Sports NZ Domestic Cricket Thread

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Wrighty said:
No I am not aware of any. There were spinners in my premier side for my club who blew my mind to face in the nets so goodness knows what it would be like to face Ashok.
I have not seen much of him. I watched a single over today but the pitches at this time of year are not taking spin.
Maybe he has worked on his speed in the off season since you last saw him as I can report his speed and flight was mesmorising. The ball seemed to bobble in the air up and down on the way to the batsman making it almost impossible to get comfortable where it was going to land. The last time I saw that type of flight was a young Daniel Vettori prior to back problems when he really was phenomenal. Like Dan Ashok is averaging in the low 30s in FC cricket which is the same as what Dan put up. Nearly all of our other spinners average in the low 40s, ten runs higher. This gentlemen is good enough now to be in the black caps and I note he has already made an ODI debut.
The black caps have a new coach now, Rob Walter from South Africa. Let's see if he sweeps in some new faces and which horses he will back.
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Glad to hear he looked good today. I would be hopeful he gets a go with the new coach but I would be doubtful. Santner will almost certainly be first choice test match spinner so it wouldn't be until we toured the sub-continent that Ashok will hopefully be selected as the second spinner.
 
Warriors55 said:
Glad to hear he looked good today. I would be hopeful he gets a go with the new coach but I would be doubtful. Santner will almost certainly be first choice test match spinner so it wouldn't be until we toured the sub-continent that Ashok will hopefully be selected as the second spinner.
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He's better than Santner by a distance.
 
Curtis Heaphy built an innings to 35 off 62 balls then came under the pump from tight and testing overs from the impressive Hartshorn and crumbled under the pressure. He for some reason reacted to the penetrative bowling by trying a ramp shot and unceremoniously got out. I hope he learns from it. He has remarkable innings management skills but the bat doesn't seem like a natural object in his hand. He doesn't look like he was born to bat and sometimes lost control of his blade in his follow through.
He is a rich man's Henry Nicholls but no Rachin. I will track him. He is nearly a great player but not quite.
 
Curtis Heaphy's average of 42 in FC is about as high as you will find for a new player. Rossco and Ryder were around low 40s in FC and i think everyone's good friend Darrryl Mitchell by average was around low 40s before his call up.

Heaphy's List A average of 50 must be turning heads though. After today it has dipped to 49.66. He must be on the selector's watch list as an up and comer. Some of the other run makers today such as Joe Carter, Nicholls etc are old news players and of no interest to any body. To play 24 List A innings and have an average of 49.66 impresses me.
 
Third post in a row about Heaphy. He made his runs from the number 5 spot. Batting number 5 is really hard in my opinion. Michael Clarke is the only really strong number 5 I can remember. I don't recall ever once in my career of 30 years of Senior Men's cricket batting number 5. I mean when you are 80 for 3 how should you bat when you walk out as number 5? If you are number 6 and the score is 80 for 4 then it is obvious you need to rescue the team with a counter attacking innings mixed with sure defence. But three wickets down is neither here nor there. Anyway it is a batting position that resonates with him. Tom Bruce was number 4 and I would like to see Curtis get his spot in the batting order. Tom Bruce can go down to that awkward position of number 5.
 
Wrighty said:
Curtis Heaphy built an innings to 35 off 62 balls then came under the pump from tight and testing overs from the impressive Hartshorn and crumbled under the pressure. He for some reason reacted to the penetrative bowling by trying a ramp shot and unceremoniously got out. I hope he learns from it. He has remarkable innings management skills but the bat doesn't seem like a natural object in his hand. He doesn't look like he was born to bat and sometimes lost control of his blade in his follow through.
He is a rich man's Henry Nicholls but no Rachin. I will track him. He is nearly a great player but not quite.
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His averages are absolutely impressive for a 22 year old in all 3 formats. Stats wise his strike rates are low for the shorter formats but it is early days.

One to watch for sure. We need more talented young batsmen coming through.
 
