Aussies v. Black Caps - 3 Tests.

[K]

CdG starts with a 6 over long-on off Lyon.

[K]

Watling edges Lyon behind. Oz revert to usual form and fail to review.

Hotspot shows a spot. Snicko shows a spike...

A missed wicket.

[Donny]

8th. wicket for Starc, for the Test.

7/154.

[Pies4shaw]

Paine got a second review right, although from watching with the sound down I am not quite sure how.

Watling and the other chap are both gone. 7/154.

[Donny]

Cummins takes his second wicket. 8/154.

[Pies4shaw]

He really is a wonderful bowler - time and again, he makes something happen when the game looks to be in a lull.

[Donny]

Starc again. 4fa.

9/163.

The Caps have lost 4/9.

[Donny]

Lyon. Edge to Smith.

Aussies win.

[Pies4shaw]

Smith and Marnus won that game with their first innings partnership - it was almost as many runs as the NZ first innings and ground the opposition down.

[Donny]

Good call.

The Caps were outplayed on a great Test wicket.

[K]

Pierik:

"Australia had the benefit of a day-night Test against Pakistan in Adelaide before this latest pink-ball clash, while the Black Caps did not even have a tour match. That meant New Zealand had less than a week of practice to adjust to the nuances of a venue they had never played at and a pink ball they had not used since March last year."


Farcical. It was claimed that CA can abuse NZ Cricket and would never be able to do that to the BCCI, with its financial might. That may be correct.


But with or without a practice match, it's simply bad for cricket when so much depends on the coin toss. If you gave that decision at the toss to a thousand random cricket followers, all thousand of them would have chosen to bat. That means the toss was unacceptably important.

[K]

Knox:

"There cannot be many qualifications on Australia’s win. Batting first was an advantage, but they did not bat for so long, or so well, as to club New Zealand into submission. It was the bowlers who did that job. The wicket developed enough cracks to produce excitement yet not enough to influence the match. This was simply a case of Australia’s bowlers producing one of their best performances, against the world’s second-ranked Test team, and restoring a sense of inevitability to Australian domination in home conditions.

The bowling was even more meritorious for the fact that Australia’s batsmen were unable to secure their tactical aims, namely to give Starc and Cummins the use of the new ball under lights."


As always, when Oz get the job done, it's the bowlers who do it.

[Pies4shaw]

Knox, whoever he is, obviously has a limited understanding of the game. Australia made over 400 in its first innings. NZ could not manage near half of that in either innings. Australia comfortably managed the two highest innings in the game. They did that with just 3 quality Test batsmen. Two of those tore the heart out of NZ with their first partnership. It wasn’t that easy to get to 400 on that wicket.

[K]

It was much easier before the pitch deteriorated. I'm happy that pitches deteriorate, but if they start off easy that just gives an unfair advantage to the side that wins the toss and bats first.

[Pies4shaw]

I’m a little surprised you don’t tire of this counterfactual guesswork. The wicket was “easy” early in the game only in the same sense that Lillee was sometimes “easy” for Richards and Haynes. All-time great batsmen become all-time greats because they make runs despite the conditions. If NZ had batted first, they would have been bowled out for about 150, Australia would then have made 500, rather than 400, and people who don’t understand the game would have been writing that NZ’s chances were “cruelled” by having the misfortune to bat first on a difficult wicket. The fact is that, as usually happens, the team that batted second had the best batting conditions but that team spudded it up when it needed to make at least 350 to be in the game.