by Alviro Patterson » Thu Mar 15, 2018 11:18 am
Good workout for England - going with three seam bowlers to get overs under their belt, while Malan and Vince filled in the 5th bowling slot.
New Zealand fielded five seamers and a spinner, all of a good standard. Kyle Jamieson is one to look out for, similar to Liam Plunkett with both bat and ball. Kruggelin was wayward, but got a bit of pace about him and there is Seth Rance who recently became a Blackcap with his probing line and length bowling.
England's top order batting twice in this warm up is actually a good thing, getting a feel to both day and night conditions. Particularly the latter when the final session of each day in Auckland will be in twilight/darkness.
Liam Livingstone does not look ready for test cricket, his technique suspect by having a tendency to get hands and feet in a tangle off good bowling and struggles to play a straight line. The majority of his runs came from the 4th, 5th and 6th bowling options who are not of test quality. Should Livingstone play in the test series (I hope not), either Southee or Boult will get him nicking off'/pinned LBW or Wagner will just pepper him.
"Stats are there to be broken" Dominic Cork
"They took all our players away, banned our captain and we still came away with a ten-wicket victory" Jason Gillespie
"You won't get anywhere slouching about half out of bed" Geoffrey Boycott
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