This week we put the spotlight on Rhys Mariu

List A average 27.2
FC average 62.8
T20 average 7.5

Run out on the weekend for 0 off 1 ball. Has played in two ODIs already.
Is he who we have been waiting for?
Let's watch him this Thursday vs Wellington.
 
Warriors55 said:
I probably wouldn't say he wasn't up to it but he did look nervous. He hit a crisp shot for 4 early and went into his shell after that.

It is a shame he doesn't bowl much.
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He had an poor A tour to South Africa, with one score of 51 and 3 ducks from 4 innings leading up to that knock against Australia. I wouldn't say he is out of his depth at international level, but definitely looks nervous to fail. He'll be ok once he gets confidence back in his game with some consistent cricket. I played against him in club cricket in Christchurch before he moved to Auckland, I can confirm he hits the ball a looooooong way.
 
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Riz said:
Did you manage to catch any of the A tour to South Africa Wrighty?

Here's day 1 of the first 4 day match where Mariu scored 200.


View: https://www.youtube.com/live/FJXT_jvST4I?si=Tq1FBTgllf95f5Q0
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Thanks for that Riz. I watched for about 45 minutes. That is the only footage of Mariu I have seen.
I need to see a lot more of him to assess him. I kept fast forwarding every time GP was on strike and when I came back it would be to see Mariu letting the ball go outside off stump.

From what I could observe
1) He is an opening bat through and through. His leaves and front foot defence are worthy of facing off against a test match bowling attack with a new ball.
2) I didn't see him really on the back foot, partly because he is so tall. So that side is a question mark.
3) He sort of muscles the ball to the boundary on some occassions rather than relying on timing and grace.
4) He faced a lot of dots and also scored a lot of boundaries. I can therefore see why List A is a work in progress for him where you need to be busier with ones and twos.

All of that is a knee jerk judgement as like i say a lot of the balls i watched to him happened to be leaves. I will watch him again for Canterbury. I am not going to make a pronouncement about his projectory as a player until i see more of him and ideally on one of these early season NZ green tops as that South Africa A pitch looked flat.
 
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In terms of what I am looking for in these prospects like Mariu and Heaphy is as folllows

1) Balance
2) Footwork
3) How natural does the bat look in his hands. For a talented player the bat should be an extension of your body and not an external object that is separate from you.
 
Today's comments

1) Heaphy with another 50 off one million deliveries
2) Mariu out f0r 37

The biggest point I want to make is that as I perused the scoreboards of the three Ford Trophy matches I was reminded what a shitty and depressing game cricket is. A ton of kents got out for a duck or one run today. I firmly remember a guy called Perry in my first eleven after he was dismissed for one in a match. He went on this thirty minute rant dissing one as a score.
"One is a wankers score. You think your score is much better than a duck because you got off the mark, but it is an illusion as you completely failed. You falsely console yourself that it could have been worse. Only wankers score one run. "
It is well documented there are huge rates of depression amongst cricketers
Look at all those kents today who score a duck or 1. All of them were looking forward to the match but they as a batsman hardly got to do anything in the match. What a shit state of affairs. Train all week then get out for one. And for these guys their careers are riding on the them performing so it is doubly depressing.

When I played table tennis competitively it was best out of three games so if you lost the first game you could make a comeback.
Golf has eighteen holes. You don't have to retire your round if you duff a shot on the first hole.

Cricket is a profoundly flawed game. And fielding is another flaw. Nothing sucks ass more than fielding in a game where you have no hope of winning.

Yes I had a good day please and thank you. My heart just went out to the players today when I saw some of the sorry performances on the scoreboards.
 
I am going to break the thread rules here and post about Rachin.
His score of 48 today was the best 48 I have ever seen in my life. He only got out as he got rattled by running out Conway.
He dominated Archer bowling to him at 146kms. Archer was like what the hell is going on?
Rachin is 25 years old and at the peak of his powers. Incredible scenes at the cake tin today.
 
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