Official Cricket Thread Part 302

[cobl04]

Ish Sodhi might have something to say about that.

 

[Axver]

If it rains right now, New Zealand will win on D/L. OPEN THE HEAVENS.

Ish Sodhi might have something to say about that.

Haha. He... has not been great previously, let's say, but geez he shone just then.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Oh boy ...

 

[dan_smee]

I'm sure opinion will differ widely, but the Marsh situation:

Dangerous precedent to set to say that an umpire can refer a decision to the 3rd umpire AFTER a reply is shown on the big screen. A decision was made, then the crowd got upset at the replay. In no circumstance do the rules allow for the review of a decision over video on the ground prior to referring to the umpire. If it was a New Zealand review, it was accepted after the 15 seconds.

Not saying the 'correct' decision wasn't made, but the process itself was dangerously broken to get there. What will stop anyone waiting on the field for a video replay before demanding the umpires review a contentious call? Why didn't the umpire send the Warner LBW upstairs after finding out he got it wrong? That would have been a call made to reverse an on field decision after video evidence was received on ground independent of a player review - exactly what happened with Marsh.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Forgive me for doubting you, NZ.

 

[dan_smee]

Notwithstanding the post above, NZ have been very good today to claw back into the game.

My thoughts about Australia's top order have been no secret - a faltering Bailey and Glen Maxwell as 4 and 5 is the weakest our ODI team has ever looked, and they will always get in trouble if they lose 2 early wickets. Sure, they will score 400 every now and then on roads when they get on top. But they can't beat good teams on evenly matched wickets with those two where they are.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

On another note, I'm absolutely baffled Guptill wasn't picked up in the IPL auction.

 

[dan_smee]

On another note, I'm absolutely baffled Guptill wasn't picked up in the IPL auction.

Or Khawaja?

 

[Vlad n U 2]

And a few others too. Guptill especially given his T20I form, and everybody seemed to think that his form was eyecatching enough.

 

[Axver]

NO FUCKING WAY WHAT A RESULT. I went out to dinner because I didn't feel like watching us lose and every phone update had me in disbelief. What fight. What a team.

And yeah Guppy and Khawaja should have gone for megabucks in the IPL auction. Mystifying that they did not. I've read some speculation that Guppy was overlooked because he is weak against spin, but come on.

 

[Axver]

Fuck, guys, it's just starting to really dawn on me that we won't see Brendon McCullum again at international level in the short forms of the game. I think I'm starting to feel a little emotional. He may not be my absolute favourite player - Daniel Vettori is my childhood hero and Kane is just about a deity already, but Vettori played for longer than I expected and I was prepared for his retirement, and obviously Kane has so long ahead of him. Baz... he's been in the team since I was a teenager, and it's weird to see him go when it felt like he surely had a season or two more ahead of him at the highest level. The fearless, uncompromising way he played was entirely his own, and his captaincy gave the New Zealand team the sort of confidence we've never had.

His career stats do not tell the full story of what he's done to turn a rabble into a team that has gone where no Kiwi cricket team has gone before, a team in which we can have as much - maybe even more - pride as we have in the All Blacks. Sometimes you just sit in disbelief when you consider how small New Zealand is and what we have achieved on the global sporting stage. There are many much larger wealthy countries that cannot claim our success. And so much of what we've done on the cricket field in the last couple of years has been driven by BMac's leadership. I don't want to see him go. It's become almost impossible to imagine our ODI side without him coming out and flaying the ball recklessly all around the park. Guppy may share BMac's entertaining strokeplay, but when will we again see somebody who so effortlessly combines showmanship and leadership?

Goodbye Brendon. It really won't be the same without you. May the last two Tests be something even more special.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Also, Ax, I've always wanted to ask, what's the deal with Hamilton? I've read so many instances of Kiwis with very negative views towards the city, and naturally being from Adelaide I'm a bit wary of making rash judgments about other cities. I know you've used it as a bit of punchline in the past, hell, I might have asked this same question before.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Just noticed, The Big Show with a strikingly impressive average of 2.00 over the 3 matches ...

 

[Axver]

Hah, Hamilton is a shithole. At the last election there was a satirical party with a policy of declaring national independence from Hamilton and building a kilometre-high wall around it.

I wrote this once: https://rateyourmusic.com/list/Axver/the_earth_is_not_a_cold_dead_place__or__rate_your_cities/

Hamilton is a city with literally almost nothing going for it. A few blocks at the centre of the town are kind of nice, sitting by the Waikato River, but beyond there ... it's generally just a disaster. The inner suburbs are the definition of mediocre, very boring mid 20th century Kiwi suburbia. The outer suburbs are pretty much a basic stereotype of sprawling, car-friendly, no-footpaths suburban USA, transplated to New Zealand; huge boxy outlet shops, lots of fast food, no individual character whatsoever, just completely soulless. One of those places where the roads are just traffic sewers. Worst of all, the university has a gorgeous and well-maintained campus ruined by the worst sixties (and more recent) university architecture I have ever seen. It's tragic.

Oh, and the distinctive stench of ne'er-do-well boganity is never far from your nose either.

Also, the central part of town at night is nicknamed the Chlamydia Triangle.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

So, essentially a city that's not really designed for New Zealand, but acts as an ill fitting import?

