Stuart MacGill thinks we are crap

All out for 213 against NSW on a wicket without much pace and bounce. This has made Brett Lee cocky, but Stuart MacGill saw no joy in taking such easy wickets. The Sydney Morning Herald agrees with MacGill.

And in another article, the SMH focuses on the Australians in the New Zealand side.

Steve Waugh opines

From this article in the Herald we can tell two things; 1, Steve Waugh is still a master at messing with the mind of an opposing captain (can you think of a better way to dent Flem's confidence?) and 2, as his shot at Mark Richardson demonstrates, he sure knows New Zealanders.

New Zealand's best batsman and a new poll

Well it is official, Martin Crowe is without doubt the best batsman to have ever pulled on whites for New Zealand. You can have your batting averages, you can have your PWC ratings, but my poll is the most accurate and most scientific measure known to man. To confirm the final standings, Crowe won exactly half the votes with 6 and was followed by Glenn Turner with 4 votes (33%). One old-timer voted for Martin Donnelly and one child of the '80s and '90s for Andrew Jones (both on 8%).

My new poll is a test of your confidence. Australia has Brett Lee on the bench and Katich, MacGill and Bevan can't even get a sniff. New Zealand has Scott Styris at number four in the batting order. So which side will triumph?

"Sledging made me a better captain"

Well this post comes to you in a round-about way. The clickable link to the Mid-day Mumbai will take you to an article about Stephen Fleming's new book - available in Whitcoulls and Unity Books a few dozen metres from my desk as of yesterday, and presumably not available within a thousand miles of Mumbai. The article tells how Greg Matthews startled a young Stephen Fleming by sledging him while Flem was in the field and then followed up with a six page letter to the future New Zealand captain.

The Postman delivers

Dan sent me a link to Gavin Larsen's picks for the next World Cup and made a few comments of his own (they are posted under the piece about Murali if you want to take a peek). Gavin's picks do seem very conservative don't they? Given the World Cup is still a good three years away I was surprised that he has selected a pace bowler (Adams) who will be 33. But when you look a bit closer you realise that he had to be conservative as the core of New Zealand players are still remarkably young. Fleming is 31, McMillan is 28 and Vettori is only 25. Astle, Cairns and Harris are all on their last legs and who knows if we will ever see Bond again - but the rest of the current crop should all be available in 2007. And that makes it hard to pick any outsiders.

One outsider I will stake my hat on is Richard Sherlock. The Dominion Post reported the other day that he was clocked at over 150kph during the 'A' tour of South Africa, and I suspect that might mean he will be rushed in to add variation to the dribbly New Zealand pace attack very, very soon.

The thought of the New Zealanders as young guns cheers me up a little bit in the dim, dark, brutal days when we are reduced to letting a thuggish moron captain the national team (it depresses me to think that perhaps the selectors saw captaincy potential in Scott's mean-spirited and arrogant sending off of Ashafrul in the last ODI). The only Australians under 30 who are likely to play in Brisbane are Michael Clarke, Jason Gillespie and Ricky Ponting. And Gillespie and Ponting are both 29. Looking wider than the starting XI, there is not a single youngster amongst the bowlers given contracts this year by Cricket Australia - McGrath (currently 34), Warne (35), MacGill (34), Gillespie (29), Hogg (33), Kasprowicz (32) and Lee (29). By the time of the next World Cup the youngest of that crop, Brett Lee, will be 33.

Who knows? By 2007 Australia might be rubbish and Scott Styris might actually have learnt not to act like a thug and not to swing wildly at good balls.

The nightmare begins

Fleming is still in doubt, Vettori has gone down with a shoulder injury and - dear Lord - Scott Styris has been made captain of New Zealand. The days can get no darker.

The doosra is back

It looks likely that the ICC will declare Muttiah Muralitharan's doosra legal - just in time for Sri Lanka's tour of New Zealand. According to a new study 99% of bowlers extend their arms beyond the legal limits. Mind you we could be lucky, Murali is still recovering from a shoulder injury and might struggle to be fit by December.

First game preview

Stephen Fleming is laid low with a virus, Shane Warne looks like he will be fit to play and Kyle Mills still hasn't had a hair cut. It is a bad start to the New Zealand tour.

The warm-up match against New South Wales starts tomorrow. This should be a good gauge of how competitive we will be in the test series as the NSW team is a strong one. It has already been announced that NSW will play Brett Lee in their starting line-up, and they could also potentially play Darren Lehmann, Michael Clarke and Simon Katich - who are all competing for a spot in Australia's middle order.

It is a bit of a concern that we are warming up for a test at the hard and fast Gabba wicket by playing a match on the SCG, a wicket famous more for spin than pace, but quick stuff from Lee is quick wherever it is bowled.

The Spin is back

The Guardian's weekly email newsletter on cricket, the Spin, is back. The Spin is only published during the English cricket season and when the English team is on tour. When it is up and running though, it covers all teams and all countries. It is witty, irreverent, astute and, best of all, completely free. While you can read it at the Guardian website, you can also ask them to send it straight to your mailbox, which is somehow much friendlier.

Oooooh! Ratings!

The Test Cricket Ratings Service has its own web-site, which explains how the ratings work and why New Zealand has sunk to 7th in the world. The web-site also includes historical analyses, match reports and more numbers than there are in Shane Warne's cell-phone.

This should keep Karl and Ben busy for a couple of days.

And I suggest Jonathan Millmow and his Bangladesh-bashing colleagues check out the historical charts to see exactly how rubbish the New Zealand side was for so many years.

Latest PWC ratings

Karl saved me the bother of analysing the latest PWC ODI ratings by doing it himself. And this is what he discovered:

Scott Styris has hit his best all-rounder rating in ODIs and is in the top 30 for batting and bowling after New Zealand's predictable demolition of Bangladesh. The series saw no changes in the top tens, mainly because none of the players in either team was in the top ten. Fleming held on to 13th place, while Vettori has moved up five to 13th, continuing his successful tour.

With that Scott Styris news, I was kinda glad I didn't have to break this to you myself. And I will dispute the "none of the players in either team was in the top ten" bit of Karl's analysis. My quick scan of the tables showed that Jacob Oram is still the fifth best one-day bowler in the world.

"Its Kiwi pop-guns from 22 yards"

This morning's Australian assessed our chances of beating Australia - and concludes we haven't a shit show. And they did that without even mentioning that Scott Styris will be batting at number four.

What the Sunday papers say

In the Herald on Sunday Chris Cairns speculates on the Bangladeshis' poor body language and form, comes up with some thoughtful ways to improve their skills and wonders if Scott Styris wears foundation. Meanwhile Mark Richardson also ponders on the crapness of Bangladesh and points out that their only decent bowlers are left-arm spinners - which is not exactly the best preparation for our batsmen, who are about to tour a country which has none. Richardson also praises DVD piracy and defends his waffling by saying that at least it is better than the commentary during the one-dayers.

Over in the Sunday Star-Time the major stories are hidden offline, probably because they are steals from other papers - an old article full of praise for Glenn McGrath from the Sydney Morning Herald and brickbats for Shane Warne from the Victorian's own paper, the Melbourne Age. Ken Rutherford doesn't make it online either, but all he has to say is that the Aussie bowlers really are pretty good.

