West Indies tour of NZ

@Virgil said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@Cyclops said in West Indies tour of NZ:

In amongst the hail of records, Latham and Conway also equalled the record for century opening stands, with their 5th. Equalling Wright/Franklin. 11 more to match the all time record holders, Greenidge/Haynes. What a pair they were.

It's funny, when you look at the individual records Wright/Edgar look like the better pair, but when you compare the partnership stats, Wright/Franklin performed much better.

One last thing to note: before this test the record opening partnership in NZ was 276, shared between Dempster/Mills in a draw vs England in the 30s and Sherwin Campbell and someone else I forget for the West Indies in 98. The funny thing about that second one was that the West Indies went on to lose that match! Hope that's not a bad omen for tomorrow.

I think the bulk of us grew up to Edgar and wright being the opening pair we knew. I was surprised looking at the records just how good Wright and Franklin were given Franklin’s pretty poor record

It’s a pretty amazing feat from Latham and Conway.
That they are the very first opening pair to both score twin 100s in the same first class match is fucken extraordinary really.
You think of history’s greatest opening pairs, some absolute legends of the game and they never achieved something our own often maligned pair did.

Franklin averaged 23 and his strike rate was only marginally higher.

That at least indicates he did the old fashioned job of taking the shine off the new ball. I always admired his concentration !

When Crowe got his 299 I remember spending some time prior to that on the bank at the Basin ( last week of the school holidays if I remember rightly ) watching Franklin get 39 off 176 balls. Fucken hell it was hard going, he probably found it tough too. Not many horizontal bat shots in that innings it must be said ( as his Cricinfo blurb mentions )

Rigor was another opener who specialised in blunting the opposition attack rather than getting big scores of his own

@canefan said in West Indies tour of NZ:

Rigor was another opener who specialised in blunting the opposition attack rather than getting big scores of his own

Concentration and sticking to his limitations were his strengths......until he'd close in on 3 figures and lose concentration late in days.

8-10 centuries would probably have done him more justice than the 4 he got.

@African-Monkey said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@canefan said in West Indies tour of NZ:

Rigor was another opener who specialised in blunting the opposition attack rather than getting big scores of his own

Concentration and sticking to his limitations were his strengths......until he'd close in on 3 figures and lose concentration late in

8-10 centuries would probably have done him more justice than the 4 he got.

He had three shots he played well and if they weren’t in the spot to play them he left them, frustrating the bowlers. Loved his work, would have loved a couple of more conversions but he was the glue in his era

@bayimports said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@African-Monkey said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@canefan said in West Indies tour of NZ:

Rigor was another opener who specialised in blunting the opposition attack rather than getting big scores of his own

Concentration and sticking to his limitations were his strengths......until he'd close in on 3 figures and lose concentration late in

8-10 centuries would probably have done him more justice than the 4 he got.

He had three shots he played well and if they weren’t in the spot to play them he left them, frustrating the bowlers. Loved his work, would have loved a couple of more conversions but he was the glue in his era

Rigors figures were absolute class if not particularly memorable.

Had a Fleming like conversion rate but when you consider how tough it is to have a really high average as an opener he did the job and then some.

Split Wright's career in half.

In his first 41 tests he averaged 30.9

In his second 41 tests he averaged 44.5.

The antithesis of Ian Botham.

@bayimports said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@African-Monkey said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@canefan said in West Indies tour of NZ:

Rigor was another opener who specialised in blunting the opposition attack rather than getting big scores of his own

Concentration and sticking to his limitations were his strengths......until he'd close in on 3 figures and lose concentration late in

8-10 centuries would probably have done him more justice than the 4 he got.

He had three shots he played well and if they weren’t in the spot to play them he left them, frustrating the bowlers. Loved his work, would have loved a couple of more conversions but he was the glue in his era

He got robbed of 2 tons at Lords when he got a huge inside edge off Harmison in 04, robbed of one in Zimbabwe in his 2nd test when he got given out lbw to Nkala which wasnt out, so he was robbed a few times, but threw a few away too, like the tour in the WI in 02 when he tried to hit one out of the ground on 95, Pakistan in Wellington in 03 come to mind, but at the same time, he got every ounce of ability out of himself and had a very good test career even if it was a but short.

