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Who you trying to kid? I only went back two years:
Dec 2012: withdrew from T20 series in South Africa with achilles injury
Jan 2013: went to South Africa for ODI series, suffered recurrence of achilles injury
Jan 2014: abdominal strain playing India, missed remainder of series
July 2014: unavailable for NZ A trip to England with elbow injury
October 2014: missed South Africa ODIs with same elbow injuryMilne’s performance in this series has been spectacular, although the selectors will be extremely wary of his injury record when deciding how much cricket he can play.
Worth remembering at this point that another reason some players went home was to give fringe World Cup candidates a chance to compete for positions.
Yet they’ll probably bowl as much in the Plunket Shield match as they would have in the ODI series.
Essentially what this boils down to is that you know better than they do how they should best prepare for the Test series.
And you couldn’t imagine that different players might benefit from different preparation from one another?
Perhaps you could come up with another reason for why they’ve returned to New Zealand to play Plunket Shield instead of playing ODIs overseas.
It turns out the whole tiredness/rest argument is irrelevant because in fact all of Boult, Southee, McCullum and Watling are playing in the Plunket Shield round starting tomorrow. So it’s about individual preparation for a Test series rather than tiredness.
I’m marking out the current ODI series as pointless because (a) it’s played in completely different conditions from the World Cup, and (b) we’re playing them again at home in a few weeks, which is more useful preparation.
Of course it’s not really pointless, but of the whole crowded schedule between now and the end of March, the current series is the most expendable.
Funny to see people lining up with their opinions about whether the players need a rest or not. The logic of ‘they’ve just played three Tests and need a rest’ is irrelevant. Nobody’s saying they’re too tired to play now, but it’s about keeping them fit across the whole summer, which means taking breaks. And this is not about opinions, it’s about modern sports science: the fitness and well-being of the players can easily be measured and the likelihood of them being injured predicted based on past results. It must be amusing for those working in sports science to listen to people saying they players shouldn’t be tired because they “sit on their arses half the day in the stand”.
You do realise Boult has played only 2 ODIs in the past 22 months?
Test matches since last World Cup:
44 England
40 Australia
36 India
35 Sri Lanka
33 New Zealand
32 West Indies
31 Pakistan
29 South Africa
20 Bangladesh
14 ZimbabweWhether we like it or not, the schedule for this season simply does not allow for players to appear in all matches. Sports science tells us that and is a bit more, er, scientific than just saying the players aren’t going to get tired.
If there’s a fault, it’s that the current ODI series is a bit pointless in the context of the World Cup build up.
The comparison with Pakistan supposedly playing their best squad isn’t relevant. They have fewer players who are in both Test and ODI teams and their schedule is different from ours.
I guess some minds are more easily boggled than others.
NZ picked six specialist bowlers for the Test trip to the UAE (Southee, Bracewell, Boult, Wagner, Craig, Sodhi) and it seems reasonable to assume the attack for the Boxing Day Test will be drawn from that group. Extensive analysis reveals that in fact none of these players are in the UAE for this one-day series.
Excellent win.
Mystified by Auckland’s selection and tactics. Tail was too long, in part because they played a bowler Ferguson who delivered one over in each of the two matches on finals weekend.
final ODI 19 December, Boxing Day Test starts, er, Boxing Day.
Both bearing in mind this ODI series isn’t really part of the World Cup preparation. Just part of the standard programme of reciprocal tours. Be good to have a first-choice team on the park but in the grander scheme it’s more valuable for them to be playing when Pakistan visits here in January.
Craig made a promising start in the first session, but as the day wore on he was exposed as the limited bowler we probably knew he was. It’s quite difficult to be an orthodox off-spinner these days: he didn’t turn the ball and doesn’t have enough variations to trouble good batsmen on a flat pitch.
More than a bit impressed with Sodhi. His liberal use of flight will probably get monstered by some batsmen, but highly encouraging overall.
Yes, Milne’s spell was very demanding. Speed gun mainly had him around 143-145kph but the ball was fair zipping off the surface and absolutely rocketing into the keeper’s gloves. He was a class above any other bowler I saw (admittedly only saw the second innings) although Ben Wheeler also bowled well and looks quite promising.
Canterbury won handily enough, although one did have to wonder whether things might have turned out had the umpire not missed Andy Ellis leg glancing off the middle of the bat straight into the keeper’s gloves before he’d scored. The sort of decision that makes me think they should be using DRS so the really obvious stuff can be corrected – don’t need expensive snicko, hotspot or ball tracking for a decision such as that one.
Signman, you might want to revisit that ‘Pakistan in disarray’ comment. Good job we’re better than Australia otherwise I might imagine we’d struggle for wickets over there.
Fascinating to watch Milne bowling in the Sky private tournament last night. Totally owned the imported Aiden Blizzard, who didn’t manage to hit a single ball in Milne’s second over. Obviously his fitness record is very patchy but I can see why they’re persevering with him – got something none of our other bowlers possess.
SSMO said:
(on Guptill):
“There have been 15 ODI’s since those heights, he doesn’t feature in any. Picking him in the hope he regains that form is wishful thinking and holds the team back. We need players that will perform 2 games out of three at CWC next year if we want to win it.”
It might be worth checking your figures. He was injured and missed several matches, then made scores of 81 at Saxton Oval and 111 at Eden Park last season.
(on Anderson and Ryder bowling):
“Btw Anderson isn’t a part timer, he’s good for 10 overs (more so than Neesham) I’d suggest too after his exploits in county cricket Ryder is good for 10 as well.”
Early days for Anderson. Has some ability with the ball but goes at average 6RPO and I wouldn’t be relying on him for 10 overs although he will bowl 10 on some occasions. Very unlikely to get away with both Anderson and Ryder bowling 10 in the same innings.
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