Over the ditch in the Sydney Morning Herald Peter Roebuck sums up the Aussies tour of India and concludes that no-one can challenge them now, except maybe the English. And Mark Waugh gets stuck into the Indians, their pitches and their captain in particular. Poor Sourav, does no-one like him?

In Melbourne's Age, the big story for New Zealanders is a feature on Stephen Fleming. Elsewhere Ricky Ponting whines about the Mumbai pitch, Chloe Saltau wonders how the Australians can best rig the "World XI" to play them next year so they can make lots of money and Brendan McArdle says that Brett Lee would do best to become a line and length bowler and learn to shut his mouth, but should still be picked so that the good bowlers can have a bit of a rest.

A sting in the tail

It is all very well having a number of tail-enders capable of scoring runs, but is anyone else becoming concerned about out top-order failures? At least Sinclair is scoring runs and Astle seems to be working his way back into form, but the rest of the side better start pulling up their britches before we reach Australia.

"Worn-out Aussies up for grabs"

As the Sydney Morning Herald reports, Stephen Fleming and John Bracewell have been talking up New Zealand's chances of putting one over the Aussies in the upcoming test matches. I have to admit to holding my head in my hands after reading this article. The thought of our pop-gun attack fronting up to the best batting line-up in the world was already causing me to sweat, and Fleming and Bracewell adding extra hubris to the mix is only going to tempt nemesis even more.

Millmow on Bangladesh

Jonathan Millmow's article on Bangladesh (mentioned below) is now online here.

Bangladesh - in or out?

In this morning's Dominion Post (no online version I am afraid), Jonathan Millmow launched into Bangladesh and called for their expulsion from the test arena in very strong terms. Meanwhile, Martyn Watterson wrote a piece for NZPA which tells how much the people in this impoverished country love their cricket and how eager they are to improve.

As everyone knows, it took New Zealand 26 years to win its first test match. So we should be the last to call for Bangladesh's expulsion. And our record prior to that first win could have been even worse because for many years we were only allowed to play three day test matches and escaped with draws in games we would otherwise have lost.

International cricket is now too comfortably uniform to allow the five day test to be tampered with - you might as well try to re-introduce the eight ball over. But I think there might be a good deal of merit in the idea of tampering with the length of games. Test matches with Bangladesh are currently lucky to last four days. A three day test match would give them something achievable to aim for - an honourable draw. And their opponents would have to fight that much harder to win. There would be no batting for two days to set up a huge total - sides would have to score more quickly and declare earlier against them - and teams would have to bowl well to get them out twice in such a short space of time.

You could argue that a three day test match would make it even harder for Bangladesh to win their first match. But I don't think it would at all. Their opponents would be rushed and more likely to make mistakes, and declarations would be more sporting and more likely to offer a chance of victory.

The recent test series between New Zealand and Bangladesh was a predictable bore. But imagine what might have happened if we had played three day tests rather than five day matches. With 30 minutes to go at the end of day three of the last match, Bangladesh were eight wickets down. They managed to fight out those last 30 minutes, but that merely put the match into day four. Think of how tense and exciting that 30 minutes would have been if the result had been hanging on them. New Zealand would have been desperate to get those last wickets. Men would have been crowding the bat. The Bangladeshis would have been fighting hard, knowing that they only had to last seven or eight more overs. It would have been test cricket at its finest.

What in the world is up with the world's wicketkeepers?

As Tim deLisle points out in the Times, it is all chaos on the wicket-keeping front. Mark Boucher, Pathev Patel and Moin Khan have all been dropped; Gilchrist is getting smack from the Melbourne Age; and Kumar Sangakkara has decided he quite likes Oscar Wilde. Of the world's test keepers, only Brendon McCullum's life is without controversy, but given what is happening to his colleagues he must be shaking in his boots waiting to see what tomorrow will bring.

Peter Fulton's big day

In Matthew Sinclair's absence with a minor ankle injury, Peter Fulton has been given his chance to play for New Zealand. Fulton is a 25-year-old top order batsman (although he is not usually an opener) who plays for Canterbury. He has already scored almost 2000 runs in first-class cricket at an average of 44.41 and has a triple century to his name (scored against Auckland in March 2003). Fulton is a very tall and correct right-handed batsman who plays beautifully straight. At 25 he is a bit of a late bloomer, but that is often a good thing in New Zealand batsmen. Andrew Jones made his debut at 28, while Ken Rutherford was given the nickname "Noughtaford" by his West Indian opponents after his first matches for New Zealand at 19 and even Martin Crowe has a dismal time in his first season of top level cricket.

The New Zealand batting line-up is cramped with talented players, but Fulton has a good opportunity to make a mark for himself against a weak Bangladesh attack. It is a chance he will probably need to snatch with Sinclair returning for the second match and such hot competition for places in the middle order. With all that engine-room talent, I suspect that Fulton might be gently encouraged into taking up opening as a full-time occupation. I have already said that his plays correctly and straight - and those are attributes that will hold him in good stead at the start of an innings.

Steve Waugh tells us 11 things about Glenn McGrath

And McGrath is a very scary man. You should see what he does to his eggs for breakfast.

On the road to Mitchelldom

Andrew McLean describes John Bracewell's abruptness with the Bangladeshi media. It is sad to see, cricket in Bangladesh needs all the encouragement we can give it and a few words to the media is not that big an ask.

A tea interval

I am shifting this weekend and won't have my phone reconnected until next week. So postings might be limited over the next few days.

The British Medical Journal

Most people think doctors play nothing but golf, but if you flick through the BMJ then you might get another impression. First it ran a paper comparing Indian and Pakistani cricket results, which engendered a high degree of controversey ("The BMJ needs to decide whether it is a Journal or a magazine") and also this letter. The medical journal followed this controversy up by running an article asking "Is cricket the magic glue that unites South Asia?".

Richard Boock joins the debate

In this morning's Herald, Richard Boock compares Fleming, Turner and Crowe - and cites three centuries against the 1980s West Indian attack as the reason why Crowe should be seen as the greatest.

Boock goes on to describe "the generation" gap that exists between the stars of the 1980s and the stars of the modern era. Although it still contains his usual quota of generalisations and assumptions, it is an unusually thoughtful piece.

A new poll and New Zealand's best batsman

My last poll asked you who should open the batting with Mark Richardson in the forthcoming tests against Australia. One of you voted for double century maker Stephen Fleming, four of you voted for current opener Matthew Sinclair and five of you voted for Michael Papps.

My new poll was inspired by Stephen Fleming's achievements in Bangladesh - he is now New Zealand's most prolific runs-scorer. Ben asked me who I thought was New Zealand's best ever batsman and it sparked a lengthy debate between Karl, Ben and I. So now we are going to ask you to decide for us. To help you vote, here is a little information:

According to the PWC system, Glenn Turner had the highest rating of any New Zealander by a mile - 843. Bert Sutcliffe got as high as 787 and Martin Crowe reached a peak of 776.

If you looked at where those three were placed in the rankings, as opposed to simply looking at the ranking score, then you can see that Crowe spent most of the period from 1988 until 1994 ranked in the world's top five batsmen. Glenn Turner spent between 1972 and 1977 doing the same - and hit number one a couple of times, including an extended spell in 1975. Bert Sutcliffe only spent a short period in 1956 in the top 5, but his ranking was more consistent through-out his career than either Turner or Crowe.

