1st Test: New Zealand v South Africa at Dunedin on Mar 8-12, 2017

[Iafeta]

39. Dropped on 6, absolute sitter. Plumb lbw not reviewed. Don't know what to make of all that.

 

[Iafeta]

Oh dear. Elgar dropped again. CDG that's weak as.

 

[Iafeta]

And now a sloppy bye. Seriously, Wagner aside, they are appalling.

 

[Iafeta]

Dropped again. Tough chance but Elgar is the flutiest cricketer known to man.

 

[Twizzle]

flutiest ?

don't tell me, fat fingers ?

 

[Iafeta]

Bruised fingers. Injured at the moment.

Another half chance. Neesham stands up at slip far too early for a low catch.

 

[JJ]

39. Dropped on 6, absolute sitter. Plumb lbw not reviewed. Don't know what to make of all that.

Duminy is pretty much mud. Only Ch 9 fan boys think he's much good

 

[Iafeta]

You usually get like one chance against teams like this. NZ have had a thousand and completely screwed the pooch. They choked, badly.

 

[Tommy Smith]

Elgar is going well lately.

In a weak field he's probably the 2nd best opener around atm behind Ali.

 

[JJ]

Boult hurt now too we should be ok in this test but losing him and Taylor for thee series would be disastrous

 

[Twizzle]

how is the pitch expected to play ?

Kiwis right in this assuming it doesn't deteriorate too much batting last

 

[vvvrulz]

And now a sloppy bye. Seriously, Wagner aside, they are appalling.

And Wagner is usually the first to go.

 

[AlwaysGreen]

Raining and expected to for most of the day unfortunately.

 

[Twizzle]

damn, nothing to watch

 

[Iafeta]

Kane's captaincy concerns me. Yesterday morning he bowled Wagner and Boult for enormously long spells, burning them out for their comeback spells. He's done that earlier in the season too. His captaincy lacks a lot of imagination. He seems to be the type who likes minimal bowling changes, a slip, a gully and a ring field. Is Boults injury down to these ridiculously long spells?

 

[JJ]

Meh, we know you don't like his captaincy - but I kind of disagree, his field setting has bee thoughtful and innovative - not ultra aggressive like McCullum's - I think the long spells were mainly because of the two spinners - Neesham should have bowled earlier - but there's understandably a lack of trust in him (although he's been pretty good the last couple of games) and his body

Think in general we had the better of the test, or at the least broke even so that's a pretty good start IMO - the loss of Taylor and potentially Boult is really worrying - Broom and Henry have been called in, Boult is still iffy. At the end of the day they cleaned up Australia in their last tour, so I think that's a good start

 

[Iafeta]

He's bowled them into the ground prior to this test. Great bat, awful mid on field, outstanding gully, and poor captain in my book.

Henry concerns me. Teams have worked him out.

 

[JJ]

I do wish he was still fielding at gully

Meh, dunno he's a young captain - at the end of the day there's not really another option - and don't say Taylor, he was a poor leader

Henry worries me too, but again I am not seeing other options - we simply don't have depth beyond him - hopefully Boult's good to go

 

[Iafeta]

There's no other option. Including Taylor. I too couldn't think of any other bowling options. We are very limited beyond Southee, Boult and Wagner. Maybe Wheeler if he's fit? Milnes first class record is decent but he can't stay on the paddock.

I also wonder whether Wagner test form is good enough to be around the ODI team. They've given some flogs a go of late. I think he's grossly underrated. Terrific cricketer.

 

[Bazal]

I don't buy this young captain stuff tbh. He's almost 27 and has played pretty much 60 tests. It's not like he's new to top level cricket...yeah you can't expect him to jump straight in and make the job 100% his own immediately, but he's had some time to settle now and having played a lot of cricket if he had better tactics lying around in his head he'd have used them by now IMO.

Not that he's a bad captain, but he's definitely not a pro-active one