How did NZ lose this test match?

tdgeek:

Latham is causing Williamson to be an opener every game. he will be back but we arent a top team, we cant play with a man down every match

That was the commentary teams opinion as well and yeah they were talking treating the hamilton test as a one off.

Smithy was VERY unflattering of Latham, as were pretty much all of them, then suddenly as Smitty is commentating they panned over to a shot of Rod Latham talking to Gavin Larsen, now we know how it works ;-)

I personally think Larsen needs to go, that last test was a nightmare selection and I dont think this match was a lot better.

I think we need to stop picking all rounders like santner, neesham, de grone holme. Of the lot Neesham has the best batting and looked the best with the ball with the very little amount the captain gave him. Dutchy picked up 3 wickets but 2 of them were pies the batsmen holed out on and has done nothing since his debut. I know Neesham has been getting out too, but still averaging 36 and is one of our outstanding fieldsman, so for me if we picking an all rounder its got to be him, but Id pick none of them.

Id pick our 6 best batsmen including keeper which is clearly watling and our six best bowlers which for me includes Lockie Ferguson who has the best 1st class avg out of any bowlers in NZ including Southee and Boult and id go with Ish Sodhi, we then have two batsmen who spin, Raval is actually quite a good leg break spinner and Williamson under rates himself, just needs more time at it, hes just as good as Santner given time, of course they would only be needed to fill a few overs at the most.

So for me our line up would look

Raval

Nicholls

Munro/George Worker

Williamson

Broom

Watling

Southee

Ferguson

Boult

Wagner

Sodhi

After this test Id keep the same team but drop Williamson back to 3 and have Talor at 4 and replace Broom with Munro. We also need to consider working Phillips into the one day squad as Watling ages, Phillips is clearly the future keeper/batsman for NZ.

That is by far our strongest batting and bowling line up. You could replace Ferguson with Neesham, but I think we need to get out of this all rounder mentality. If our 6 best batsmen cant produce 350+, then dont expect the bowlers to do it for them. We need that 150+ kph Ferguson bowls and to have him in the team while he is young and bowling well at 1st class level. I think it will take him 5-10 tests to find himself, but we need to invest in him like we have Latham. Latham needs a left handed batting coach, not Mcmillan, its a specialist problem, I really feel for him, hes doing some minor technical problems but also sticking his bat out at pies which is purely confidence. Get him back in 1st class and smashing our bowlers around with a Left Handed technical batting coach and he should be good for next years home season return.

Yep Raval was outstanding in both innings, thats all you expect from your opener, to last the first session and see the shine off the ball and protect number 3. But this innings he took it a step further. If he worked on his scoring rate he will easily be hitting centuries soon.

tdgeek

tdgeek

TeaLeaf