Andrew Jones' rating never climbed above 667 and he was never rated higher than the ninth best batsman in the world. But, no-one else earned the nickname "God" or celebrated a test century by giving the Australian press box the fingers.

Of the current players, Fleming might have scored more runs than anyone else but he has yet to rate over 692 and has only broken into the top 20 a handful of times. Mark Richardson has hit the heights of 775 and has spent the past couple of years hovering around the world's top 10.

Martin Donnelly might have made the list in another age. He only played briefly for New Zealand in a career interrupted by the Second World War and the lack of tests at the time - but in that short time he did manage 200 in England and such was his reputation in English county cricket that he was named the best left-handed batsman in the world.

In terms of bare batting averages, we can see the following:
Martin Donnelly 52.90
Mark Richardson 47.03
Martin Crowe 45.36
Glenn Turner 44.64
Andrew Jones 44.27
Bert Sutcliffe 40.10
Stephen Fleming 39.75

Of course, all statistics are problematic when trying to compare batsmen of different eras. Karl tried to work around this by comparing the careers of Turner and Crowe against different nations.

Turner's averages: against West Indies 65.76, Pakistan 39.18, and Sri Lanka 23.66. He never played against South Africa or Zim.
Crowe: against WI 45.33, Pak 57.23, SL 52.25, Zim 62.25 and SA 20.5.

On a purely aesthetic level, Ben pointed out that not even a Fleming cover-drive could beat the grace of a Martin Crowe hook shot. And Crowe could also score runs in the most trying conditions (remember his century in Pakistan against Waqar and Wasim at their fiercest?) while both Sutcliffe (post-injury) and Turner had reputations for being suspect against short, quick bowling.

As an aside, while looking around the PWC website I noticed something about Martin Donnelly's contemporary, fast bowler Jack Cowie. Cowie only played a handful of tests in the 1930s and 1940s but between 1945 and 1949 he was consistently rated in the PWC's top ten and spent 1947 as the world's best bowler - above players like Tiger O'Reilly, Keith Miller and Ray Lindwall. As far as I can tell, Richard Hadlee is the only other New Zealander to reach No. 1 in the bowling charts.

Fleming on the drive

Peter Roebuck

Peter Roebuck once said some very uncomplimentary things about New Zealand and I held a grudge against him for years, but he is also a bloody good cricket writer. I have learnt to ignore Cricinfo and to instead wander over to his column in the Sydney Morning Herald to find out what is happening in Australian cricket.

Fleming's day

He now has more test matches than any other New Zealander and more test runs. He also has his 8th test century and, although I only saw highlights of his innings, it looked a very classy knock too. There is no better player to watch cover drive than Stephen Fleming.

Mark Richardson's run of getting out to aggressive strokes continued and this might soon become a bit of a concern. He expressed a desire last season to break out of his sheet-anchor role and play a few shots, but I think someone should tell him that we need a sheet-anchor. It is all very well to have silky Flemings, bludgeoning Astles and wristy Sinclairs in the side, but silky, bludgeoning and wristy can all be a bit flaky and we need someone who is never going to give his wicket away cheaply.

A change for the better

According to the Herald, Scott Styris has sustained a foot injury and might miss the test. This could be very good news as it will allow Marshall to come into the side without the need to rest Astle.

This is good news because unlike Astle, Scott doesn't need the practice - it's not like he is going to score any runs against Australia anyway.

What the Sunday papers say

Dylan Cleaver in the Herald suspects that Bracewell will do some tinkering for the second test to give a couple more players a chance to warm-up for Australia.

Cleaver states that the most likely change would see Marshall come in for Astle. His reasoning seems pretty spot on but I would be disappointed if this were to come true. Astle, more than anyone, is a player who needs time in the middle to get him into form. I'm not saying that Marshall doesn't deserve a chance to impress after his magnificent one-day form, but getting Astle - one of our premier batsmen - into good nick for the Aussies should be the first priority.

And I can't find it online, but Ken Rutherford had a real rant about the new South African coach in this morning's Sunday Star-Times. He couched his words in polite language, but the whole article can essentially be distilled to read "Ray Jennings is a two-faced, arrogant and psychopathic arsehole who is going to drag South African cricket into a new dark age." And Rutherford should know, he used to be Jenning's assistant at Gauteng. While I can't give you Ken's piece, I did find this Wisden article which gives a taste of Jenning's character.

Sanath Jayasuriya

It is a bit surprising to see Sri Lanka doing so well against Pakistan, sure they have a good batting line-up - but their bowling attack looks so weak without Muralitharan that it is hard to imagine them bowling a top side out twice. But a stunning double century from Jayasuriya and a devestating spell from Dilhara Fernando has left them in total control of what was originally shaping as a very even contest.

The turning point of this match occurred when those two players were joined at the crease with Sri Lanka at 337/8. At this point Jayasuriya went beserk and, of their 101 run partnership for the ninth wicket, Fernando contributed a solitary run. Jayasuriya's innings ended at 253, his third double century.

Jayasuriya's career might well have turned out very differently. He made his debut back on the 1990/91 tour to New Zealand, back in the days when Sri Lanka were still generally regarded as easy-beats - the Bangladesh of the era. His presence was later one of those that lifted Sri Lanka from the bottom of the world rankings, but he could have had only a very brief appearance on the test stage. His first ball in test cricket was a short wide ball from Chris Pringle, Jayasuriya made an ugly and wild slash at it and it flew just wide of gully. This was his only turn at bat in the match and if the mishit had gone to hand, he would have faced one ball, played one atrocious shot and probably would have made way for someone less rash for the next game. As it was he ended up with 35 streaky looking runs and, with so little competition for places, he retained his place and never looked back.

PWC ratings

The Dhaka test had quite an effect on the New Zealand rankings on the PWC tables - especially for the youngsters. Ironically Craig McMillan was one of the few older players whose ranking actually improved (courtesy of Scott Styris' downward spiral), despite the fact that he didn't even play!

Batsman
Mark Richardson 13 (down 3)
Stephen Fleming 23 (down 1)
Craig McMillan 33 (up 1)
Scott Styris 34 (down 1)
Nathan Astle 35 (no change)
Jacob Oram 39 (no change)
Matthew Sinclair 42 (up 4)
Brendon McCullum 47 (up 21)

Bowlers
Darryl Tuffey 15 (no change)
Chris Martin 20 (down 1)
Daniel Vettori 31 (up 9)
Jacob Oram 40 (up 2)
James Franklin 45 (up 27)
Paul Wiseman 59 (down 1)
Ian Butler 67 (down 5)
Scott Styris 75 (unchanged)

Vettori's rating score of 491 is still a long way from his peak at 661, but it is a considerable improvement on his recent depths.

The Daily Star

Here is some insight into the New Zealand victory from a Bangladeshi perspective, courtest of the Daily Star. In a related article the Star tells us that Habibul Bashar, Bangladesh's best batsman by a mile, is to miss the second test as well.

Bashar has scored over 2000 runs in test cricket at an average of 35.84 and has scored three of the eight centuries ever scored by Bangladeshi batsmen. He is also ranked number 32 in the world by PWC - above Nathan Astle, Craig McMillan and Scott Styris. Given that their next ranked batsman comes in at 64, you can see why they are missing him.

