Prez Vernon Philander - who I'd have taken at #1 most likely. Good work. +2 Jonathan Trott - some people reckon he slid this far because of his recent health problems but I'm not convinced, he hasn't quite been the same batsman since Ashes 2010/11. Probably not too many better batsmen though so still a pretty good pick. +1 Faf du Plessis - was up there with some of the Indian guys in terms of the best batsmen remaining. You can't argue with his current Test average so a good pick. +1 Murali Vijay - his FC average isn't great by Indian standards, but his Test record is pretty decent. Probably better batsmen left but not many of them are openers so a decent pick. 0 Andrew Birch - good pick. I suppose he'll never be better than a good FC bowler, but it's not like good Test bowlers were in massive supply at this stage. +1 Andrew Hall - a pretty good selection on paper, as he has had a fine record as a pure all-rounder for a long time, but I can't help but feel that he would look like a bit of a no-rounder at this level. The sort of player who you can justify to be picked at this point but I doubt will perform. -2 Brendon McCullum - awesome pick, particularly off the back of a brilliant series against India. Very few players at this stage would have a solid Test record and have played lots of it. +3 Parthiv Patel - interesting pick. Very strong FC record lately (although Indian domestic is kinda iffy) and has some Test experience. Don't think there were many better keepers left so I don't mind this pick. 0 Peter Fulton - tough one. At the time, I thought this was a good pick as he offers a pretty solid option with a good FC record in what used to be a pretty bowler-friendly competition, a reasonable Test record and some good form at Tests. However his stocks have plummeted lately and this selection isn't looking that flash in hindsight. I'd still prefer someone with recent international experience over someone with gun stats in some random domestic comp though so for R9 this was a fine pick. +1 Alfonso Thomas - although his batting has slumped significantly in the past couple of years, his bowling has still held up very well. Very good pick IMO. +2 Yasir Shah - interesting one. Before this season I think this pick wouldn't be very good as Pakistani domestic cricket 1. has a lot of teams and 2. is fairly bowler-friendly. However I don't think you can really argue with an average of 16. Still think you could've done better here, but it's not a true shocker. -1 Samit Patel - interesting one. His batting is generally inconsistent and hasn't been brilliant for quite a while, and his bowling is pretty poor. While Patel gives you options I'm not a huge fan of this pick. -1 Chris Martin - was still in pretty solid form by the time he retired. When he was still playing he was the classic sort of support bowler that would've made a sick R4-6 pick, so getting him in R13 despite his inactivity is a pretty good bit of business. +2 Davy Jacobs - very handy depth player, and will fill the 2nd keeper role to a good standard. Good pick. +1 Yaseen Vallie - better pick now than what he would've been a few months back. Still fairly young so could become a very handy player in due course. 0 Corne Dry - very inexperienced thus far, but has shown big signs of potential. I probably would've waited on him personally, but it's not like others refused to take punts on inexperienced players. 0 Michael Papps - coming off a pretty good season, and unlike most New Zealand bats with gun records Papps is an opener. He can also keep too. Really solid choice for R17. +1 Dane Piedt - arguably a better spinner than your first-choice one. Very good R18 selection and one which could easily spend time in your first XI. +1 Overall Pretty solid batting, and most of his bowlers also know which way to hold a bat. Philander is h4x and his support bowlers look pretty solid. Pretty good depth too - unlike most he didn't go for randoms with decent stats in dud competitions. His spinning stocks are potentially a major weakness though. Should make the 8, and probably will dominate in the right conditions, but I suspect he won't be a true contender. Overall Ranking: +12
