New Zealand v West Indies, 3rd Test, Hamilton, 19-23 December, 2013

Damn straight. I can only recall two innings where I was genuinely scared of Shiv. One was when he made a rare fast hundred (105 in 154 balls, which is lightning for Shiv) that helped set up that ridiculous Martin Love-assisted winning chase of 418 at St Johns in 2003. The other was at the SCG when Warnie turned one square to bowl Shiv just before Lunch as he was going well, trying to help the Windies chase another big 4th innings target.

It's a free country, so Ponts can have Shiv in his XI, & I'll take Pup in mine. Bit like Pinkos v Libs, really.  

Paul Keating wrote:Sorry who believes that Clarke is better than Chanders?

Seriously what aspect is Clarke better than Chanders in?

You could only claim scoring rate if Chanders was not capable of moving up a gear or two. He has displayed over 20 years that he can score as quickly as anyone when required. But because of his team's predicament he is forced to sit and block.

I am never quite able to get this "for the sake of the team" argument. Sure, a batsman can make some minor adjustments a few times here and there, or sometimes during the phase of an innings. But for the most part batting is an instinctive thing. Any batsman over the course of his career can only play his natural game and no one else's. Dravid for example had a batting power house around him, and he still did what he did. Because that is what came to him naturally. Just my two cents...

By the way, is Chanders the oldest cricketer these days, now that Sachin has finally had mercy on cricket fans.....

skully wrote:Damn straight. I can only recall two innings where I was genuinely scared of Shiv. One was when he made a rare fast hundred (105 in 154 balls, which is lightning for Shiv) that helped set up that ridiculous Martin Love-assisted winning chase of 418 at St Johns in 2003. The other was at the SCG when Warnie turned one square to bowl Shiv just before Lunch as he was going well, trying to help the Windies chase another big 4th innings target.

It's a free country, so Ponts can have Shiv in his XI, & I'll take Pup in mine. Bit like Pinkos v Libs, really.  

You don't remember Chanders scoring a 69 ball test century against Australia?

poor Skully...I blame the further degeneration of the initial affliction prompted by his vote for the Mad Monk

Paul Keating wrote:

skully wrote:Damn straight. I can only recall two innings where I was genuinely scared of Shiv. One was when he made a rare fast hundred (105 in 154 balls, which is lightning for Shiv) that helped set up that ridiculous Martin Love-assisted winning chase of 418 at St Johns in 2003. The other was at the SCG when Warnie turned one square to bowl Shiv just before Lunch as he was going well, trying to help the Windies chase another big 4th innings target.

It's a free country, so Ponts can have Shiv in his XI, & I'll take Pup in mine. Bit like Pinkos v Libs, really.  

You don't remember Chanders scoring a 69 ball test century against Australia?

Apparently* not.   

Meanwhile, Ross Taylor is dining out on the Ganja bowling again.

Anthony_Gonzales wrote:By the way, is Chanders the oldest cricketer these days, now that Sachin has finally had mercy on cricket fans.....

Between him, Fat Jack and Miserable Hack I think...

Ross Taylor tormenting the Ganjas.

Woofed him.

But then Southee goes apeshit-ballistic airborne.

A small lead to the Windies. Well done them, and well done Narine on his 6-fer.

And just like that, the Snoozies crash through the Windies and have them 3-15. FFS.   

This Windies team looks terrible on paper.

Windies 7/103

Sammy trying to score a half century with only boundaries. So far he has 24, made up of 6 fours.

............. and then he gets out next ball.

God awful effort. Way to devastate your supporters, WI. Playing like they can't wait to get back to Jamaica mon, for several rum and cokes.   

Red wrote:This Windies team looks terrible on paper.

and plays terrible on grass.

Bad old shit, this. Hard to believe they competed in the first Test

A few early wickets tomorrow and this could still be on. Get past Williamson and Taylor and there's not a lot of batting left.

Oh, if only England had Chanders in their line-up this series. Would take a crabby hundred any day of the week.

Gary 111 wrote:A few early wickets tomorrow and this could still be on. Get past Williamson and Taylor and there's not a lot of batting left.

Oh, if only England had Chanders in their line-up this series. Would take a crabby hundred any day of the week.

We've got a crabby little batsman at Notts who might fit the bill... not saying he's close to Shiv's class but another example of how stats outweight style.

beamer wrote:

Gary 111 wrote:A few early wickets tomorrow and this could still be on. Get past Williamson and Taylor and there's not a lot of batting left.

Oh, if only England had Chanders in their line-up this series. Would take a crabby hundred any day of the week.

We've got a crabby little batsman at Notts who might fit the bill... not saying he's close to Shiv's class but another example of how stats outweight style.

Yeah, and I've been advocating Chris Read for as long as anyone, but for some reason those fools at England HQ just won't pick him.

Brass Monkey wrote:Bad old shit, this. Hard to believe they competed in the first Test

Well, in the second innings, but New Zealand were by far the better in that match too, and might have been a different story if not for the weather.

This squad just isn't good enough tbh. The cloud came over in the last session, the ball swung and we were totally clueless.

In fairness this side is missing Chris Gayle, Darren Bravo, Ravi Rampaul and Kemar Roach. If you took their equivalents out of the opposition side New Zealand would be just as bad IMHO. What this shows is that we have a complete lack of depth, particularly in the batting.

The pace bowling lineup selected for this tour is a joke and at least 3 of our FC attacks are considerably better. The selectors should be sacked as should Otis Gibson. His philosophy of publicly chastising and driving out the senior players has clearly failed. He is a terrible man manager. How we could have done with a test class batsman like Ramnaresh Sarwan in this test.

Sarwan?

Overrated hack. His continued selection over the years was indicative of the selection culture that rewarded mediocrity.

It's sad and pathetic that this West Indies team seems to be able to go out of its way to lose cricket matches. This is surely Darren Sammy's last game as captain. None of the Windies players (barring maybe Shiv) have any feel for the game, or a sense of when things are tight and might require some knuckling down. Everyone can see the impending car crash except for them. I feel truly sorry for their supporters.

How depressingly tame.

Channeling England. Maybe worse in a way for the supporters, because the first innings had flattered, only to deceive.

Although debacles are pretty incommensurable.