NZ vs England Test Series

[thetitan]

well, at the start of this match I advised getting england on 'draw no bet'...and gradually i've been shifting more towards the draw, to the point where i decided to offload my seemingly useless england green @ 40's!

just watching the highlights now, I expected england to be less than 2/1 for this, and that i'd have some trouble reducing my small red on england!

People are talking about run rates, I think that England were painfully slow in their first innings but they're definitely capable of upping the tempo with the likes of KP at the crease. I remember England chasing a couple of 250+ scores on the final day in the last home series against NZ and I can't see them having too much difficulty in chasing anything less than 3.5 an over.

Chasing day 5 totals is never easy, except in certain circumstances - this is one of those rare opportunities to back a team chasing a high-ish score on day 5.

Personally, I feel that this market is all wrong, at the very least, NZ are a stonking Lay - only chance they have of winning this is if they replicate what England did on day 4, which for me is extremely unlikely. It may still happen, but NZ are very poor value, and surely a free Lay to start off with - their aim in the morning will be to bat out the first hour or so, which would see them drift or stay the same price. Chris Martin at no 11 won't last more than a few balls so one wicket will definitely lead to two.

my recommendation is to top up on england draw no bet eg bet £20 on the draw at 1.5, use that £10 on england @ 9.8.

good luck, should be a good match
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Corner vulture

Jimmy Bullard for England Captain. Seriously.

[thetitan]

if you're an england fan, dont watch the highlights.

currently watching one of the most pathetic capitulations of our time from england, 88/9 on this pitch is physically impossible IMO, and my village side could put up a better fight than this. One of the most pleasant day 5 pitches I've ever seen.

Frankly, this is an embarrassing performance and I'm ashamed of my series win bet!

Right now, England are playing like the Newcastle of cricket - decent players but awful performances.
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Corner vulture

Jimmy Bullard for England Captain. Seriously.

[fairfranco]

totally with titan on this, I didn't watch and was out on the town tonight but with a lot of money tied up in this game i was keeping an eye on the scores on my phone through out the night.

I was not particulally to see England drop an early wicket, this was something I ddn't mind as I thought it would ensure they would take it easy rather than pushing for runs.

Then I look again, 3 wickets down, then 4 wickets down all for 31 runs.

Absaloute humiliation. I remember saying to Titan that if either side lost from the position they were in early day 4 then they would be serverely humiliated. obviously sidebottom and Panesar's wickets opened things up to a result a bit but it was still a good call for a draw and to see them fall apart so badly was rediculous!

to not even make it to tea having not even started batting till an hour into the morning is horendous!

As titan said, a village side could probably have done better, no one needed to score runs, defend the shots in front of the wicket, leave things going by the side and take the occasional loose ball to pick up a run and change strike. I'm not saying that's easy but you've got to expect all of the top 5/6 to last 20 overs each in that situation.

what did i learn. next time you see a nice profitable trade out in the situation the game was in yesterday, get out!

[princecap]

I had a gut feeling that NZ were gonna win that (after Day 4), but couldn;t really back that. I laid the draw @ 1.49 since I knew that on the 5th day pitch, thats one outcome we won't see. I had a feeling that England would go for it, but it didn't matter. All NZ bowlers delivered and they won comfortably.

Good luck to England for the next one, God knows they would need it after this one.

[bhatiamadhav]

It was rightly pridictable by me before the start of this match that NZ has a chance and these 5 days have proved me to be right.

[fairfranco]

maybe you should have made your prediction more clear!

"Even Though for NZ it is home ground, but England has always performed well in Australia & NZ because of similiar conditions & a rivalry going on since decades.

But now England seems to be ..."

that sound a bit open to me!!!

[findfreelay]

Well done mate and u r also on top of the list.
2nd Test imo only one result is not possible and that is Draw.
Both teams are capable of batting collapse sooner or later.

[bigmoose]

Before i went for a break in sunny Spain i was quite pleased to get myself on Eng series win at Evens!

I managed to see some of the live stuff and all the Sky highlights progs out there. That really was the most shambolic Eng i've seen for many a year, and i never usually say things like that because usually i can find a positive. Even when Aussies did us at Adelaide(?) last year & WIndies got us years ago for 56 all out, these were more ineptidude for 1 or 2 sessions. This time it was all 5 days - from very first ball we looked like a team trying to avoid defeat to the Worlds Best X1 ever with not a thought of winning it. Zim away when Lloydy said "We murdered 'em" and home to NZ in 2000(?) were the only memories i can think that came close to that.

Anyway, 2nd Test - 16 of previous 19 Wellington Tests have ended in a result. Bouncier quicker wicket. An in-form Harmy would clean-up. Even an off-form Harmy of old bowling at 90mph but spraying it everywhere would prob still get a hatful of wkts against one of the worst NZ batting line-ups for quite a while. But no bowler can find 10mph in 3 days can they? (I'm all for the new medium pace Harmy going home right now). Venue for 3rd test (Napier) has only ever staged 5 Test matches & 4 have been draws so series should be settled by the result of 2nd Test. The team that wins the toss wins much more often than loses here.

To me logic still says Eng are more likely victors of 2nd Test. Oram & Fleming are the only 2 NZ batsmen averaging over 35! And IMO Fleming, Vetorri, McCullum, Martin & Oram the only NZ players even worthy of any Test caps. 2.80 the Eng win. Don't think i can bet more money on Eng tho.

(Any truth in the paper report that the best bit of sledging was not by any of the players - Ross Taylor was walking to the crease 1st innings when the PA announcer said "Next batsman in Ross Taylor, whose highest Test score is only 17")
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Steve

[thetitan]

NZ win toss and bowl, looks a tough pitch to call although seems to favour the seamers a bit more.

England off to a decent starts, 38/0 after 14 overs

I think Mike Atherton once said 'in test cricket, when you win the toss, 9 times out of 10, you bat...the other time, you bat'.
_________________
Corner vulture

Jimmy Bullard for England Captain. Seriously.

[Dammo Qwirky]

As a captain uve always got potential to look stooooopid putting someone in. That said NZ havent batted yet, pitch should be best 2moro. Hopefully NZ wont get a look til day 3 cos I took a chance early and bought runs!

Looked like England were gonna trailblaze (comparatively speaking for them) but theyve slowed down a bit.
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[bigmoose]

Interesting stat. 9 results at Wellington in prev 12 matches. Of those 6 wins went to the team that won the toss.

But saying that i can't find out how many times the toss winners chose to BOWL. What were NZ thinking of! Is it their turn to bottle it and go negative from ball 1?

I did have a pre-match little nibble on Eng. If only we could bowl well. I do see this as a NZ out for less than 200 wicket....... erm, but isn't that every wicket in the world mind!
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Steve

[thetitan]

good first session from england, looks a very decent batting pitch after some initial swing, would expect decent first innings scores from both sides.

draw should trade lower in this match, have kept a back of 3.0 on the draw and a Lay of 1.9.
_________________
Corner vulture

Jimmy Bullard for England Captain. Seriously.