Where are the best New Zealand players?

 

There's been a couple of Twenty20s going on in the States in the last 48 hours as West Indies took on New Zealand.   Not everyone was bothered - Michael Holding was asked if he'd watched his country playing cricket yesterday replied "Is that cricket?" reiterating his distaste for the shortest form of the game.

Surely though someone in New Zealand was bothered, or otherwise what's the point of agreeing to play the match?   The World Twenty20 is less than three months away and presumably all Twenty20 matches between now and then are practice for that tournament.   So why New Zealand are playing without Brendon McCullum, Daniel Vettori (who has said he'll be coming out of retirement for the World Twenty20) and James Franklin is a question I can't answer.

The two huge losses suffered by New Zealand won't have helped them - perhaps they might play their proper side next time?

New Zealand's batting

I've got to say that watching the New Zealand v Pakistan Test, Tim McIntosh looked all at sea as New Zealand's opener. He has had some success, with two Test hundreds, but he makes Marcus North look like a confident starter. Gut feel having not watched much of him, is that he's going to struggle to be successful (i.e. average over 40) in Test cricket. But I'm equally concerned about the proposed change if he is dropped to bring in James Franklin in the middle order. Franklin is a Test match number 8 - he has talent but a Test average of 21 from 36 innings just isn't good enough to automatically bat above Vettori who averages 30 despite a recent run of poor form. Wherever he bats, is he really the answer to strengthening the batting line up?

New Zealand's batting looks to have a few holes in it, and until John Wright can find a way of patching them up, they will be prone to collapses and occasional quick losses.

Franklin back where he belongs

Looking at the New Zealand scorecard from today, it looks like they've realised he shouldn't be batting ahead of the likes of Vettori and Oram. It's taken a while but maybe the penny has dropped.

Franklin at least 2 positions too high for NZ

We've burbled about New Zealand's batting order many times because to outside observers it seems so absurd that Vettori should bat at 8. And I'm afraid it's even more absurd that James Franklin should bat at 6. Why is it everyone other than the New Zealand coach and skipper who can see that, if they want Taylor and Ryder to bat 4 and 5, then the following players should be McCullum, Vettori and then Franklin, in that order?

James Franklin has some talent with the bat, no doubt - he has a test hundred to his name and Andy Moles clearly has high hopes of turning him into an all-rounder. But a Test average of 20 and a first-class average of 31.5 mean that shoving him at number six in international cricket is asking for trouble. Franklin is not out overnight against India with NZ needing to bat out the last day, and even if he scores a match-saving hundred, he still shouldn't bat above 8 I'm afraid.