Crucket

I feel I was far too pessimistic in my last post so I’m going to look on the bright side as the kick off for the 2nd test approaches.

Losing Shane Bond was a big blow, no doubt, but the bowling attack that we’ll take into the Basin test, Martin, O’Brien, Tuffey and Vettori most likely,  is still strong. The strongest in the country excepting Bond. There shouldn’t be much doubt they can take 20 wickets, particularly at the Basin. So if they get 700 runs or so out of the batsmen across the match, we’ll be in with a good chance.

I heard that Shane Bond is out of the rest of the Pakistan series by Twitter. I wasn’t expecting to ever read anything worthwhile there, so the news hit me like a shock.

To avoid major disappointment, I have tried quite hard to suppress any feelings of hope for the future of NZ cricket. For example, I have convinced myself that Jesse Ryder’s attitude will end up foreshortening his career. However, I had allowed myself to believe that we’d get to see Shane Bond play through at least this home summer, despite Shane’s terrible injury record. Blinded by optimism I guess.

So after musing very briefly in my previous post that we are too reliant on Shane Bond, we are now going to be hit by the reality of that. Apparently Tuffey and Southee will be coming into the team, which shows the measure of Shane Bond, having to be replaced by two bowlers. The return of these two players to the team is happy news in its own way, but in an effort to quash hope I have to note that I can’t see Daryl Tuffey stretching much beyond his record of an average of 30-odd and SR of 60-odd, nor do I see Tim Southee improving to a level much beyond that of Tuffey or Chris Martin.