Andrew McLean

Andrew McLean appears to have come from nowhere to be New Zealand cricket's Mr Ubiquitous. He writes for Cricinfo, he reports on Radio Sport, he has his own cricket show. And he is informative, thoughtful and very likeable. Try to catch him, it is not too hard.

Boock on Marshall

Richard Boock actually has something positive to say for a change - and applies a little analysis. In looking at Hamish Marshall's chances of a test spot in the next game, he reviews those New Zealanders who have scored their maiden first-class centuries in a test match.

Vettori glory

He flighted the ball. He spun it sharply. And he had loop.

Dan Vettori's 16 post-injury wickets at 75.93 just became 24 at 52.87 and his career average fell from 38.14 to 36.63. All in all, this has been a very good test for Dan. As it has been for someone who loves to see good spin bowling.

Read those first three sentences of this post again. They made me very happy.

Brendon McCullum

Take a look at the picture below. Notice anything about it? McCullum is not wearing a helmet. Apparently he decided he didn't need one - even when the quicks returned with the new ball. Cocky young fella ain't he?

McCullum on the hook (courtesy of Reuters)

McCullum's maiden ton

Some might denegrate the attack it was scored against, but the fact remains that Brendon McCullum scored a century to drag New Zealand out of danger in extremely trying conditions. The pitch was tricky, the heat and humidity high and the spinners not too bad.

For a while it looked like McCullum might not achieve the greatness that beckoned in his glory days as a youth player, but given that he is only 23 he still has plenty of time to make good on that early promise. With the retirement of Robbie Hart the test keeping spot looks his for years to come.

By the by, I think the Bangladeshis made a mistake to take the new ball with the spinners on top and with McCullum and Vettori on strike - both better players of pace than spin. It will be interesting to see how many those two can score and whether this will be the turning point which will allow the New Zealanders to put their feet on the throat of this match.

Poll results

Last time I asked you what you thought the scoreline would be in the New Zealand vs Bangladesh test series. Seven of you were cocky enough to vote for a 2-0 scoreline in favour of New Zealand. Five of you were slightly more cautious and voted for a 1-0 score. One very pessimistic person (who might have been me) glumly predicted that it would rain and that the series would be a 0-0 wash-out.

This time I am asking you to think ahead to the next challenge. Australia's bowlers won't be quite so forgiving of poor technique and footwork as Bangladesh's. So who do you think should face the new ball at Brisbane on the 18th of November?

New Zealand Oxford Dictionary

Oxford are publishing a New Zealand version of the dictionary in November, something I think is long overdue. I always thought it was wrong that New Zealand law and legislature is based on definitions from the Oxford English Dictionary when the languages of the two countries will always suffer subtle differences. The Australians have their Macquarie, and hopefully the NZOD will become our standard reference text.

You might be wondering what this has to do with cricket. Well, the reason is that one of the new words to appear in the New Zealand Oxford Dictionary is "dibbly dobbler", meaning a bowler of barely medium pace. I am not sure whether a photo of Chris Harris will be included next to the entry.

Coverage of the test

I am enjoying the daily reports from the test on the NZ Cricket website. I was disappointed with the website when it first appeared, and it is very light in terms of player information and statistics, but if they can maintain a standard of writing as high as this then I will be very happy.

County news

According to the Dom this morning, Scott Styris has just signed to play for Middlesex next season. Let's just hope that he does a Craig Spearman and decides to stay in Blighty for good.

Portrait of an athlete

Jimmy's fine trick

What can you say? James Edward Charles just took the second hat-trick in New Zealand test cricket history - after left-arm spinner Peter Petherick took one in Pakistan way back in 1976/77.

Franklin's final delivery was an absolute cracker, pitching outside off and swinging back in to bowl Baisya - who did not play a shot.

And finally, after a day of dreary, dreary cricket, we have some action.

The weather

The rain ruined a great test match in Chennai. Thankfully it doesn't look like it will do the same in Dhaka.

First test preview

I thought I would share a different perspective with you this morning - one from the other side. Here is Bangladesh news agency "The New Nation's" preview of the first test.

Mark Richardson

The world's premier number-11-turned-opener contributes a column to the new Herald on Sunday. So far, his appears to be the most intellectual piece in the newspaper - which appears to be covering all of its bases by looking like a serious paper, but reading like a tabloid. I'm not sure that I agree with everything he says here, but it is certainly more stimulating than reading bloody Scott Styris say "its time for the boys to step up to the next level" in the Dom.

A luke-warm warm-up

Well, we didn't embarrass ourselves, but I don't think we learnt too much either. The light-weight pace attack put in a decent performance, although it is hard to judge what sort of quality our opposition was.

This morning's New Zealand Herald says that Jake Oram is likely to share the new ball in a very slim looking pace attack for the first test. John Bracewell has stated that he wants players to be in a position where they are forced to take responsibility for their performance. He suspects players go into cruise mode if they know that they have back-up. I like this thinking. It has its dangers of course - if we go into a test with two real pace bowlers and Styris as the third seamer, then we are onto a hiding to nothing if one of those quicks breaks down. But against Bangladesh that seems to be a gamble worth taking.

In other news, Peter Roebuck continues his recent trend of eulogising Australian batsmen. This time he goes into raptures over Damien Martyn.

Not a good start to the tour

So the first day of the warm-up match is over and two bugbears have raised their heads already. Firstly our new opening combination was not a success and secondly, and probably of even more concern, it rained. On the positive side of the ledger, Fleming and Marshall both got some good time in the middle.

The next test will be when we are in the field and I am biting my fingers a little over how our worryingly thin-looking pace attack will perform.

And what is with this weird 12-a-side thing that seems to be catching? The 'A' side did it in South Africa and now the top team is doing it in Bangladesh. What's wrong with a normal match with normal match conditions? I don't care if one extra player gets on the park - to my mind a first-class match where the players actually have something riding on the outcome is still the best preparation for a test match.

Essential reading

Okay, so it costs $50, is already out of date and most of what is contained within can be gleaned from the internet anyway - but the 2004 New Zealand Cricket Almanack is still required reading. Why? Because there is something reassuring solid about facts when they are printed on paper. Somehow Mark Richardson's batting average of 47.94 feels more real just because it appears in the Almanack. It is history now. He might score 20 ducks in his next 20 innings, but the Almanack will still show that at the start of the 2004 season he still had a better average than Martin Crowe, Andrew Jones, Bert Sutcliffe and Glenn Turner.

And remember, you cannot lie in bed flicking through Cricinfo.com.

For the record, the Almanack's players of the year are Stephen Fleming and Chris Martin while the promising players are Michael Papps, Brendon McCullum and Peter Fulton. Lets hope this year's crop of tyros prove more successful than the promising players selected ten years ago (Roydon Hayes, Blair Pocock and A.T. Reinholds).

You might raise an eyebrow at Martin's choice as a player of the year. But, despite the appalling England tour, the Almanack tells me that he still took 24 test wickets at 25.58 in a season when Darryl Tuffey could only manage 19 at 41.84, Jacob Oram 16 at 46.25 and Daniel Vettori 16 at 75.93.

Okay. I am going to stop finding interesting figures in the Almanack now. I am going to put it down and do something useful. Although, first I might just quickly look up Martin's career bowling average. And Darryl Tuffey's record in domestic cricket last season. And Dan Vettori's bowling average since he returned from injury...