Speirz Hashim Amla - meh, can't complain. Arguably the best batsman in the game, so for pick #4 it's decent. Probably a couple of players I would've picked before Amla, and at this stage I may have been still thinking "gun bowler", but that's just my opinion. 0 Nathan Lyon - not a particularly awful pick, but there were arguably a couple of better spinners still lying around so probably not the best pick ever either. The good news is that he has an age advantage over most of the top spinners and he's improving every day. 0 Ben Hilfenhaus - a fairly solid early R3 pick. However, his true value can vary. At his best he's clearly a R1 pick, but the worst of Hilfy can see him slide until R4 or something. I can't really think of many better bowlers to pick at this stage, though. +1 Ryan ten Doeschate - first associate picked. Although his record is inflated by the Intercontinental Cup his county record is still good. Probably still a couple of better all-rounders left though and his recent form hasn't been that good so I'm not that big on the pick. -1 Patrick Cummins - raw. Very, very raw - he's not played Shield cricket since his debut 6-fer. On potential could go first round but he's done little at this stage due to injuries. Good retention possibly I guess but it's a huge punt so I don't like the pick. -4 Shaun Marsh - was taken a round after everyone else, so it probably isn't fair to compare him to everyone else in this round. Still however his form since his injury in South Africa a few years back has not been good at all. Not a good pick even for the 7th round at the time, though given you were taking a calculated punt on him performing in South Africa it looks better than it would in isolation. 0 Mark Cosgrove - tough one. A couple of years ago this would've been a fantastic pick for R7, but his recent form hasn't been that good. Although Australian pitches have become significantly more bowler-friendly since then so I still think you did well to pick him up here. +1 Nuwan Kulasekara - interesting pick. The classic sort of support bowler that a lot of people to have around their squad. For most people getting him R8 would've been great, but I dunno if he really suited Speirz's balance. 0 Peter Nevill - have long been a pretty big Nevill fan, so this was a pretty decent pick IMO. +1 Callum Ferguson - value has greatly appreciated lately. Has had two good Shield seasons which make him a pretty decent pick for this stage. +1 Paul Collingwood - a good player to have around R11 in theory, but his recent form has been pretty ordinary. I'd like this pick around R16 or something, but this was too early IMO, probably shouldn't be starting in any CPL side right now. -1 Praveen Kumar - a risk. On paper, Kumar would be a blind robbery for R12, but since his injury he hasn't done much. He should've gone a lot earlier than this though, so I really rated this pick. +2 Dwayne Bravo - perfect round for someone like him. Great pick. +3 Mohammad Kaif - on paper, a good pick. Have always been a pretty big Kaif fan, but he had an absolute mare this season, he last played Tests 8 years ago, and his overall FC record is underwhelming by the standards of Indian cricket. So in practice I'm not convinced. 0 James Tredwell - not a horrible pick, but his last two years have been pretty poor. OK depth player, but not really someone you'd want to play lots of games. -1 Tim Ambrose - pretty good pick, and if I'm being honest he isn't that much worse than Nevill. +1 Robin Uthappa - underwhelming pick, for mine. Ordinary record in a fairly easy competition for batting IMO. -1 Brett Lee - interesting one. If you can get him on the park even for a few games he'd be very handy. Getting a former world-class bowler who still plays some form of cricket in R18 is a nice piece of work. But I'm pretty sure he'll spend 75% of the time out injured. +1 Overall Not really a fan of this side, a few very good picks, but quite a few which were picked too early or probably shouldn't even have been picked at all. The depth has been lauded, but some of them are unconvincing. Can't see them doing much, likely will finish bottom 8. Overall Rating: +3
Cosgrove was a really good pick. He's a genuine opener now and they ended up in really short supply. Should be able to average mid 30s in CPL IMO which is a step up from most of the openers going, especially for when he took him. Marsh was a truly awful pick when he took him on numbers alone, but I think Speirz was kind of punting on exactly what happened - he plays in South Africa and hits runs. South Africa in South Africa is the toughest test for a batsman so any success there counts for heaps; I think it was a calculated punt that paid off rather than him just being lucky.
Do have to say that Praveen Kumar, Dwayne Bravo, Mark Cosgrove, Nathan Lyon and Peter Nevill were Speirz's best picks.
He also snared a pair. Sure the tour improved his abysmal test record, but I'd hesitate to call his tour "a success".
