Eventually, the continuing loss of these players has to hurt no matter how good your ‘system’. Melbourne are not the club they were, some of the players they have let go is mind boggling – yep, like Penrith their system is great so that are continually in the semi-finals, but their side does not induce the fear it once did and it’s been a while since they won a premiership. And maybe, to argue against myself, just maybe that is why the NRL is so good, in that you can no longer build a 10 year dynasty like a Souths or St George once did.

I think AFB is slightly bigger physically than JFH, but JFH is simply a harder ball runner, more ferocious and just goes all game. I think AFB “could” be one of the greatest props ever, but like a lot of naturally gifted players, he gives the appearance to me that he is sometimes holding back. I mean, maybe that is wise as NRL has to be one of the most brutal team sports in the world, and you career can be very short lived if you get injured – anyway, just an observation. Still a big loss to the Warriors losing AFB after this season, but JFH is a magnificent replacement.

Robbo, thank you, thank you, thank you. I too am sick of silly English. Not just this “would of” business, but also “loose a player” – no, you LOSE a player. Loose is that bad knot you tied.

If you stopped having lead runner plays, with modern defences so good, the game will come to a grinding halt.

@NQR You are so right. The article is good but makes it much harder sounding that it is. Even the Panthers and their supporters knew the JWH one was not an obstruction. All the TV commentators knew it and said it, all the fans and would-be commentators on The Roar were in agreement – there was just one guy, one solitary guy in the whole of Australia that deemed JWH did obstruct despite doing everything right as far as the law book goes — so the problem lies with that guy in the bunker. Sack him – simple as that. If you are incompetent enough that you are making egregious errors like that, then you do not deserve your position of which you are getting paid.

What about the Manu “no try” last night Mary? JWH penalised but did not stop running – he would have kept running to Bondi Beach but the Penrith fullback deadset ran into him, miles from the action, and a great individual try from the Kiwi lad was taken away. I was watching the Fox stream, but if Gus was commendation last night on CH9, he would have RIGHTLY been blowing a gasket.

Poms are an embarrassment, yet if it wasn’t for a day of rain they would have beaten us 3-2

@Blink “If we lose, its the end of the season anyway.”

That sounds a lot like Stuart Broad saying that one of the Ashes series they lost ‘didn’t count” – which he was rightly widely ridiculed for.

Kind of a silly comment mate.

I disagree with those previous comments making light of Australia’s batting. It was rubbish and Phillips outsmarted them, and good on him.

With 2 & 3/4 days play left, to not make at least 250+ to put the kiwis 100% away with a target of 450+, and still heaps of time to bowl them out…it is playing with fire. Australia will almost certainly win today, but there is still a door open to the Kiwis, sure a very small crack in the door, but it is there and it never should have been.

Btw, the unnamed report here is by AP. Seen it on other online news outlets.

wrong thread

Im torn on yesterday’s play. This is a good score from where they were, with a chance in the morning to add 30 or 40 more if things go well (or not many if they get Green off strike), but it’s a good score only if Kiwis don’t get much more than 200. It’s like we just expect them to roll over…. I guess the old dictum – “we will find out how good a pitch or not it is, once both sides have had a chance to bat on it” – is to the fore here.

The tall Kiwi kid playing his 2nd test I believe….looks like he has got a bit of a bowling future about him.

You forget about the 2000/01 summer in Australia, when the series was drawn, Hadlee and Crowe long retired, and arguably facing the Greatest Australian Team of all time under Steve Waugh’s captaincy. I remember that series – pretty sure Bond came in from the 2nd Test onwards, though didn’t have an impact until later in the summer during the one day tri series when they were too good for Australia and knocked them out, and faced an equally too good Sth Africa in the finals series. Though, Australia did win the Test series easily against Sth Africa.
Anyway, my point on the test series of that Summer against NZ, is that the Kiwis came within a whisker of winning in both Brisbane, and especially Perth.
Aussies were on track to win in Hobart until rain struck. That could easily have been a 2-1 series win to NZ, and Australia got out of jail in my opinion.
However, there has been a mental block since the 2011 I would agree – not sure why, the Aussies have had some good, bad, and awful teams in test cricket, especially struggled away. Now, Aussies have a great bowling attack – really really great – but a pretty ordinary batting line up in my opinion.
Bookies have Aussies as fairly hot favourites – which is justified in my opinion only because of the mental block situation.

