[Lord Snooty]

Watched the highlights. What a corker of a day's cricket.

[Lord Snooty]

389 all out

[Lord Snooty]

Close Day 2:
England 389
New Zealand 303-2 (Williamson 92no, Taylor 47no)
New Zealand trail by 86 runs with 8 wickets remaining in the 1st innings

[jjamez]

england were rather sloppy in the field and NZ were rather ruthless with the bat.

i'm still unconvienced that broad is anywhere near in good enough form to play test cricket, despite those blasted stats that moores banged on about.
anderson failed to swing it in favorable conditions and when he fails we fail, unfair burden to place on his shoulders.
wood looked promising bowling with venom up at 93mph oversteped on his first test wicket and during his spells found out about the step up in quality from CC to TC.
stokes is definately a batter who bowls and when he is picked for that he is a very useful option, today he was ineffective but nothing terrible just found no way through.
moeen is not a frontline spinner, he gets good revs on the ball and is good when he gives it flight which also gives him turn, but he prefers to bowl it flat and all kanos and taylor did was rock onto the back foot and work it. dont get me wrong he's better than a second spinner, but if he is batting at 8 he has to bowl better i'm afraid, in my eyes 8,9,10,11 are bowlers with 8 and 9 being more than capable batters.

[Lord Snooty]

Not seen any of it today. I agree with you jjamez about Stokes and Ali. They're definitely all rounders, but don't have that all round ability with ball in hand. We need another Flintoff, a demon with the ball who can tonk a few down the order.
The batting line up goes too far and the bowling not far enough.

[jjamez]

i think we have come to the stage where it is either stokes or ali, in my opinion we go with stokes (as fourth seamer) as we have root and lyth as second spinners. wood on first glance deserves to stay in the side for a while, he has pace and a different action which to me looks like it will get a fair few wickets once he settles. he also looked solid with the bat which is more than can be said for broad (no i have no agenda against broad, i'm just not taken by his 'oh hello sir' accent)

we have to locate that premier spinner, is rashid that guy? i dont know, he's probably more of a frontline spinner than ali. atm rashid is the best we have. but with a leggie they can be easily targeted and can be sometimes useless against left handed batters. but once rashid settles he'd find a decent pace and he has the variations. tbh to rashid, there is enough footage of the greatest leg spinner in history out there to look at and to watch, especially before his dislocated shoulder.

the art of this sport and a lot of other sports is that just by watching someone else you can develop your own game tenfold, it is almost as good as picking their brain, although nothing will ever match it. i do question whether any of the english players actually do that, might be a reason why we are struggling. (yes keep your own style, be yourself and everything, but there is nothing wrong with watching someone who was successful and implimenting that into your game)

watching today, i saw moeen and just thought for god sake swann, go down to the nets and talk to him, he's getting as much revs as you when he flights it, and he gets a bit of drift, talk to him and encourage him, give him advice.

[Lord Snooty]

523 all out

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Ffs! Lyth out for 12.

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And a quacker for Ballance. 

[Lord Snooty]

Close Day 3:
England 389 & 74/2 (Cook 32no, Bell 29no )

New Zealand 523
England trail by 60 runs with 8 wickets remaining

[jjamez]

bowling was the same as, well it was when i saw it.

lyth wanted to feel bat on ball and nibbled at one he should have left. ballance stands closer to the stumps than the umpire does at the other end at village cricket, when mitch gets at him he will be stood on them and seriously feel that despite his good average, he needs time away, he's been found out just like bairstow did the other year. by my working out that would mean that james taylor comes in, although i do feel he is the replacement for ian bell.

now what would they do? an aggressive coach/selector would put hales in at three, the place he has been dominating from for notts. however the odds of change with this current england set up is the same as the UK winning that eurovision crap.

on another note it is nice to see the bbc being ultra negative about england, as will the written press no doubt and whilst we are not in the greatest of places as a team (nation) this mindset of the media wont help whatsoever and to be honest its really irritating and gets me annoyed because they are the first to want a piece of the action when everything goes well. but hey ho certain aspects of the media are parasites.

[Lord Snooty]

Clucking bell. Ding Dong gone, first over.