Booney wrote:He would barely be given a pass mark, IMO.
Big test for him and the rest of the team in this period of renewal.
I reckon he's better than a pass mark B+
especially when compared agaisnt the likes of Arthurs and Nielsen eras when the last time NZ were here we drew 1-1.
We are still work in progress.
I got told by a coach in 2004 at the national junior level that we are in for a world of pain as there are no good batsmen coming throiugh. This when we were discussing Australia getting turfed in the group stage at the U19s World Cup in Bangladesh.
Hence why we were picking 35 year olds in the last two years as there are no good batsmen in the country in the age bracket 25-35 apart from Smith and Warner.
Blokes were picked early on potential like Khawaja, Hughes, Warner, Smith and thrust into key batting roles before they were ready. They didn't have the luxury of the likes of Ponting, M Waugh, Lehamn, Langer, Martyn Hayden of a truckload of shield runs before they became permanet members of teh test side (granted some made their debuts early (Ponting and Langer))
Finally the work on Warner, Smith and Khawaja (based on teh last two tests) is finally paying off but they struggled early.
have we got a long way to go still yep but I reckon Lehamn is doing a good job with what he has got to work with.
With the likes of Maddison, Lynn, Doran, Bancroft etc waiting in the wings hopefully we are going to ahve a better batting spine in teh next few years