Marshall in ahead of Astle?

According to the Dominion Post, it looks likely that Skippy Sinclair will be opening with Mark Richardson on the Bangladesh tour and that Hamish Marshall and Nathan Astle will be fighting for the one open spot in the middle order.

This is an interesting proposition. Sinclair should do well opening against a Bangladesh side in spinner friendly conditions, but if he is successful does that mean he should be retained as opener against Australia in conditions and against bowlers far more suited to swing and seam? I still have my doubts about Matthew's technique when he starts an innings. The static feet mean that when his eye is in the stroke-play is wristy and glorious, but when his eye is not in and the ball is moving - he gets himself into trouble. Could his selection simply be a temporary measure until Papps returns to fitness? Possibly, and that could leave us with a very pleasant conundrum later in the season - with Astle, Marshall and Sinclair all pushing each other for the middle order spot.

The battle between Astle and Marshall is an interesting one in itself. Marshall is the young up and comer who still has a lot to prove and I suspect many of you are surprised to hear that he could even think of competing with Astle. But Nathan's form since his return from injury has not been that good, and he has a history of taking a long time to warm into the season. I suspect that if you pitched both into a match right now Marshall would outdo Astle, but later in the season with some batting under his belt and a working knee I am betting Astle will be an automatic choice.

It must be spring

Good lord! Wellington Cricket is having a good old fashioned spring cleaning. Woooosh! Out goes the rubbish!

And good riddance to old trash too. Matthew Walker is one of those players that Wellington produces in abundance and which I loathe with a passion. A slogger who jammies runs with luck and brute force, rather than technique and timing. A bowler who has no pace and does nothing with the ball but manages to take bog loads of wickets on New Zealand's green and dibbly dobbly friendly surfaces.

Now, lets hope Wellington can offer his fat contract to a young and impressionable quick bowler from another province.

Wisden doesn't like Kyle Mills

I'm not surprised, who does? And you do have to ask what he is still doing in the side when he hasn't done a damned thing in 33 ODIs. On the other hand, we haven't exactly got pace bowlers falling out of our ears. And I guess a good bloke who is a very average medium pace bowler is a better selection than a guy who is a very average medium pace bowler and nothing more.

And with a wig like that, he probably has a few good party tricks up his sleeve.

Keith Miller

Keith Miller, one of the game's best all-rounders and most entertaining characters, is dead. The Sydney Morning Herald has a tribute, but I thought I would add my own.

There are many stories attributed to Miller; the devil-may-care fighter pilot who once crash-landed his plane at 11am and joined a game of cricket at noon; the length of his run-up which was usually dependent on how he had spent the previous evening; the day he let himself be bowled for nought just to show his team-mates that he really didn't give a damn. But my favourite story is about the only time he was allowed to captain Australia. He led his team-mates out onto the field and strolled off to slip. His team stood around in confusion, waiting for Miller to tell them which positions to take up. One of them pointed out that Miller hadn't actually told them who was 12th man and that there were infact twelve of them on the field. Miller glowered at his team; "right, one of you bastards piss off and the rest of you scatter."

Keith Miller. Born 1919. Died 2004. Right-handed batsman, right-arm fast bowler. 55 tests, 2958 runs at 36.97 and 170 wickets at 22.97. Last of the great entertainers.

John Bracewell likes Andre Adams

Something for Karl and Dan. I know what big Andre Adams' fans you are, and I am sure you will be pleased to find that John Bracewell is a big fan too.

Biege makes a return

Yeah, yeah. So Michael Clarke played so well on debut, in the first game of the most eagerly anticipated series of recent years, that he almost made Peter Roebuck cry. But the real news of the day is that New Zealand will be playing at least one international in 1980s-style biege uniforms this season.

Jeremy Coney, Ian Smith, Richard Hadlee, Lance Cairns and co. must be feeling so proud.

Sinclair, McMillan, Adams and Fulton all in

The ODI side for the Bangladesh tour has been announced:

Daniel Vettori (captain), Andre Adams, Nathan Astle, Ian Butler, Chris Cairns, Peter Fulton, Chris Harris, Hamish Marshall, Craig McMillan, Brendon McCullum, Kyle Mills, Matthew Sinclair, Scott Styris and one more to be named.

Fleming and Oram are being rested for the one-dayers. Which shows how much respect the selectors have for Bangladesh. The "one more to be named" is probably going to be Tuffey, but that is dependent on him passing a fitness test. I am glad to see Skippy and Fulton there, but it does beg the question - who will open? I am guessing that they will open with Sinclair and Astle, and Wisden tells me that Sinclair has scored 530 runs as an opener at 27.89 - which is not too bad. However, Astle and Sinclair are similar players in terms of their instincts and shot-selection. So perhaps the selectors will be tempted to experiment with McCullum or Vettori, or try to squeeze Fulton into the role. None of those options strike me as being particulary big and clever, but I suppose it is only Bangladesh.

Fulton, for those who haven't seen him, looks like an even taller version of Chris Harris (something in the Southern air can't agree with cricketers and hair) and has a very stylish technique - he reminds me of Fleming a little in the lithe tallness of his strokes.

I also see that Sinclair has been called in to cover for Papps in the test matches. What a relief it must be for him to finally drag himself out from beneath McMillan's shadow.

Papps out of Bangladesh tour

From the New Zealand cricket website:

Canterbury opening batsman Michael Papps dislocated his shoulder while fielding during the Black Caps training camp at Lincoln yesterday and has been forced out of the Bangladesh tour.

Black Caps coach John Bracewell said the injury would see Papps unable to play for four to six weeks and as a result he is out of the whole of the Bangladesh tour. His replacement for the Test match section of the tour will be announced tomorrow.

I wonder if, having already said they don't want Fleming to open, the selectors will opt for another specialist opener or whether they will be forced to eat their own words. If they do select another opener, who will it be? Who has any form in that position? Matthew Bell and Jamie How were the openers for the 'A' side and neither covered themselves with much glory. My pick is that Craig McMillan will get a reprieve and that Fleming will find himself marching into the middle with Mark Richardson again.

Why India and Australia mean so much to each other

From Lawrence Booth and "the Spin", his weekly round-up of cricket for the Guardian:

Dennis Lillee is in little doubt. The India-Australia four-match Test series which begins at Bangalore tomorrow "amounts to a world championship contest". The hyperbole is entirely understandable. But it is just that: hyperbole. The reason India v Australia is so mouth-watering is not because India are the second-best side in the world (by any objective standards, let alone the ICC table, they are probably not). It is because of the mythology that has built up around the fixture.

The truth is that the sides have become obsessed with beating each other, and you can hardly blame them. Australia's traditional foe, England, have been cannon fodder for 15 years; India, on the other hand, almost went through the entire 1990s without playing their arch-enemies, Pakistan. Both sides have looked elsewhere for a
challenge - and they have ended up gazing squarely into each other's eyes. The upshot has been some of the most thrilling cricket in Test history, which is not necessarily the same as a world championship.

Australia haven't won in India since Bill Lawry led them to a 3-1 win in 1969-70, but it wasn't until Steve Waugh took over the captaincy that victory in India became Australia's holy grail. India became to Waugh what those four runs at The Oval in 1948 were to Bradman: just as the Don never did average 100, Waugh would never win a Test series in a country that beguiled him. And as Waugh took his place on the pantheon, so the elusive victory in India grew all the more tantalising.