@Chris-B said in West Indies tour of NZ:

Split Wright's career in half.

In his first 41 tests he averaged 30.9

In his second 41 tests he averaged 44.5.

The antithesis of Ian Botham.

Wright's batting as captain is phenomenal - averaged 48.63. In matches involving Trevor Franklin, Wright averaged 57.03.

@African-Monkey said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@bayimports said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@African-Monkey said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@canefan said in West Indies tour of NZ:

Rigor was another opener who specialised in blunting the opposition attack rather than getting big scores of his own

Concentration and sticking to his limitations were his strengths......until he'd close in on 3 figures and lose concentration late in

8-10 centuries would probably have done him more justice than the 4 he got.

He had three shots he played well and if they weren’t in the spot to play them he left them, frustrating the bowlers. Loved his work, would have loved a couple of more conversions but he was the glue in his era

He got robbed of 2 tons at Lords when he got a huge inside edge off Harmison in 04, robbed of one in Zimbabwe in his 2nd test when he got given out lbw to Nkala which wasnt out, so he was robbed a few times, but threw a few away too, like the tour in the WI in 02 when he tried to hit one out of the ground on 95, Pakistan in Wellington in 03 come to mind, but at the same time, he got every ounce of ability out of himself and had a very good test career even if it was a but short.

Loads of guys get ‘robbed’ of tons. Rigor is hardly alone there. That’s cricket. Bloody good player though as I mentioned earlier.

@MN5 said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@African-Monkey said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@bayimports said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@African-Monkey said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@canefan said in West Indies tour of NZ:

Rigor was another opener who specialised in blunting the opposition attack rather than getting big scores of his own

Concentration and sticking to his limitations were his strengths......until he'd close in on 3 figures and lose concentration late in

8-10 centuries would probably have done him more justice than the 4 he got.

He had three shots he played well and if they weren’t in the spot to play them he left them, frustrating the bowlers. Loved his work, would have loved a couple of more conversions but he was the glue in his era

He got robbed of 2 tons at Lords when he got a huge inside edge off Harmison in 04, robbed of one in Zimbabwe in his 2nd test when he got given out lbw to Nkala which wasnt out, so he was robbed a few times, but threw a few away too, like the tour in the WI in 02 when he tried to hit one out of the ground on 95, Pakistan in Wellington in 03 come to mind, but at the same time, he got every ounce of ability out of himself and had a very good test career even if it was a but short.

Loads of guys get ‘robbed’ of tons. Rigor is hardly alone there. That’s cricket. Bloody good player though as I mentioned earlier.

Fleming was the ultimate example. His 50 to 100 conversion rate was really poor IIRC

@MN5 said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@African-Monkey said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@bayimports said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@African-Monkey said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@canefan said in West Indies tour of NZ:

Rigor was another opener who specialised in blunting the opposition attack rather than getting big scores of his own

Concentration and sticking to his limitations were his strengths......until he'd close in on 3 figures and lose concentration late in

8-10 centuries would probably have done him more justice than the 4 he got.

He had three shots he played well and if they weren’t in the spot to play them he left them, frustrating the bowlers. Loved his work, would have loved a couple of more conversions but he was the glue in his era

He got robbed of 2 tons at Lords when he got a huge inside edge off Harmison in 04, robbed of one in Zimbabwe in his 2nd test when he got given out lbw to Nkala which wasnt out, so he was robbed a few times, but threw a few away too, like the tour in the WI in 02 when he tried to hit one out of the ground on 95, Pakistan in Wellington in 03 come to mind, but at the same time, he got every ounce of ability out of himself and had a very good test career even if it was a but short.

Loads of guys get ‘robbed’ of tons. Rigor is hardly alone there. That’s cricket. Bloody good player though as I mentioned earlier.

