I really wish more commentators would call the Kiwi’s pathetic leg theory bowling for what it is - a boring and completely negative tactic designed to bore the batsman into making a mistake. We saw Steve Smith face 20 odd balls from Wagner at the start of his innings and he wasn’t really at any risk of getting out unless he tried to score.
Bowling short outside the leg-stump with a fine leg, leg gully, short leg (one step in front of square), deep square leg (again, one step in front of square) and mid-wicket is just appalling cricket. Wouldn’t be adverse to umpires calling every short ball a wide if it pitches (and remains) outside leg stump.
It’s all they’ve got ????
In fairness, for this Test, yes possibly. Losing the toss here was a bit of a bitch when they dropped Southee and picked two spinners.
However, in Melbourne the pitch was moving around a lot. Yes, Wagner got Smith etc out in the end but Australia made 400+ in the process. Meanwhile, Australia’s bowlers pitched everything up and challenged the outside edge (rather than the head) and got the rewards. I reckon that the Kiwis would have bowled Australia out for much less than 400 if they had persisted with decent line and length. Their problem is that leg theory is their plan A, rather than plan D or E.
In other news, what sort of amazing run of form is Marnus having at the moment. Hope that he can continue it in other conditions (i.e. India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan).
New ball, less than 10 overs old, bowling around the wicket to 6 players on the leg side. Great tactics.
He’s something special isn’t he, Smith gets injured so Marnus gets his chance and the rest is history.
I’ve heard it said many times that great batsmen seem to have so much time and make it look easy, he’s got this to the max.
The India ODI series will be very interesting.
All we need is Marnus the opener and Marnus the medium pace swing bowling batting all rounder and we will be sweet
Can we get Joe Burns to go over to Glamorgan? Maynard seems to have worked wonders with tightening up Marnus, and Burns really needs someone to work with him. He will never be a consistent opener with his current technique and propensity to get beaten on both inside and outside edge.
I think it was actually Chris Rogers that sorted Marnus out.
Wasn’t Langer the batting coach before Hick ?
Fairly sure he was , think we were also winning test matches then too
and Matt Maynard from Glamorgan apparently
https://www.cricket.com.au/news/marn...ard/2019-11-11
Ricky Ponting was analysing burns the other day , head was too far over to the off side , bat path not down the line , hope he sees it and corrects it . Bancroft apparently has a technical problem that he hasn’t corrected. Credit goes to Marnus for listening and fixing as well as coach for seeing .
Burns back into the Heat side, Pattinson not. I don't get it.
Bowling four overs is pretty tough, especially after the number of net sessions had.
I'm assuming that Burns comes in for Prestwidge, which puts them back to relying on Cutting and Renshaw to bowl four overs between them. I don't think Burns is needed.
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