Batting preparation worries Turner

Press, 23 July 1986, Page 68

Batting preparation worries Turner

By

KEVIN HART

NZPA staff correspondent Nottingham The cricket manager, Glenn Turner, is concerned that New Zealand’s batsmen have not had an ideal preparation for the first test against England, to start at Lord’s tomorrow. The leading New Zealand players have all appeared in good touch in scoring half-centuries with regularity in their warm-up county matches. But only two batsmen, Martin Crowe and Evan Gray, have gone on to score centuries. That hears a similarity to the last tour of England in 1983 when in a fairly typical early match against Somerset, New Zealand reached 544 for nine declared without anybody getting to three

figures. In the ensuing four tests, no New Zealander scored a century. On this tour, John Wright and Jeff Crowe have become well established, reaching 40 on five occasions without going on to centuries, while Bruce Edgar . has been guilty of the same failing four times, and Ken Rutherford and Jeremy Coney three times. “We have had lots of flourishing fifties but that is not good preparation for the test,” Turner said. “There has been nobody spending four hours at the crease.” Martin Crowe again proved a masterly flourisher yesterday on the final day of the tourists’ match against Nottinghamshire when he

hit an unbeaten 56 off 38 balls. That left Crowe with a tour first-class batting average of 107 going into the test, and allowed New Zealand to declare its second innings at 165 for two. With New Zealand likely to play Watson and Stirling as seam support for Richard Hadlee at Lord’s, team selection will probably focus upon whether Evan Gray will play as a second spinner to John Bracewell. If Gray were chosen, and his greatly improved batting is in his favour, only five specialist batsmen could play. The opener, Bruce Edgar, probably removed any chance that he might be the one to be dropped by scoring a painstaking unbeaten 48 against Nottinghamshire.