Yeah no disputing that at all, and yeah, was a bloody good player. Thought he could have gone a couple more years too. He had a good career, I stand by my point though, he should have had a few more centuries next to his name.

Fleming is one of the biggest underachievers we've produced I feel. He was one of the most gifted natural stromemakers you'll see all round the wicket. He did have a tendancy to fall over his front leg but man, he was a talented player. He should have had 20 test centuries next to his name with an average of 45 with his ability.

It's funny when you think about it. Ross Taylor, yes he had a good eye and could hit the ball a long way, but I feel Fleming had the better range of shots, yet Fleming didn't have that ability mentally to knuckle down and get over 3 figures like Taylor did. Taylor really worked hard on that aspect of his game and dare I say he showed Fleming up in that area, not something we thought we'd be saying about Taylor early in his career. Taylor also deserves credit for working hard on his game and making himself a quality test batsman.

@African-Monkey said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@MN5 said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@African-Monkey said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@bayimports said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@African-Monkey said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@canefan said in West Indies tour of NZ:

Rigor was another opener who specialised in blunting the opposition attack rather than getting big scores of his own

Concentration and sticking to his limitations were his strengths......until he'd close in on 3 figures and lose concentration late in

8-10 centuries would probably have done him more justice than the 4 he got.

He had three shots he played well and if they weren’t in the spot to play them he left them, frustrating the bowlers. Loved his work, would have loved a couple of more conversions but he was the glue in his era

He got robbed of 2 tons at Lords when he got a huge inside edge off Harmison in 04, robbed of one in Zimbabwe in his 2nd test when he got given out lbw to Nkala which wasnt out, so he was robbed a few times, but threw a few away too, like the tour in the WI in 02 when he tried to hit one out of the ground on 95, Pakistan in Wellington in 03 come to mind, but at the same time, he got every ounce of ability out of himself and had a very good test career even if it was a but short.

Loads of guys get ‘robbed’ of tons. Rigor is hardly alone there. That’s cricket. Bloody good player though as I mentioned earlier.

Yeah no disputing that at all, and yeah, was a bloody good player. Thought he could have gone a couple more years too. He had a good career, I stand by my point though, he should have had a few more centuries next to his name.

Fleming is one of the biggest underachievers we've produced I feel. He was one of the most gifted natural stromemakers you'll see all round the wicket. He did have a tendancy to fall over his front leg but man, he was a talented player. He should have had 20 test centuries next to his name with an average of 45 with his ability.

It's funny when you think about it. Ross Taylor, yes he had a good eye and could hit the ball a long way, but I feel Fleming had the better range of shots, yet Fleming didn't have that ability mentally to knuckle down and get over 3 figures like Taylor did. Taylor really worked hard on that aspect of his game and dare I say he showed Fleming up in that area, not something we thought we'd be saying about Taylor early in his career. Taylor also deserves credit for working hard on his game and making himself a quality test batsman.

I’m not sure a guy who averaged over 40 ( thanks to his last test haha ) and got over 7000 tests runs is an underachiever but I see what you mean in a way….his record firmly puts him amongst the better test batsmen in history ( certainly by NZ standards ) but certainly not with the very best.

He was like M Waugh, Gower and Pietersen. Beautiful to watch but possibly lacking the mental application of the true legends. Better than most though.

Before KW and Taylor emerged he was firmly in my all time test XI as captain. He’d captain the 2nd XI now.

I wonder how much being captain from early in his career affected that. Taylor had the space to work with Crowe and really fine tune his game in a way that Flem probably couldn't.

@Cyclops said in West Indies tour of NZ:

I wonder how much being captain from early in his career affected that. Taylor had the space to work with Crowe and really fine tune his game in a way that Flem probably couldn't.

Fleming played in some diabolical teams too it must be said. No disrespect to anyone who has played for their country but lots of substandard guys got picked in his era.

I always thought it was a shame him and Vettori didn't have careers 10-15 years later than they did to play alongside the champions of that period.

