New Zealand Thump Bangladesh

[Kiwi_Jimmy]

New Zealand has spanked Bangladesh by a massive 10 wickets in just the 9th over. It was like watching Australia beat Pakistan, except New Zealand actually played well and deserved to win.

The Black Caps pulled out a completely dominating performance and reduced the Bangles to just 78, not even lasting their quota of 20 overs. The win was created by some superb bowling on New Zealand's part and a near flawless batting display from Peter Ingram and Brendon McCullum but Bangladesh do not get off scot free. They batted like a group of Samoans playing Kilikiti on a Saturday afternoon, wafting their bats at anything and 9 times out of 10 trying to force a shot that really wasn't on. Hitting the sweet fanny adams out of the ball is well and good, as McCullum proved, but if you don't make contact in your first 7 heaves it may be a sign to slow it down and play some ACTUAL CRICKET.

The abortion that was tonight's game is pretty typical of the rubbish cricket that we have been given since the emergence of T/20 but it looks like its here to stay so me might as well enjoy the freak show when i rears its ugly head. I am a fan of test cricket...its how the game should be played, there is strategy, patience, technique, focus and a level of class that we will never see in T/20. But that doesn't matter because tonight's game was about throwing willow at leather and spooning balls over the keepers head. You know cricket is changing when the commentator genuinely asks when we can expect to see the 'long-stop' fielding position a regular occurrence.

Anywho the Bangles signed there own warrant pretty early on. Trying not to lose wickets is the worst thing to do when you are losing a lot of wickets and they simply could not bat themselves out of the bloody deep hole they dug.

They were set on the back foot mainly due to some fantastically accurate bowling from the Black Caps. Line and length I was always told, that's how you get wickets. Tuffey had the thing on a dime and has somehow managed to find more pace with age. I thought Nathan McCullum would get spanked all over the park but I doubt whether any of the Bangladeshi's could have spanked anything if they were in a brothel tonight, let alone Seddon Park. He bowled well, got nice turn, good bounce and mixed things up. This is what he has been doing all season domestically and he showed his worth with 2 for 15 off his 4 overs. I formally retract my comments about him being rubbish and having a camp, ungainly style.

How good was Vettori...Blow me, 3 for 6 off 4 overs, equalling the best figures in T/20 history. He was playing with them. His biggest weapon has always been his variation, particularly his flight and he just had the lot of them bamboozled. His arm ball in particular was looking pretty terrifying especially with the pitch giving him some extra bounce, definitely a fun day at the office for Dan.

Brendon McCullum looked to be having an absolute ball. It almost looked like the Harlem Globetrotters of cricket, especially the final ball of the match with his 'spoon over the head' dummy followed by a crunching cover drive. Peter Ingram, like McCullum, got a life after being dropped by one of the blind, deaf, or dumb fieldsman (they had to be one of the three putting those chances down). He also hit every ball off the middle of the bat including some orgasmic cover drives that showed a glimpse of class that I hope extends to the longer form of the game.

It was odd looking at the Bangladesh team because they were all very very tiny. Nathan McCullum is a bit of a runt but he made them look like 8 year olds. It was most obvious when the Kiwi's starting hitting an affective line and length and the batsman could not move into any adequate position to play the ball. Together with the fact that they seemed adamant that every ball needed to get tonked over mid wicket they looked completely out of sorts. The length of both McCullum and Vettori was particularly good drawing the batsman forward and catching them out with the bounce in the wicket. They had no chance after committing to the front foot as the ball was often leaving the top of the bat with bugger all control. They tried the back foot and that didn't work, they tried charging and that was laughable. They simply had no answer.

Friday night will be there first chance for redemption and I humbly suggest that they spend the majority of the next 48 hours on a wicket in the Hawkes Bay getting used to our conditions. If possible ship over a couple of lanky players so they might have a chance against our spin attack and avoid watching any Kilitiki between now and the match.