 

[Axver]

The outer parts, absolutely. The inner parts are much like what you find as part of the urban sprawl of any other New Zealand city, built during the 1950s or so, but the difference is that in Wellington or Auckland or wherever, they're middle to outer suburbs and have no pretensions to being anything other than where people sleep at night and kids go to school. In Hamilton, because until WWII it was only a rural service town and railway junction, those same bland suburbs form much of the inner city.

It's a place where you live rather than a place you do anything, and it's a place you escape if you can. How its population keeps growing is beyond me.

 

[MadForIt]

Hamilton isn't that bad!

Some good malls and its closish to Auckland and other bits of Waikato and Bay of Plenty.

I can't stand Steve Smith so I'm glad the controversial decision went against Aus and that spolit brat captain. NZ were awesome tonight. I was at the game on Saturday and NZ were below par.

Off to the test this weekend.

Love it for Baz for NZ to win, but also to make Smith cry.

 

[Axver]

its closish to Auckland

Not a positive.

And being close to decent places doesn't make somewhere a decent place in and of itself. Huntly isn't that far from the Coromandel or Port Waikato or wherever. It's still the biggest, deepest shithole in New Zealand.

 

[cobl04]

Notwithstanding the post above, NZ have been very good today to claw back into the game.

My thoughts about Australia's top order have been no secret - a faltering Bailey and Glen Maxwell as 4 and 5 is the weakest our ODI team has ever looked, and they will always get in trouble if they lose 2 early wickets. Sure, they will score 400 every now and then on roads when they get on top. But they can't beat good teams on evenly matched wickets with those two where they are.

Pretty reactionary post. There's been three ODIs. Both of them were exceptional against India, Maxwell played the innings of his career in one of them. I would back them in at four and five more often than not, that's for sure. Not sure who you'd bring in for them but I've got both of them in our best ODI team without a doubt.

Fuck, guys, it's just starting to really dawn on me that we won't see Brendon McCullum again at international level in the short forms of the game. I think I'm starting to feel a little emotional. He may not be my absolute favourite player - Daniel Vettori is my childhood hero and Kane is just about a deity already, but Vettori played for longer than I expected and I was prepared for his retirement, and obviously Kane has so long ahead of him. Baz... he's been in the team since I was a teenager, and it's weird to see him go when it felt like he surely had a season or two more ahead of him at the highest level. The fearless, uncompromising way he played was entirely his own, and his captaincy gave the New Zealand team the sort of confidence we've never had.

His career stats do not tell the full story of what he's done to turn a rabble into a team that has gone where no Kiwi cricket team has gone before, a team in which we can have as much - maybe even more - pride as we have in the All Blacks. Sometimes you just sit in disbelief when you consider how small New Zealand is and what we have achieved on the global sporting stage. There are many much larger wealthy countries that cannot claim our success. And so much of what we've done on the cricket field in the last couple of years has been driven by BMac's leadership. I don't want to see him go. It's become almost impossible to imagine our ODI side without him coming out and flaying the ball recklessly all around the park. Guppy may share BMac's entertaining strokeplay, but when will we again see somebody who so effortlessly combines showmanship and leadership?

Goodbye Brendon. It really won't be the same without you. May the last two Tests be something even more special.

I'm going to miss him a lot. Wish we'd seen more of him at his peak. Made New Zealand cricket relevant again after a long time in the wilderness. And the way he went about that Test after Hughes died was very impressive.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

 

[Axver]

Shane Warne hits out at Steve Waugh, 'the most selfish cricketer I've played with'

Headline should be "Shane Warne reminds everybody he's a bitter self-centred fuckwit".

 

[cobl04]

Hah. He's hilarious on that show. He's been given the title "captain" of the camp and it's gone to his head. Him and Fev nearly had a punchon, it was hilarious.

 

[Axver]

Headline for your post should be "Cobbler shames self in public, admits he watches I'm a Celebrity".

 

[cobl04]

Haha mum tapes it and I'm working from home so inevitably end up watching it with her

 

[Vlad n U 2]

I'm A Celebrity is hardly quality TV, but if it gave us a feud(?) between Barry Hall and Freddie Flintoff it can't all be bad.

 

[dan_smee]

Love the Shane Warne story. Everything he raised pointed to why he was dropped, and he all but said he has been pissed for 17 years because the captain did his job. He did the selfless thing and told him himself when he could have left it to the selector. Warne is a peanut.


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

 

[MadForIt]

Crowd Goes Wild is an NZ show hosted by Mark Richardson, former NZ opener

See how he ran out Bazza on his debut haha

They were going ape at the Aussies yesterday, it was hilarious, especially at Wade, Smith and Marsh - dunno how Mark Richardson gets away with it as he is a commentator for Sky as well

https://www.facebook.com/CrowdGoesWild/videos/10153892265073764/

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Advanced Hair Studio now has Jacques Kallis on its commercials, well, the first time I've ever noticed. Incredible.

 

[MadForIt]

The aussie team has one decent bowler (Hazlewood) and a couple of ok ones (Lyon and Siddle)

This is NZ's greatest ever chance of a whitewash

Come on Kane, Come on Corey destroy them!!!

Glad to see Watling is fit as Ronchi is an Aussie spy who is doing his best to help NZ fail

 

[Axver]

Ross Taylor still being injured means our batting is pretty shit. I also appreciated Santner holding his own down the order so it's a shame he's also out. Australia will probably win this, let's say 1-0.