@African-Monkey could not agree more re: Taylor, he's my favourite ever Black Cap for that reason (well him and Boult). So many young players could learn a lot from the way he applied himself. A talented youngster that would get himself out through lapses in concentration more than the bowler getting him out, really putting in the hard yards to work on his concentration in test matches to fashion a world class record. It must have been so hard for him to completely put away that swipe shot for hours at a time when it's what he grew up playing!

He did the same in ODIs to a lesser degree, worked hard on building an innings and trying to carry his bat rather than blast the opposition away in the first 20 overs. Ended up our best ODI batsmen of all time as a result with 21 tons.

@No-Quarter said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@African-Monkey could not agree more re: Taylor, he's my favourite ever Black Cap for that reason (well him and Boult). So many young players could learn a lot from the way he applied himself. A talented youngster that would get himself out through lapses in concentration more than the bowler getting him out, really putting in the hard yards to work on his concentration in test matches to fashion a world class record. It must have been so hard for him to completely put away that swipe shot for hours at a time when it's what he grew up playing!

He did the same in ODIs to a lesser degree, worked hard on building an innings and trying to carry his bat rather than blast the opposition away in the first 20 overs. Ended up our best ODI batsmen of all time as a result with 21 tons.

Taylor probably looked at Jesse Ryder as a case of what NOT to do.

Rossco had huge natural talent but Ryder had even more.

Taylors career was pretty amazing, NZs best ODI batsman of all time and probably third only to Crowe and KW at test level.

On Fleming, he was one of the most naturally talented players we've produced I think. I can remember him hitting peak Shoaib Akhtar bowling 155 - 160kmph for boundary after boundary when the rest of our team didn't look like they could even see the ball in time. He was the king of soft dismissals though, which are lapses in concentration really. As others have alluded to, he was made captain very early and had a lot on his plate from then on, not sure if that really helped him refine his game as much as he could have.

And another bowler injured, lol, any Ferners in the area that fancy rolling the arm over today?

@No-Quarter said in West Indies tour of NZ:

On Fleming, he was one of the most naturally talented players we've produced I think. I can remember him hitting peak Shoaib Akhtar bowling 155 - 160kmph for boundary after boundary when the rest of our team didn't look like they could even see the ball in time. He was the king of soft dismissals though, which are lapses in concentration really. As others have alluded to, he was made captain very early and had a lot on his plate from then on, not sure if that really helped him refine his game as much as he could have.

That conversion rate though, the guys on either side of him ( Pujara and Ali ) in the list of all time run scorers both got 19 tons to his nine.......

@No-Quarter said in West Indies tour of NZ:

And another bowler injured, lol, any Ferners in the area that fancy rolling the arm over today?

Who's out now ?

I say bring Jezza Coney in from the commentary box for some dibbly dobbly.

@MN5 Rae went down in pain, but is made of tougher stuff and has run it off. Given his age and unlikely to play much once others return from injury, he'd probably bowl with a broken leg if it meant he could snare another test wicket.

@No-Quarter said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@MN5 Rae went down in pain, but is made of tougher stuff and has run it off. Given his age and unlikely to play much once others return from injury, he'd probably bowl with a broken leg if it meant he could snare another test wicket.

Yeah he won't play another test after this one, hopefully he can survive the last day.

Even so, draw looking bloody likely here. The Windies have no batting superstars, most of them aren't even test standard on paper but NZs fill in attack won't be good enough to knock them over.

Interesting pitch this one, I really felt there was plenty of movement on offer with the new ball, but both sides were not disciplined enough, and once the shine wore off it became very difficult to prize wickets out. Not an absolute road though, all batsmen have worked hard for their runs.

The score probably wouldn't suggest it being an absolute road if we had our three frontline seamers playing though.

That’s a ripper first delivery from Patel, turned sideways

Ohh then goes the other way, comon Patel spin us to victory!

Gee, Latham needs to get more catchers in close around the bat. Put some serious heat on these guys.

