Balance - It is the one constant whenever Jacob Oram’s worth in the New Zealand test side was questioned.

Over the past couple of seasons in particular, when injuries and a seemingly terminal loss of form combined to reduce Oram to passenger status, Daniel Vettori was quick to point to the “balance” the big left-hander brought to the team.

At his best, he was the ultimate two-for-the-price-of-one cricketer, the rightful heir to the throne vacated by Chris Cairns, capable of scoring test centuries against the best attacks in the world, while troubling good batsmen with his height and ability to hit the seam.

At his least effective, he was still a threat in the middle order and an economical stock bowler who could keep opposition line-ups in check.

While there are myriad options to replacing Oram, there are five that would seem more attractive than most.

OPTION 1 Select James Franklin as a like-for-like straight swap.

Pros: He wants the job, telling his local paper: “I’m hoping [the selectors] think I’m the guy for that. I think I can do a job there for New Zealand. I’ve done it for years for Wellington, batting at No6 and bowling, so it’s nothing different for me.”

At his best, Franklin would offer the sort of balance a fit Jacob Oram provided, with his cultured left-handed batting and left-arm swing variety with the ball. If you watched him in the nets and knew nothing of his test record, who would think that he was a world-class player rather than a fringe selection.

Cons: “At his best” is the operative statement. Hands up - outside those who regularly attend Wellington’s first-class fixtures - anybody who has actually seen Franklin at his best? Over the past three seasons he has batted like a lion in first-class cricket, but looks as timid Read more…

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Australia deserved to win today, but it would have been slightly more palatable to have seen the man who looks like Carson Kressley get out for 99, rather than win the game with a big six off Jeetan Patel.

New Zealand was far from disgraced, and both Mills and Bond were fantastic in the early overs of the Australian innings.

Their joint effort gave New Zealand a glimpse of what would have been an extraordinary win with a paltry 200 on the board, but the initiative was wrestled back in Australia’s favour by a very patient, deliberate and at times painstaking partnership from Watson and White.

I thought there were five crucial moments in the match, as set out below. The italics indicates text from the online cricket utopia of Cricinfo. Do you agree?

Breaking news - Daniel Vettori has pulled a hamstring and will not play. He is being replaced by Jeetan Patel. Brendon McCullum will captain New Zealand.

While Australia named an unchanged line-up, New Zealand was deprived of its captain, best bowler, and a very pesky number six batsman. Vettori is a huge presence in the New Zealand team and without him in the XI our batting looked very brittle indeed.

Hauritz to Guptill, OUT, caught and bowled, straightforward delivery that, bowled full and flat outside off, Guptill pushed at it firmly and scooped an easy catch back to the bowler.

Guptill has started to make a habit of not only losing his wicket, but wrapping it up in a big box, tying a big pink ribbon around it and handing it over to the bowler well in advance of Christmas morning. This time he had been in for almost 90 minutes, had taken his time to get set, thumped away bad balls to the fence, and was starting to look very comfortable. Then he gently taps his 64th ball faced back to Nathan Hauritz while Ian Chappell raves on about the inevitability of that happening to batsmen who are averse to staying inside their crease. Slightly ironic given the nature (and folly) of Redmond’s dismissal a matter of minutes earlier. After a grinding Read more…

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If I could place my order for anything in the second test against Sri Lanka starting today, it would be preceded by an entree of 5-wicket bags, but the main course would have to be a smorgasbord of batting partnerships and high scores.

I’m not thoroughly obsessed with winning but if New Zealand can consistently score 450-plus that should stop us losing matches, even if the Ws do not begin to belch forth in the result column.

In the past 12 months of Test cricket, the record of Kiwi batting partnerships is dire. Only eight times have our pairings made it past 100 and then only one passed the 200-run threshold (Taylor & Ryder’s 271 in 60 overs vs India at Napier).

It is Big Ol’ Jesse Ryder who stands out as our player most likely to feature in a decent partnership - of the eight returning a century or more, he features in five of them: Taylor, Vettori, McIntosh, McCullum and Franklin are there twice, and Daniel Flynn put on 118 with Timmy Mac against the West Indies at the Fruit Bowl.

Another indictment on the top order is that the bulk of our best partnerships are clustered around the 4th, 5th and, disappointingly, the 7th wicket. None of the top six collaborations have been from “the top” of the batting order with our best opening partnership a paltry 55 (the two discards How and Redmond vs Bangladesh at Chittagong), for the 2nd wicket the Flynn-McIntosh effort above was the best, while the highest for the third wicket is an even more Read more…

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