Pretty much bang on regarding Marsh. At the time he'd been named ahead of Hughes in the squad, and I pretty much knew they must've been intending to use him, otherwise they would've avoided picking him given his record. When he got ruled out I became more concerned, but once he came back in I always felt he was going to play.
Athlai Tim Southee - early? Yes. But remember, Athlai picked a side of favourites of which I imagine Southee is one of them. And he definitely deserved to be picked in R1 - he can bat #8, and is averaging low 20's over the last two years. 0 Darren Bravo - pretty good pick for mine. Although maybe Athlai should be worried that he hasn't kicked on as much as he probably should've in his career. Still, there aren't a lot of better bats left. +1 Daniel Vettori - I presume Vettori is a real favourite of Athlai so it's understandable why he went for him. That said his injury record is concerning and I'm not sure if he's the same player he once was - it's quite possible he ends up being a bit of a no-rounder here. -2 Quinton Friend - tough to say. His record is very strong but it is inflated slightly by second division cricket. Probably a few better, younger options than Friend but it's by no means a shocker. 0 Brendan Taylor - well this pick incurred rage from me, which says a bit. He's a good batsman in a weak side, and can also keep wicket, so impartially this is a solid pick. +1 Thilan Samaraweera - he seemed to be in decline by the time he retired, but it wasn't that long ago he seemed to be killing it against South Africa and England. Any bat with a good Test record that still plays FC cricket is a good pick after the first couple of rounds, honestly. +1 Mushfiqur Rahim - still young-ish, and has a pretty good Test record by the standard of wicket-keepers. Good pick. +1 Kirk Edwards - probably not quite the player he looked a couple of years ago, and I think you could've got a proper opener instead of a similar ability. Unconvinced here. -1 Ravi Rampaul - good pick. R9 was much too late for a quick with good international performances to slide to. +1 James Franklin - interesting pick. His batting has been surprisingly good lately. However his bowling is basically part-time now and New Zealand pitches conduct very favourably towards middle-order bats. That said, Athlai's manlove towards Franky is probably only outstripped by his manlove towards Jeets. If anyone else picked him in R10 though it would be a pretty ordinary pick. -2/0 Martin Guptill - ordinary Test record, but his domestic record hasn't been too bad lately, surprisingly. Early, but not as early as one might expect. 0 VVS Laxman - great pick. R12 was far too long for someone as good as Laxy to slide to. +3 Pankaj Singh - very consistent recent record. Ranji is hard to quantify but his long term stats compare very favourably to most bowlers and many Indian fans seem to rate him. Good pick. +1 Luis Reece - ballsy pick. Stats look good so far, but he wasn't talked about much before the back end of last season so it's hard to know whether he just fluked a good run or is genuinely the real deal. This season will say a lot. 0 Chamara Silva - he has Test experience, and a gun recent record. Good sort of depth pick. +1 Jeetan Patel - if he only bowled in New Zealand, he should not have got picked at all. If he only bowled in England he ought to have been picked much earlier than this. I think you did well to pick him up this late, even not taking into account your Jeets love. +1 Fidel Edwards - yeah Edwards can be prone to a stinker of a series and injuries, but anyone who has a half-decent Test record should've been picked a fair while ago. Good pick although it does entail some risk. +1 Devon Smith - outstanding 2012/13, and does have Test experience (although not very good Test experience). Very fine pick but the value of the pick has depreciated recently. +1 Overall: Opening choices seem iffy. But your batting in general has a lot of depth and looks pretty solid. Your later picks were among the best in the draft IMO. I think the side probably lacks another bowler to really compete, but it should still be in the mix for a spot in the Top 8. Overall Rating: +8
Vettori was my worst pick from the strategy side of things IMO. I don't love Vettori. He'll do well in CPL just because of his Test record but I goofed for sure. He makes Franklin a worse pick as well.
You keep saying this but I just don't agree at all. The Vettori pick makes the Franklin pick possible IMO.
At this level he probably can. At the risk of incurring people's wrath he's a less consistent Johnson with the bat IMO. Much, Much less consistent. (Never thought I'd ever say someone was less consistent than Mitch tbh)