From an Indian perspective, doing well against Australia has disguised a multitude of sins. They played quite superbly a year ago to come away from Australia with a 1-1 draw, and their victory at Kolkata after following on in 2000-01 will forever be the stuff of legend. But results elsewhere, usually away from home, have been patchy: for every historic win in Pakistan, there is a feeble surrender in New Zealand. And don't forget that their most recent home series ended in a 0-0 draw with those pesky New Zealanders.

This is not to wipe away the drool ahead of this week's Test series. It is merely to redirect it. Ever since Waugh called Sourav Ganguly a "prick", there has been a frisson between the sides that transcends anything in the game - and which is made all the more delectable because it has nothing to do with tradition (like the Ashes) or politics (like India v Pakistan). India-Australia pre-series kidology is now as riveting as the cricket itself.

But do not be fooled into thinking that these sides loathe each other. On the contrary, they need each other. Australia need to win in India to complete their jigsaw and prove to themselves that they don't have a hang-up about that part of the world. India need Australia for a feel-good factor of their own - because as long as they're giving the best side in the world a run for their money, the dodgy results
against New Zealand can be swept under the carpet.

Expect an epic. But please, don't call it a world championship.

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.

Form guide

Handily provided by the Guardian:



(Additional unlinky link below incase the link function is still not functioning):

http://sport.guardian.co.uk/cricket/story/0,10069,1301473,00.html

Warm-up?

New Zealand just lost a practice match to Sri Lanka on a wicket Chris Harris described as "having something for every bowler". The Lankans struggled to 171/9 and then bundled us out for 159 - Hamish Marshall top scoring with 33. It doesn't sound like the ideal warm-up to be honest, but then this could be just the sort of end-of-season wicket most of the trophy games will be played on. And the two earlier warm-up matches against county sides were both reasonably high-scoring affairs, so perhaps we will be all ready for that all important game against the USA (snigger).

ICC Awards

No New Zealanders made the cut in either the test XI of the year or the ODI XI. Instead we won Miss Congeniality with the Spirit of Cricket award. Bah! You'd hardly guess that we won 13 out of our 15 ODIs in the period covered.

The World XI Test Team of the Year (in batting order) is:
1. Matthew Hayden
2. Herschelle Gibbs
3. Ricky Ponting (captain)
4. Rahul Dravid
5. Brian Lara
6. Jacques Kallis
7. Adam Gilchrist
8. Chaminda Vaas
9. Shane Warne
10. Jason Gillespie
11. Stephen Harmison

And the World XI ODI Team of the year is:
1. Adam Gilchrist (wk)
2. Sachin Tendulkar
3. Chris Gayle
4. Ricky Ponting (capt)
5. Brian Lara
6. Virender Sehwag
7. Jacques Kallis
8. Andrew Flintoff
9. Shaun Pollock
10. Chaminda Vaas
11. Jason Gillespie

The fact that the selection committee included an Aussie, a Pom, a Saffie, a West Indian and an Indian, means that the domination of the lists by those countries is not surprising. Along with the lack of Kiwis and Pakistanis, you will also notice that Shane Warne (36 wickets at 22.25) beat out Murali (73 wickets at 18.56) for the spinner's place in the test side. Even the Australian press is finding that one hard to figure out:

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/08/1094530671468.html?oneclick=true

Perhaps next year New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and Pakistan should form the selection committee?

The other awards given last night (players of the year, umpire of the year etc) were selected by means of votes from an Academy of 50 people from all over the place. So perhaps those particular results are a little more fair - if not entirely pleasing. Rahul Dravid (1241 runs at 95.46) deservedly won test player of the year, while Bleeding Andrew Bleeding Flintoff won ODI player.

Despite the fairness in this process, how on earth did Hamish Marshall (740 ODI runs at 46.25) miss out the emerging player award to Irfan Pathan (16 test wickets at 38 and 36 ODI wickets at 23.19)? Perhaps we can blame our low profile for that one.

He's quick!

An update on my last post. An old article in the Christchurch Press reveals that Richard Sherlock is fast (it is in the Press because Sherlock has moved to Christchurch - he must have worked out that playing for CD marks young bowlers for doom):

Sherlock, who hails from Nelson, musters sharp pace which Wellington's top order batsmen felt in the opening State Championship match last summer when he took four for 33 on debut, including wickets with his second, fourth and ninth balls.

Sherlock's speed had caught Bracewell's eye during the New Zealand Academy matches last season at Lincoln.

"We were exposed in England for genuine pace with Shane Bond injured and Ian Butler struggling with an ankle problem before the tour."

Sherlock is lightly framed and lasted only another match last season before an frustrating ankle injury forced him to the sidelines for the rest of the season.

The ankle problem was similar to a stress fracture and Sherlock was advised to have a break from pounding into the bowling crease which he has done during the off-season.

With those references to injury and stress fractures, maybe he could be the new Bond...

Richard Sherlock

The future of New Zealand cricket?

You wouldn't believe it from the complete lack of media coverage, but New Zealand 'A' is currently touring South Africa and has just had the better of a three day (not first-class) match against South Africa 'A'. Star performer for New Zealand was the team's most surprising selection, 20 year old Central Districts quick Richard Sherlock. All Sherlock's wickets came from the top order as he took 3-20 in South Africa's first innings of 178/7 and 2-7 in the second innings of 147/4.

I can't even tell you what sort of bowler Sherlock is. He has only played two games for CD and has taken just five first class wickets. As far as I can tell he has not even been selected for an U-19 side. Wisden unhelpfully tells us that he bowls "medium fast" - which usually means nothing except "we don't really know, but he's not a spinner".

CD hasn't produced an out and out fast bowler since Gary Bartlett in the 1950s and '60s - and he was a chucker - so perhaps it is too much to expect Sherlock to be the new Shane Bond. Maybe he swings it and is the new Simon Doull? Surely Sir Paddles and Co. wouldn't have picked just another product spat from the never-ending CD conveyor-belt of boring medium pacers? You know, the sort of dobber who takes umpteen wickets on seaming wickets in the domestic game, but is exposed as being absolute rubbish when picked for the national side (doesn't just saying names like Michael Mason, Andrew Penn and Derek Stirling fill you with sadness?).

Poll results

Well the results of my first poll are in. The most popular answer, by a clear margin, to the question "Who was luckiest to make the ICC Trophy squad" was Kyle Mills. Ken Rutherford put in a spirited defence for poor Kyle in this morning's Sunday Star-Times, but it did not stop him from winning a massive 57% of the vote - which means 8 out of 14 of you clicked angrily on his name. Chris Harris came in second with 21% (3 votes), while three players all attracted a single vote each - Michael Papps, Ian Butler and Scott Styris (cough).

A new poll is up. And I want you to remember bad dye jobs and ugly facial hair when casting your vote.

Innovation

From the Stuff website:

As is the custom for the International Cricket Council's mini-world cup, technology will be trialled during the 12-team tournament with signals to be delivered to umpires via an earpiece.

In an effort to reduce the number of missed no-balls, on-field officials will receive an audio signal from the third umpire each time a bowler oversteps the crease. The earpiece will also receive sound from the stump microphone at the striker's end, a move aimed at helping umpires hear thin edges off the bat.

