Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

alfie wrote:I think it is a bit unfair to try and diminish that achievement by blaming it all on home team skulduggery and unfair pitches.

Yet, people also bemoan the poor quality of cricket in test matches, while simultaneously never being willing to call out sub-standard conditions for tests when they come about. Teams are clearly becoming more extreme in doctoring pitches to suit their needs, and its having a disastrous effect on the health of the game. Lets be honest here, if we were going to pick a pitch for India to struggle on, how far off "nailed it first time" would a pitch with 1.3cm of live grass on it be? Imo, you cant get much better. And it is hardly that much of a conspiracy theory when tracks like the Wellington one have been roads until a decent India team come, then suddenly turn green. Instead of a great series, this was a load of dog turd that went exactly how you knew it would when the pitch got uncovered. I wont bother watching such series in the future if this is what I get served up.

So we are to believe that NZ are now a fantastic team? No wait, they just got crushed on pitches they couldnt doctor in Australia. Whens the last time they went away in a test series and beat a team at home who wasnt the terrible early BD or Zimbabwe? West Indies in 2014; at the time the WICB and player Union were arguing and the West Indies players were about to walk out over pay. So a very poor test team going through an off field crisis where no one wanted to play, sounds an epic win for history that. Judging on a quick glance... they beat England in 1999... when England were the worst ranked team in the world. So pretty much no one, in decades.

Of course India beat Australia away recently.... when Australia had their half their batting line up banned. Of course we all know if Steve Smith and Dave Warner scored a 1000 runs in the series like they always do, India would have lost 4-0.

I guess if this is the standards we aspire to, I look forward to a decent side being beaten at home sometime in the next millenium.

Good to see a NZ pace bowler come in and do well in Jamieson. Henry and Ferguson started inauspiciously and didn't get much of a chance. Adam Milne never broke through.

Arthur Crabtree wrote:Good to see a NZ pace bowler come in and do well in Jamieson. Henry and Ferguson started inauspiciously and didn't get much of a chance. Adam Milne never broke through.

He had a pretty memorable debut series, but the pitches were set up for hitting the seam hard, so I would like to see how well he does on a flatter deck where the ball doesnt move. He looked comfortably medium end of "medium fast" (Cricinfo lists him as a flat medium pacer), but he has said that the team coaches feel they can improve him to crank some more pace out, I think he might need an extra bit of nip when the ball doesnt move to stay at this level.

Obviously coaches trying to get an extra yard of pace out of their bowlers always translates as "injured for the next 6 years before retiring", so hopefully he doesnt go the same way.

Or maybe thats just English bowlers/coaches.