This series is all about NZ for me. We all know about the Aussies fantastic bowling attack and how it has been covering, barring one or two exceptions, with a pretty brittle batting order. It’s been good enough cover to win the WTC and draw the Ashes, but was smashed into little pieces when the so called ‘Weak Indies’ were too good for them in the final test at home.

So as I say this series is about what can NZ bring to the table. Can they raise the spirit of Hobart, where they appeared to have no worries or any ‘psych out’ situation facing the Aussies over ten years ago.

Since that time, NZ, despite building up a team good enough to wipe the floor with all teams EXCEPT AUSTRALIA on their way to the inaugural World Test Championship. There is definitely a psychological block in playing the big bruvva across the ditch. Will they be able to smash that block, and provide the Aussies with their sternest test of the summer?

We will find out

In a shock announcement Kolil has decided to take the T20 money on offer in the South Africa T20 League so will not play any more of the current 5 Test Series against England… imagine that ha ha. Jokes of course 😁

“take out the two century scorers”
That is a bit of a weird comment.
Go through the history of cricket and take out the century scorers in each innings, and I guess there wouldn’t be much else.
You are also not taking into account the different mindset when you come in at 4-400 as opposed to 4-40.

Pity this isn’t a four test series.

Well, Bush, can’t agree. NZ declared with lots and lots of time remaining, certainly enough time to bowl this SA side out – but they declared with 6 wickets left. They could easily have racked up a 650 or 700 run lead, and still bowled the SA out with a session or two remaining on the last day.
So, entitled to your opinion, but this is an almighty thrashing.

The answer to all this is pretty dang simple.
Yes, India, you do create most of the worlds cricket revenue, but you do with massive help from the rest of the cricket world. While it is obvious that without an opposition, you are not going to play yourself at international level, and your IPL league would be much less palatable to the big financial corporates if it did not have international star crickets playing in it.

So, the world does need India, but India needs the world too.
So, India (and to a lesser extent Australia and England) you need to have the current financial system changed for the good of the game – otherwise, at some stage, even Australia and England are going to struggle as their up and coming players take the T20 money.

The money MUST be distributed much more evenly, so that the likes of Windies, Pakistan, NZ and Sth Africa can host Test match series and not be crippled financially because of it.
Oh, and ICC, set up a world calendar so blinking test cricket has a window where it doesn’t clash with T20… get some backbone ICC.

It is pretty dang simple isn’t it.

@Tufanoo, the stats (via CricInfo) do not align with your statement. Williamson has night and day better away stats in Test cricket than Warner.
Here are the facts:

Warner avg at home: 57.85
Warner avg away: 31.59

Williamson avg at home: 68.09
Williamson avg away: 42.18

While Williamson home average is Bradman like, a 42 average away from home is a damn fine record, and an average a lot of batsmen can’t get close to in their overall career stats, let alone just away stats. Away, he averages TEN runs more per innings away than Warner.
Overall, Williamson stats say he is as superior batsmen (yes I know stats are not everything and Warner being a more attacking batsman is a fair argument), and coming in early often at no.3 , you can’t make the excuse much either that opening is a tougher job than a middle order player.

“New Zealand’s attack featuring the likes of Neil Wagner, Kyle Jamieson, Tim Southee and Mitchell Santner are not world-beaters but they should not be under-estimated, particularly in home conditions.”