Interesting developments. I think there is the potential for the stump microphone to create more problems than it will solve. I am sure it will pick up more than just edges and I imagine it will take some practice to differentiate the sound of a nick from the amplified sound of bat on pad or amplified sprigs on pitch.

A breathless hush

A new anthology, A Breathless Hush, shows that the beauty of cricket is reflected in writings about it:

http://sport.guardian.co.uk/cricket/comment/0,10070,1283
382,00.html

Happy days. Gilchrist (left), Bond (right) and MIddle Stump (missing).

In a rain-shortened one-day match against Glamorgan, Ian Butler took 2-11 off five overs and then, with six needed off the last ball, smashed a full toss from Adrian Dale out of the ground. It was Dale's last ball in competitive cricket in his last match before retirement.

If this were an action movie Dale's buddy Bruce Willis would be putting on his best vest and winging his way to the home counties for revenge right now.

Spearman gets loved up - again

Angus Fraser in the Indepedent joins the Craig Spearman fanclub. Sigh. If only he had earned this adulation while playing for New Zealand:

Spearman prepares to steal Hick thunder
Angus Fraser
28 August 2004

For the past 20 years the mention of Graeme Hick has been enough to make the normally steady fingers of a seasoned county bowler twitch in an uncontrollable manner. And with justification. Since making his debut for Worcestershire in 1984 the Zimbabwe born right-hander has amassed 57,752 runs in Test, first-class and one-day cricket.

The 38 year old remains a formidable opponent for bowlers, but there is now a batsman in English domestic cricket who instills greater fear in bowlers. He plays for Gloucestershire against Worcestershire in today's Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy final at Lord's.

Craig Spearman arrived in England in 2001 after becoming disillusioned with cricket in New Zealand. The Welsh roots of the former Kiwi opener allowed him to gain employment in England, and initially he aimed to pursue a career in the City. Several counties were aware of his availability, but Spearman's Test and first-class records in New Zealand were modest and gave little indication of the havoc he could cause. Gloucestershire, who were then being coached by John Bracewell - a fellow Kiwi - clinched his signature, and what an inspired decision that has proved to be.

Spearman has performed with distinction during his three seasons in England. So much so that Bracewell, who is now the New Zealand coach, has asked him to come out of international retirement. Spearman turned down the offer because he wants to remain in Britain and qualify to play for England. He will be eligible in 12 months time.

In first-class cricket the 32 year old has scored more than 3,600 runs at an average of 47, the highlight being the 341 he smashed against Middlesex - the highest score by a Gloucestershire cricketer. But it is in one-day cricket that Spearman has made the biggest impact. He is tall for a batsman at six foot, but it is his timing that allows him to effortlessly hit the ball over the fielders, whether they are on the edge of the 30-yard circle or the boundary. In the past three years no batsman has scored more one-day runs than Spearman, and no player comes close to touching his strike-rate of almost a run a ball.

His record in this year's C&G Trophy is superb. In four matches he has scored 294 runs at an average of 96, with 184 of these runs coming in boundaries. The highlight was his unbeaten 143 in the semi-final against Yorkshire. Few teams have successfully chased down a score of 243 in Bristol, but Spearman guided Gloucestershire to their seventh Lord's final in six seasons.

...

The quick in the red

Brett Lee has just gone to court to try and get almost A$1 million back from a dodgy sounding Aussie businessman. His brother Shane and high-flying former Aussie opener Michael Slater are also out of pocket to the tune of about A$400,000 each. Colour me surprised to reveal that Brett Lee is not the brightest biccie in the packet:

Sydney Morning Herald
...

Lee signed unread documents presented to him by Streetwise's David Steer, not appreciating they were allowing the refinancing of his own property holdings and the drawdown of $981,000 to the Bangaru group of companies.

...

A nasty winter virus

Sigh. The only man in the country who can out cock the cocky Aussies calls our cross-Tasman neighbours arrogant and then tells Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne that they are past it. Warne will have more talent at 90 than you will even have Scotty. And his dye job will still look better than yours.

New Zealand Herald
26 August 2004

Australia's cricketing 'arrogance' is a weapon which can be used against them, according to Black Caps batsman Scott Styris.

...

"They try and bully and blow you away from the start but if you hang in and take them to day five their arrogance will force them to try and hurry it and maybe make a mistake.

"You can put pressure on them and frustrate them."

...

"They have players who're coming to the end of fantastic careers and it could be an opportunity to strike," Styris said.

End of the not so golden summer

As the English football season starts with Newcastle United's usual combination of ineptitude and self-destruction, the cricket season begins to wind down. That gives us a chance to review the form of the New Zealanders in England. We'll get the worst out of the way first, the form of the touring national side.

Batting
GJ Hopkins Runs 71 HS 71 Ave 71.00
MH Richardson Runs 583 HS 101 Ave 58.30
SP Fleming Runs 482 HS 117 Ave 53.55
JDP Oram Runs 263 HS 103* Ave 52.60
NJ Astle Runs 343 HS 93 Ave 38.11
CL Cairns Runs 349 HS 82 Ave 34.90
DL Vettori Runs 250 HS 77 Ave 31.25
CD McMillan Runs 245 HS 86 Ave 30.62
BB McCullum Runs 298 HS 96 Ave 29.80
SB Styris Runs 343 HS 108 Ave 28.58
KD Mills Runs 57 HS 42* Ave 28.50
MHW Papps Runs 241 HS 126 Ave 26.77
DR Tuffey Runs 57 HS 14* Ave 11.40
SE Bond Runs 7 HS 7 Ave 3.50
CS Martin Runs13 HS 7 Ave 3.25

Bowling
CL Cairns Wkts 18 Ave 28.66 BB 5-79
DL Vettori Wkts 20 Ave 30.60 BB 5-92
KD Mills Wkts 3 Ave 39.00 BB 3-51
CS Martin Wkts 14 Ave 44.57 BB 4-92
SB Styris Wkts 7 Ave 46.42 BB 3-88
SE Bond Wkts 4 Ave 50.00 BB 2-46
DR Tuffey Wkts 8 Ave 55.50 BB 4-57
JDP Oram Wkts 3 Ave 106.33 BB 2-76

Sigh. There are very few positives to look at here. The form of Richardson, Fleming and Oram with the bat being one small ray of sunshine. And Chris Martin boosted his career batting average. The bowling averages on the other hand are an almost complete disaster.

Moving on to brighter things. Here are the averages for the players with county contracts. Adams and Spearman have a game or two to add to their figures.

Batting
CM Spearman Runs 1257 HS 341 Ave 62.85 (SR 77)
AR Adams Runs 177 HS 124 Ave 35.40 (SR 124)
IG Butler Runs 166 HS 68 Ave 33.20
JEC Franklin Runs 155 HS 44 Ave 31.00

Bowling
AR Adams Wkts 17 Ave 20.70 BB 5-93
JEC Franklin Wkts 18 Ave 23.05 BB 7-60
IG Butler Wkts 8 54.50 BB 4-114

Certianly there are a few more things we can sing about here. The batting of Spearman being an obvious high, along with the form of Adams with both bat and ball. Franklin didn't embarrass himself either - his spell of 7-60 on debut being a highlight of his time with Gloucestershire. And although Ian Butler's bowling figures are very, very average - he did play on a series of particularly flat wickets. Butler also attracted press attention for his pace. Here is the Telegraph on his one day debut:

Butler proves a wow on his bow
By Kate Laven at Canterbury

Ian Butler made a dramatic entrance for Kent with a virtual single-handed slaying of Sussex, taking four catches and three wickets to set up an easy 47-run victory.

