you still recall with horror his accident with a bottle of black hair dye. Ian "Highlights" Butler, Jacob "Blonde" Oram and Kyle "Where did I put that mop" Mills all attracted a single vote, while Hamish Marshall escaped all attention despite having a head like a sheep.

This week I am asking you whether the ICC Trophy is a waste of time in its current form. Is it worth travelling around the planet when half the world's best teams will only play one game against a minnow and one proper match, and that is if your country is lucky and it is not raining?

Blue Friday

What an utterly depressing day of cricket for New Zealanders. Not only did the one-day match turn into a rout, but New Zealand 'A' collapsed spinelessly in their second innings against South Africa 'A'. I don't think its possible to stop being a cricket fan, but on mornings like this I sometimes wish there was an off-switch for fandom.

Kiwi 'bogy' a load of hocus pocus

The Sydney Morning Herald shoots down the myth that the New Zealand cricket team has something over our Trans Tasman cousins:

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/09/15/1095221666402.html

Astle blasts and the crowd goes wild - NZ vs USA, ICC Champions Trophy

Bowling strike rates

Karl emailed me today with a statistical analysis of New Zealand bowlers' wicket-taking ability:

I've taken the bowling figures for New Zealand bowlers in all ODIs to see who our most effective bowlers have been, in terms of taking wickets. I've done a spreadsheet of every bowler who's taken 10 or more ODI wickets in their career (46 New Zealanders have done this). On this, I've divided the number of wickets per match to have a wicket-taking ratio for every bowler. New Zealand's top-10 bowlers, in terms of wickets per match are:

Bowler - Ratio - Wkts - Matches
SE Bond - 1.89 - 51 - 27
DR Hadlee - 1.82 - 20 - 11
GI Allott - 1.68 - 52 - 31
C Pringle - 1.61 - 103 - 64
GB Troup - 1.45 - 32 - 22
AR Adams - 1.42 - 44 - 31
RJ Hadlee - 1.37 - 158 - 115
BJ McKechnie - 1.36 - 19 - 14
DK Morrison - 1.31 - 126 - 96
EJ Chatfield - 1.23 - 140 - 114

What surprises me are: Pringle at no.4, and Adams being in the top 10 (given my opinion he's a pie-chucker). Of the team over in the UK, the current ratios are:

Bowler - Ratio - Wkts - Matches
DR Tuffey - 1.21 - 87 - 72
JDP Oram - 1.20 - 79 - 66
KD Mills - 1.16 - 37 - 32
SB Styris - 0.94 - 83 - 88
IG Butler - 0.93 - 13 - 14
CL Cairns - 0.92 - 176 - 191
DL Vettori - 0.89 - 123 - 138
CZ Harris - 0.82 - 201 - 245
NJ Astle - 0.52 - 95 - 181
CD McMillan - 0.24 - 37 - 153

Of the bowlers on that list the top 3 in terms of economy rate are: Harris, Vettori and Oram, the worst four are Butler (5.5 per over), McMillan (5.29) Styris (4.86) and Cairns (4.74). You can forgive McMillan those stats - he's a part-time bowler. But Cairns? Shows just how much we miss Bond. Jacob Oram is clearly the NZ team's future key to success.

Of the current Aussie bowlers, their wickets per match ratio is:
Lee: - 1.75
Kasprowicz: - 1.70
Gillespie: - 1.57
Warne: - 1.51
McGrath: - 1.50

Their top five bowlers account for 8 wickets per match. Our top five account for 5.4.
Now Mike - why are we ranked no.2 or 3?

I would say that the reason we are ranked as high as no. 2 or 3 in the world is because we can put a team on the park with a pile of batsmen capable of backing up the strike bowlers with a wicket or two. Compare our top and middle order to the Australians - and ask yourself whether Astle, Fleming, McMillan, Styris, Oram and Cairns present a better wicket-taking prospect than Hayden, Gilchrist, Ponting, Martyn, Lehmann and Symonds. The reason we are not ranked higher is because the strike bowlers (Bond apart) are not up to the job and we need those back-up dobbers.

Perspective

In Wisden today Ricky Ponting talked about how determined the Aussies are to break records against the USA and stated:

"Everyone wants to do something special, in every game that you play," he said. "Watching the USA-New Zealand game the other day someone made a big hundred, and hopefully we can do the same. Ideally we'd like one of the batsmen to make a big hundred and have one of the bowlers get six or seven [wickets] for not very many."

In this morning's Dominion Post Jonthon Millmow said:

The downside for Astle is playing out the last three to four years of his career with ever present reminders that the best of 14 hundreds was against a minnow.

Former international Roger Twose faced an identical situation with statistics books and the big screens at match venues highlighting for four years that his 92 against United Arab Emirates was a career best.

Australia breaks records, New Zealand doesn't. I wonder why?

Well we beat the USA

Its hard to say much isn't it? In reality the most important thing about the match was that it didn't rain and deprive us of the points.