A tale of two batsmen here.

One is playing a T20 ( slight exaggeration for effect ), the other is playing a test match in the 1960s

@No-Quarter said in West Indies tour of NZ:

And another bowler injured, lol, any Ferners in the area that fancy rolling the arm over today?

The juniors will be on standby by the end of the day at this rate...

Te Puke lads are on the bank after winning the Bay Cup over the weekend. Possibly no sleep since Saturday night by the looks of it, but maybe that's an advantage for bowling relaxed and injury free...

Where’s the short leg when you need it?
Fuck sakes Latham, why are we not just all out attacking these fullas?
If I had any hair, I’d be ripping it out.

Insert usual comment about Latham being as passive as fuck.

Duffy with the breakthrough.

That's two, comon lads let's get through them now

Campbell with a brain fart.

He’s blocked everything, his mate who was scoring at the other end gets out, then the next over has a big slog at one and has himself caught at long on.

87-0 to 87-2 in the space of 5 deliveries.

16 from 105 then holes out, brain fart there

Ajaz is on fire since finally achieving his first NZ test wicket.

Ajaz gets another five balls later - need at least one more in this session!

Bang bang bang!
Patel looking likely with almost every ball at the moment

Inroads!

@MN5 said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@African-Monkey said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@MN5 said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@African-Monkey said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@bayimports said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@African-Monkey said in West Indies tour of NZ:

@canefan said in West Indies tour of NZ:

Rigor was another opener who specialised in blunting the opposition attack rather than getting big scores of his own

Concentration and sticking to his limitations were his strengths......until he'd close in on 3 figures and lose concentration late in

8-10 centuries would probably have done him more justice than the 4 he got.

He had three shots he played well and if they weren’t in the spot to play them he left them, frustrating the bowlers. Loved his work, would have loved a couple of more conversions but he was the glue in his era

He got robbed of 2 tons at Lords when he got a huge inside edge off Harmison in 04, robbed of one in Zimbabwe in his 2nd test when he got given out lbw to Nkala which wasnt out, so he was robbed a few times, but threw a few away too, like the tour in the WI in 02 when he tried to hit one out of the ground on 95, Pakistan in Wellington in 03 come to mind, but at the same time, he got every ounce of ability out of himself and had a very good test career even if it was a but short.

Loads of guys get ‘robbed’ of tons. Rigor is hardly alone there. That’s cricket. Bloody good player though as I mentioned earlier.

Yeah no disputing that at all, and yeah, was a bloody good player. Thought he could have gone a couple more years too. He had a good career, I stand by my point though, he should have had a few more centuries next to his name.

Fleming is one of the biggest underachievers we've produced I feel. He was one of the most gifted natural stromemakers you'll see all round the wicket. He did have a tendancy to fall over his front leg but man, he was a talented player. He should have had 20 test centuries next to his name with an average of 45 with his ability.

It's funny when you think about it. Ross Taylor, yes he had a good eye and could hit the ball a long way, but I feel Fleming had the better range of shots, yet Fleming didn't have that ability mentally to knuckle down and get over 3 figures like Taylor did. Taylor really worked hard on that aspect of his game and dare I say he showed Fleming up in that area, not something we thought we'd be saying about Taylor early in his career. Taylor also deserves credit for working hard on his game and making himself a quality test batsman.

I’m not sure a guy who averaged over 40 ( thanks to his last test haha ) and got over 7000 tests runs is an underachiever but I see what you mean in a way….his record firmly puts him amongst the better test batsmen in history ( certainly by NZ standards ) but certainly not with the very best.

He was like M Waugh, Gower and Pietersen. Beautiful to watch but possibly lacking the mental application of the true legends. Better than most though.

Before KW and Taylor emerged he was firmly in my all time test XI as captain. He’d captain the 2nd XI now.

Yeah my wording sounds harsh regarding Fleming, but he was way better than his record suggests. He was a good test player but should have been pushing very good/greatness I feel.