Kyle Jamieson:
18 Test matches, 74 wickets at a miserly average of 20.08. That is world class in any era.

Neil Wagner:
63 Test matches, 258 wickets at an average of 27.50. That is a damn fine record.

TIm Southee:
96 Test matches 374 wickets at an average of 28.94. That is an another damn fine record of a long period of time.

That record of their attack is world beating, and your comments I find a little bit dismissive to say otherwise. After all, this attack beat one of the worlds best batting line ups (India) to become the inaugural world test champions.

Where they will struggle is that Jamieson is coming back from injury, and Wagner and Southee are the wrong side of 30 years of age, Trent Boult has unfortunately taken the T20 lollipop money, and Santner has not yet delivered in Test cricket.

Still, their main pace bowling attack does have a “world beating’ record – and where you are correct is that they are definitely not to be underestimated.

Rant ahead:
What a breath of fresh air from that artificial krapiola of a game called T20 with it’s boundaries moved right in, it’s flat of flattest wickets produced, it’s free license to batsman for a short period to play ridiculous shots because they only have to do it for 20 overs max – it is contrived BS.
Test cricket is called “Test” cricket for a reason, as it “tests” all your skills, and today with a guy bowling fast, accurate and on a wicket doing just enough – he and his team mates were just too good. Try and get that test of all round skills in that “other” game that lasts three hours, and that everyone then forgets about.
Now, what of the ridiculous funding model, introduced by shortsighted greedy conmen of the ICC some twenty years ago, which means that India get the lions share of world cricket profits, Australia and England the. rest, and the West Indies, NZ, Pakistan, and Sth Africa get scraps…. absolutely ridiculous financial model which MUST END.
Test Cricket is dead is it? LONG LIVE TEST CRICKET – the King of all sports.
Rant over.

Good article, well researched.

Very very very hard to make a name for yourself without first being exposed as a quality international player. The SA20 ? No one cares.

There is a wider issue here that also needs to be looked at — that is that T20s’ “popularity” is way overstated. At the moment, keen to tap into new world markets, Broadcasting Corporations are shelling out silly money to make a Wall Street Hedge Funder in the time of the ENRON scandal look like Schoolboys.
It won’t last. Once it is realised that advertisers have been duped – the money currently flowing into T20 will end and end quickly.

This will take longer to come to a halt in India, but look to Australia for a taste of what is to come….the BBL is down on crowds, down on revenue percentage, down down down down – it is not a sustainable format for a sport on it’s own.

It can live along the longer formats – if it doesn’t, if the ICC allow the long format to all but disappear -then I am here to tell you Cricket will disappear too if T20 is the only format played. I know that is hard to grasp now, but much like how unregulated Capitalism caused the GFC in 2008, so will T20 eat itself alive – but unlike finance , the World does not need Cricket to keep functioning – it is not big enough that it cannot be left to fail, wither, and die.

Huh? NZ has regular beaten India in NZ home test series in the last decade…in fact it must have been a good 15-20 years plus since India have been good enough to beat the Kiwis in their home conditions, and in the recent Sth Africa home series, it was a 1-1 result.
And of course, I almost forgot that NZ did the job on India in neutral territory in the inaugural WTC.
And lets look at the Poms – apart from one notable tour in the last twenty years, the Poms have been routinely smashed in Australia – in fact, more than smashed, made to look like a tier 3 test nation.

Black Caps vs Australia: First 4 days of Basin Reserve test sold out:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/350157191/black-caps-vs-australia-first-4-days-basin-reserve-test-sold-out

When you consider that this match is set to start end of Feb and finish early March, which is starting to become the Rugby season start in NZ, this is pretty heartening to see.
Imagine if they actually played during tests over in NZ during the Christmas Holiday season? They just played a five match T20 series against Pakistan, and nobody cares…they could have played two or three tests against the Pakis, who proved they are a decent test side, who if they caught properly could have embarrassed Australia in a couple tests in the recent series.