For the Black Caps I imagine the same thing will be on the menu for Friday, this is a good opportunity to get the guys confidence up and get themselves in top nick before the Aussies come over in a month or so.

[Howsie]

Your hatred of 20/20 cricket should fit right in here

[Gazza]

Who the hell approved that article!

A few grammatical errors, but pretty good work for a T20 hate article

[khalek]

Great article, T20 sucks and they don't count.

[Kiwi_Jimmy]

Not hate...strong dislike maybe, 3rd cab off the rank anyway

[nz0003]

Gun article, best 2 minutes of my day.

[TumTum]

Originally Posted by Kiwi_Jimmy

It was like watching Australia beat Pakistan, except New Zealand actually played well and deserved to win.

What do you actually mean by that?

Anyways a good article. I hate T20 too

[Owzat]

No great fan of T20, but it's a bit harsh to use a game against Bangladesh as a sweeping example against all T20, but even so it does raise interesting points. I for one seriously question if Bangladesh have improved in 10 years or deserve a Test place, it's now looking questionable whether they are good enough to play ODIs or even T20.

That thrashing was like being beaten by 10 wickets with 29.1 overs to spare in a 50 over match. Even disregarding the quality of one side and that it was a mismatch, the article highlights what T20 effectively is - an exercise in (sometimes controlled) slogging. You reduce the number of balls without reducing the number of wickets and that is what you were always going to get. And it is like giving one person in russian roulette a gun with one bullet in it and the other person a gun with one empty chamber. No prizes for guessing who is likely to bite the bullet first. It is uncultured at times, while Tests may be slow moving and favour batting too much as well, there is far more scope for TACTICS, as also mentioned in the article.

Even ODIs swing from one side to the other sometimes, in T20 there is no scope to rebuild an innings or for a game to swing without it being so sudden that it constitutes a collapse or a few overs of heavy runscoring. Personally I think something between ODIs and Tests would be ideal, a one innings match of say 100 overs played across two days with a reserve day. Have a maximum of 20 overs per bowler, three new balls to be given to the fielding side to use as and when they see fit, and the batting side able to use their batting line-up as they see fit with say three tactical swaps so a batsman who isn't scoring quickly can be replaced (but remain not out and free to return) even if a wicket hasn't fallen. There may be a call for fielding restrictions to avoid overdefensive field settings, even though that may not work. I recall England playing the aussies in an ODI years ago, I believe Border and someone else got them to the target easily despite the run-rate being high (for that era) for much of it by scoring plenty of ones and twos. There'd have to be limits on bouncers, strictness on rules to keep bowlers in check but it would make a great contest.

And one thing I would do in all contests is standardise margins. By that I mean if the batting side reaches their target with balls to spare then they bat on until they've batted out their overs (or time if a Test) They could always declare, but if the side batting second carries on then the margin will be set to runs rather than wickets. A match can be close if a side wins by five wickets but only off the last ball, surely a one run win would better reflect how close the game was?

[Gazza]

Originally Posted by nz0003

Gun article, best 2 minutes of my day.

It probably took about two minutes to write

[TumTum]

Originally Posted by Kiwi_Jimmy

How good was Vettori...Blow me, 3 for 6 off 4 overs, equalling the best figures in T/20 history. He was playing with them. His biggest weapon has always been his variation, particularly his flight and he just had the lot of them bamboozled. His arm ball in particular was looking pretty terrifying especially with the pitch giving him some extra bounce, definitely a fun day at the office for Dan.

He has very nice variations:
- The arm ball
- The slider
- The ball that goes straight on
- The darting delivery
- The ball that comes out from the palm
- and ofcourse the natural variation, the off-break that doesn't spin

The man is a genius.

[Owzat]

Originally Posted by Gazza_11

It probably took about two minutes to write

445 wpm would be mighty impressive...................................

[-D-S-B-]

Originally Posted by TumTum

- and ofcourse the natural variation, the off-break that doesn't spin

I'm real good at that one.