The New Zealander, fresh from his side's victory over West Indies at Lord's on Saturday, was making his debut and after one showing could prove to be one of Kent's most exciting signings...

...Ward gave the Kiwi the first of four superb catches, all of them at square leg near to the boundary.

... Butler completed the destruction with a fine spell of bowling, finishing with three for 19 from 3.5 overs, and wrapping up the victory with a ball to spare.

And the Telegraph, in a later review of the team's form, noted that Kent had "a threadbare attack which, with the notable exception of Ian Butler, posed little threat [to batsmen]"

Spearman fills his boots

From the pages of the Independent:

Spearman fills his boots
Warwickshire 350 Gloucestershire 352-3
By David Llewellyn at Bristol
21 August 2004

After his achievements for Gloucestershire this season Craig Spearman should change his name to something more appropriate - "Batman" springs to mind. And while his five-hour innings here might not have been quite in the superhero class, it further established him among Gloucestershire's immortals.

Not content with obliterating the long-standing record of W G Grace for the highest individual innings - his 341 at the beginning of June surpassing the previous mark of 318 not out scored against Yorkshire at Cheltenham in 1876 - the powerful New Zealander yesterday became the first Gloucestershire batsman to score a double century on this ground since Wally Hammond against Somerset in 1946.

He gave not a glimmer of a chance until the record had been secured and even then, on 219, it was probably more tiredness than anything else which saw him carve a hard chance to Jonathan Trott in the gully.

It was all far too much for championship leaders Warwickshire, handicapped as they were by being unable to call on the services of the Zimbabwe strike bowler Heath Streak. He might be called sometime today, but the second innings, if Gloucestershire have to bat again, is the more likely option as he nurses a thigh injury.

His absence was Gloucestershire's streak of luck and they took full advantage. Spearman was immovable, intractable and impossible to bowl at. Despite 19 New Zealand Test caps he is clearly at his best in the West Country, because all three of his big hundreds, when he has passed 150, have been scored for Gloucestershire, and this was his 10th century for the county and the 21st of his career.

He qualifies for England in January 2006, although the England and Wales Cricket Board has dispensation to reduce the waiting time. At 32, though, Spearman is unlikely to feature in England squads, but there is still plenty of county life left in him to satisfy his employers at Gloucestershire.

He reached each of the fifties in his innings with boundaries, the 100 and 150 coming up with big sixes, and each blow further reduced Warwickshire's expectations in this match.

Victory is now pretty much out of the question, although barring disaster they could wring a draw out of the game, especially if Streak can get into the action. But in this form even he might struggle to find a way past Spearman's bat.

It was a disconsolate Warwickshire who trooped off for bad light three-quarters-of-an-hour before the scheduled close of a day in which 20 overs in total were lost to the weather, with Gloucestershire a nose in front.

The King of Spain

I thought there might be one or two of you who might be wondering why Ashley Giles keeps getting called "The King of Spain" by the British press. It is because he ordered a whole bunch of mugs to be made for sale at his testimonial. And they arrived with an unordered "a".

Which has to be one of the classic typos.

Grevious Bodily Harmison

There are two good things about Steve Harmison topping the PWC bowling table:

1) It makes New Zealand's capitulation against England seem slightly more forgivable
2) And at least its not sodding Andrew Flintoff.

On the other hand, doesn't it make you wonder where Shane Bond would be without his injury curse. Bond is twice the bowler Harmison is.

Hicksville

Graeme Hick. Is anyone else old enough to remember when he was the greatest batsman in the world? I can remember the utter excitement I experienced when he signed for Northern Districts. And I can remember the awe I felt when he scored a bizillion runs for them. Has any player any faced greater expectation when they came to test cricket? And has any player ever spluttered and fizzled for so long without ever catching fire?

http://sport.guardian.co.uk/cricket/comment/0,10070,1288
767,00.html

(Sorry, you will have to cut and paste the link - the button ain't working)

A murder of Crowes

I have borrowed a couple of paragraphs from this week's "The Spin", the Guardian's weekly cricket newsletter:

The Spin has always liked to think of itself as a sort of on-line, brown-haired, cigarless Jimmy Saville, fulfilling dreams with the tap-tap of the keyboard and the click of a mouse. Now, there isn't a lot of evidence to support this view, but there's a first time for everything. News arrives from one of the Spin's professional spies in New Zealand's Beige Brigade about a weird but wonderful election to choose "The Wandering Golfer" on an American website called http://www.fineliving.com/. The winner gets to pass the time of day at the most luxurious golf courses on the planet and - and! - gets to present Fine Living's "new series", which sounds impressive. It even has a tenuous link with cricket, because the final shortlist of four consists of three random Americans - and a former Test captain. Step forward Jeff Crowe, brother of Martin and cousin of Russell. As a moderate batsman, he played 39 Tests for New Zealand, captaining them in six, and later became the national team manager. "Before moving to the US," explains the website blurb, "Jeff played cricket internationally as a professional for 10 years on the New Zealand Cricket Team and was honored as Captain for two years." Now Jeff would like your vote to play the sport he really loves. And this is where you, dear reader, come in. (Non-interactive? The Spin? Bah!) All you have to do is visit and cast your vote. The Spin doesn't know much about these things, but frankly the opposition leaves a little to be desired. Chad, Troy and Sam all look like worthy fellows in their own way - Chad works for a software consulting firm, Troy once deflected a golf ball with the shaft of his club, Sam loves a great Argentinian steak with a robust cabernet. But none of them can claim to have scored a Test century in Jamaica against Marshall, Garner and Walsh. When the Spin voted last night, Jeff had over 50% of the vote, which suggested that New Zealanders the world over had already girded their loins. But these things can change quickly. Remember: Saddam Hussein was deposed not long after claiming over 99% of the vote in the Iraqi general elections. Your former Kiwi Test cricketer needs you!

Now get clicking...

Wondrous Oblivion

A movie review, permitted by virtue of its cricketedness. I saw Wondrous Oblivion last weekend and have some comments from a "Mike on Cricket" perspective. Firstly, most of the cricket related bits (which in actual fact is most of the movie) are pretty good. Frank Worrell seemed stately and Gary Sobers had a big toothy smile. The one glaring error for a movie set in 1960 was the appearance CLR James' "Beyond a Boundary". At one point Dennis (Delroy Lindo) waves a battered old copy around and quotes a paragraph. The movie was clearly inspired by CLR's beautiful analysis of social attitudes, the West Indies and cricket - but unfortunately the book was not actually published until 1963.

Although I enjoyed it, the film was not entirely satisfying from a movie-fan perspective either. I liked the slightly unexpected ending, but otherwise it might as well have been called "Billy Elliot bats it like Beckham". Not that this is neccessarily a bad thing, its just that compared to "Billy" and "Bend it" I thought "Oblivion" was slightly lacking. Despite a bit more overt magic (courtesy of David - Sam Smith - and his animated cricket cards), the mystical spark which elevates a good movie to the realm of the great was missing. Don't get me wrong though - I did think this was a good movie. Perhaps it was just not as good as it could have been.