blogging it real

Averages for our bowlers from the 05/06 season (somewhat inflated by the series against Zimbabwe!)

Ranked by wickets taken

Franklin: 8 matches, 29 wickets, avg 27.34

Vettori: 9 matches, 23 wickets, avg 29.08

Martin: 8 matches, 23 wickets, avg 30.78

Bond: 4 matches, 21 wickets, avg 15.85

Mills: 3 matches, 14 wickets, avg 18.64

Astle: 9 matches, 10 wickets, avg 26.40

Styris: 8 matches, 4 wickets, avg 35.00

Obviously we need Shane Bond. Other thoughts are that Mills has been unusually good (for someone I used to think of as Caleb Relphesque) and Astle's been handy too.

Someone in the Herald was giving Vettori a bit of stick about his bowling, and he hasn't taken many (only 12 wickets in 7 tests) since the series against Zimbabwe. He's fielded in 12 innings post-Zimbabwe, but has been limited in terms of opportunities:

Did not bowl: 1 innings
5 overs or less: 2 innings
10 overs or less: 3 innings

So that only leaves 6 innings in which you might reasonably expect a spin bowler to get amongst them to any real extent (and in fact he only took 2 wickets in innings where he bowled 10 overs or less).